Zombies: More Recent Dead

These 36 short stories and poems survey the current state of the z-word in this wide-ranging follow-up to 2010's Zombies: The Recent Dead. Despite a bias toward the apocalyptic, Guran's flexible definition of "zombie" yields diverse results, setting the familiar flesh-eating shamblers of Matthew Johnson's "The Afflicted" and Maureen McHugh's "The Naturalist" alongside more folkloric revenants such as the Anglo-Saxon dr%C3%A9ag of Marie Brennan's kenning-laden "What Still Abides" or the clawed matchi wanisid manitou that haunt contemporary Manitoba in Jacques L. Condor's "Those Beneath the Bog." Scientific and science-fictional zombies feature in Carrie Vaughn's "Kitty's Zombie New Year" and Charles Stross's "Bit Rot." Alex Dally MacFarlane's "Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572%E2%80%93571 BCE)" is a standout of historical impersonation. Traditional interpretations pack some of the most powerful punches in Mike Carey's slow-burning "Iphigenia in Aulis," Nicole Kornher-Stace's fiercely protective "Present," and Joy Kennedy-O'Neill's stunning "Aftermath," which imagines a now-cured America uneasily divided between former "Turners" and "Moles." If not all stories deliver the same provocative shock, the grab-bag of genres ensures there's something for every zombie fan. (Oct.)