'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' – Bryan Smith (Grindhouse Press)



I may be 'forty and quite a bit' now but deep down, I'm still a little kid who will absolutely jump at the chance to include a few swear words in whatever I'm writing. I mean, we all would... Wouldn't you?
Bryan Smith clearly doesn't need an excuse but that's not the only reason I'm posting about 'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse'. Smith's brand of horror (I'm looking at you in particular 'Depraved Trilogy'...) got me through some tough times, a few years ago, and I've kept an eye open for his books ever since. I loved 'Slowly We Rot' so when a random trawl through Amazon turned up 'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse', it didn't take me long to buy a copy and get reading.
'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' is an entirely different beast to 'Slowly We Rot' but is just as easy to get into and keep reading. That ending though... I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning.

Phil went on an epic bender last night after breaking up with Crazy Sue. And now he's waking up with the mother of all hangovers. But that's the good news. Crazy Sue has called and left a message. She has Phil's hamster, George the Magnificent, and she's threatening to squash George if Phil doesn't come back to her. She gives him an hour to make his way back across town to her place. Still in a drunken daze, Phil bolts from his bed and heads outside, at which point he runs headfirst into yet another complication--the fucking zombie apocalypse has started.

But Phil loves his rodent buddy and he means to get to Crazy Sue's place--whatever it takes.

'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' is five hundred pages of swearing, zombie carnage, girlfriend issues, mother issues and the worst hangover ever; all crammed into one hundred pages. It's also, without a doubt, what 'Shaun of the Dead' would have looked like if Shaun had somehow managed to leave Ed at Liz'. That is a lot for any zombie novel to live up to but 'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' manages it without even breaking sweat, just a steady stream of profanity and constant episodes of zombies attacks. There's very little to the plot but 'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' doesn't care, it neatly sidesteps this issue by not giving you time to wonder about things like plot. It just gets going and you're left to catch up as best you can, all the while being assaulted by Bryan Smith's full on approach to horror. It's all dialled up to eleven and is probably the most 'metal' zombie book that I've ever read (and I've read a few).

A little curveball, halfway through, gives Smith the chance to do it all again (just in a different setting) but there are enough questions raised that you're too busy thinking about those (and jumping at all the right moments) to worry about whether you're reading the same story all over again.
The ending though... It was a little too open ended for me and left a few questions unanswered. I guess that's the way zombie apocalypse's can go sometimes but I'm still wondering whether I missed something... I guess I'll just have to read it again. I'm also wondering if this means that we'll see Phil in any future books by Bryan Smith, I'd be cool with that as Phil was great to hang out with for a bit, foul mouthed as hell but the most honest drunk you'll ever meet and that's exactly what I like in a narrator (the honesty more than the drunkeness although the drunkeness is cool too).


'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' suffers from a slightly off key ending but if that means we're getting a sequel ('Another Fucking Zombie Apocalypse'?) then I'll quite happily forgive it that. If you like zombie fiction and you really want something that will sear your eyeballs with just how manic, and downright gory, a zombie apocalypse can be... 'The Fucking Zombie Apocalypse' is your book. Give it a read, now.

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