News: Dymocks Southland Bestselling Zombie Titles for July 2011

1. Survivor (Alone #2) - James Phelan
2. Deadline (Newsflesh #2) - Mira Grant
3. The Walking Dead Compendium - Robert Kirkman
4. Feed (Newsflesh #1) - Mira Grant
5. World War Z - Max Brooks
6. The Zombie Combat Manual - Roger Ma
7. Zombie Apocalypse - ed. Stephen Jones
8. Rot & Ruin - Jonathan Maberry
9. Apocalypso (Xombies #3) - Walter Greatshell
10. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies - Austen / Graeme-Smith

It's worth noting, for the delectation of our Australian readers, that the highest-selling zombie title was penned by a local boy (James Phelan), while our second highest-selling general horror title for the month (the highest being Kiwi Paul Haines' The Last Days of Kali Yuga) was Brett McBean's collection, Tales of Sin and Madness, which just happens to contain several excellent zombie tales.

Review: Flesh Eaters

Joe McKinney, 2011, Pinnacle Fiction
Out of the hurricane-flooded streets of Houston they emerge. Dead. Rotting. Hungry. With the city quarantined to halt the spread of the walking dead, Emergency Ops sergeant Eleanor Norton has her work cut out for her. But as things go from bad to worse, Eleanor must focus solely upon the people she loves; her daughter and husband. Because if she can't get them out of the quarantine zone, they'll all be dead meat...

Flesh Eaters is the third in a loose series of novels (beginning with Dead City and Apocalypse of the Dead), and is - in my opinion - the very best of the three thus far. Initially opting for chills and tension over action and gore, the tale opts for an approach - rare in zompocalyptic fiction nowadays - hearkening back to more traditional horror, with the protagonists utterly failing to even notice the zombie threat until a good third of the way into the book - and for a damn good reason. McKinney has his zombies emerge directly from the overwhelming aftermath of a natural disaster, where an already-decimated population is understandably more concerned with the utter lack of clean drinking water and medical assistance than with unsubstantiated rumours that some 'survivors' have been observed displaying cannibalistic behaviour....

As in previous offerings, McKinney backs up a gripping plot and great prose with highly engaging characterisation. Nobody writes cops quite as well as McKinney, and his use of a female officer (who also happens to be a wife and mother) as chief protagonist adds yet another fresh touch to this hugely engrossing and engaging novel.

Flesh Eaters - along with the preceding novels in this series - is an absolute must-read, and is guaranteed to be enjoyed equally by Romero purists and those who applaud fresh takes on the zompocalypse.