One of the major disadvantages of living in Australia - aside from the apocalyptic weather and deadly wildlife - is the fact that relatively little of the great wealth of zomfic published overseas gets picked up by local distributors; or, if it does, it arrives here months (or even years) after its UK or US release. A bit like the First Fleet, in that respect. For every local release of a major title like
Feed,
Patient Zero or
Dead City, there's a dozen equally-laudable titles, like
Pontypool Changes Everything or
Eden, that simply aren't made available to Aussie readers who still prefer the experience of visiting a physical bookstore
*. And that just ain't right. So it's always a cause for celebration when a zombie novel deserving of wider readership finally makes it to our shores.
To whit, today marks the official release of S. G. Browne's
Breathers by Hachette Australia, in the handsome UK edition. Why are we at
NecroScope so damn excited about this? Because
Breathers is - in our opinion - still one of
the very best zombie novels of the past few years, hitherto only available direct from the US. So: we're urging all serious Australian zomfic fans to run out and purchase a copy
right now from their local bookstore. And if your local bookstore doesn't stock
Breathers, demand they order it!
* So you'd think at least one Australian bookstore would wise up and make the effort to actually stock some of these hard-to-get zombie titles. Oh, wait...)
