Kim PaffenrothRecensioni

The first part of the book is kind of annoyingly over descriptive and I don't really like the first person POV of this book, but the story was good and the characters are pretty likeable. It is a bit overly pessimistic, though. Slight SPOILER: there is a conflict with a large group of prisoners, and I have a hard time believing, that if it were real life and you found such a large group of them as in this book, that they would be as evil and depraved as in this situation. But hey, it's just a story. In spite of the negatives, I think I will continue reading the series.

A slightly-below-average collection of short stories about the undead. I am disappointed that I did not like it, as the premise of the book was intriguing. The stories try to introduce zombies into a number of historical events – an offshoot of the bubonic plague, the cause of the Great Fire of Chicago, the inspiration for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, etc. – and consequently the efforts are rather creative, and this should be commended.

Unfortunately, many of the ideas fall flat or lack the proper execution, and most of them I've already forgotten. 'Junebug' was the only one which I considered genuinely disturbing (and it wasn't the zombies in that story that provide the horror). 'The Anatomy Lesson' and 'A Touch of the Divine' were good stories, and there were others for which I appreciated the creativity and the ambition if not the finished story itself. 'Theatre is Dead', which sees a Shakespeare play go horribly wrong, and 'Society and Sickness', a sort of Pride and Prejudice parody in which a young woman's parents bemoan the rise of the undead as it decreases the number of eligible suitors for their daughter, both fall into this category. Overall, I don't regret reading this anthology but it didn't impress me either.

This tale begins several years after the zombie apocalypse. The survivors are forced to live on islands and on boats surrounded by the ocean, the only thing that seperates them from the monsters. But all the "treasures" of humanity are trapped on the mainland with the zombies.
The story follows Ridley, a young man looking for adventure. He finds himself on the Hyperion, a boat that travels up the coast line, scavenging for left-behind possession's surrounded by the dangerous zombies. The captain of the ship also has his own agenda as he searches for a rumored "smart" zombie. Reminiscent of Moby Dick, as Ridley could be Ishmael and clearly Captain Jacob mirroring Ahabs dangerous quest. I enjoyed this book and it kept me completely enthralled, so much so that I failed to notice the giant spider that crawled on to my stomach....perhaps the test of a great novel? :}

I really enjoyed this book. Its not just a 'run around scared and shoot zombies" book. It was a real social commentary about how our lives intermingle, the good and the bad in everyone, and the way people react when grouped together. This is a book that really breaks the mold of typical horror fiction and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a bit more that nightmare and adrenaline.

History Is UNdead!

Zombies have coexisted with humans since before the birth of h. sapiens – that is, if we’re to believe the team of “crack historians” behind History Is Dead: A Zombie Anthology, edited by Kim Paffenroth (2007). And why not, when believing is such bloody good fun?

While at least half of the twenty stories found in History Is Dead take place in the past 200 years – with America and Europe proving popular settings – the rest stretch as far back as the Pleistocene epoch. (“This Reluctant Prometheus,” in which members of the homo ergaster species become infected with zombie-ism after consuming an infected wooly mammoth, is one of my favorites.) Zombies are credited for bringing humans the gift of fire, rescuing a Viking kingdom from insurrection, inspiring budding horror author Mary Shelly, and administering vigilante justice to Jack the Ripper. They appear on Civil War battlefields and in East End slums. They infiltrate the United States government in their quest for gooooold. (An “Indian” curse gone weird. Don’t ask.) The Great Fire of Chicago? Started by zombies, the first of which was created when Biela’s Comet rained a mysterious green rock onto (and into) Pat “Paddy” O’Leary’s Aunt Sophie. Zombies, it seems, are all around us.

As always, anthologies are difficult to review, since you’re apt to take a shining to some pieces more than others. Overall, History Is Dead is a quick, enjoyable, entertaining read – perfect for a morbid Saturday afternoon at the beach. I polished it off in under a week, which is near-record speed for me. Though they share a common theme, each story in this collection is unique. In some, zombies make a brief, even ancillary cameo – while in others they serve as the story’s protagonists. A bloody, gory, over-the-top collection of shoot-‘em-up zombie tales this is not.

In fact, it could be argued that zombies aren’t even the scariest monsters to be found within the pages of HISTORY IS DEAD. Take, for example, “Junebug” – which comes with a major trigger warning – in which a preacher (at the End Times Church, natch) uses the looming zombie apocalypse as a pretense to sexually enslave one of his young parishioners (June or “Junebug” of the story’s title). After several months of living with him – with her parents’ permission, ostensibly to babysit his children due to his wife’s illness – she becomes pregnant from the repeated rapes. Cast out by the preacher, she finds no solace from her family, as they blame her for “seducing” her rapist. June and her sole defender, brother Ethan, ultimately meet a gory end – and yet, even at their “worst,” the reader has more sympathy for the zombie siblings than for their human victims.

I found a similar pleasure in “Awake in the Abyss,” which finds Jack the Ripper’s “canonical five” victims - Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly - along with a sixth woman, narrator Nelly, awakening from the grave in order to avenge their deaths…as only zombies can. I bet you never thought you’d find yourself rooting so enthusiastically for the zombies, eh?

http://www.easyvegan.info/2012/07/16/history-is-dead-a-zombie-anthology-edited-b...

Meh. Rather mediocre tale of a world ravaged by zombies. Solo survivor finds others, joins community, thinks all is well till the meet another group of survivors that remind them all that people can be the worst monster. Not alot of depth in story or complexity to the characters. At least it was a fast and easy read.

Engrossing read with empathetic characters and a style that is surprisingly literate (Surprisingly? Let's face it, zombie books aren't meant to be the pinnacle of literature). Certain scenes are very memorable and, not to raise spoilers but referred to obliquely, they are: the initiation; the rooftop; the smoke trail. You’ll know to what I am referring once you’ve read it. If I have any criticism, and, oh, it is so very minor, is that the religious symbolism in the midst of the smoke trail scene is a little too…um, apparent; I think if it had been shrouded just a little more it would have been better.

Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com

A deceptively straight forward tale, in Valley of the Dead, classic literary hero Dante finds himself wandering in a strange valley, filled with strange people who, besieged by a strange plague of undead, live their lives with a fierce, often sinful, form of passion. The zombies themselves are also metaphors, filled with "rage at [the living], with seething jealousy that they were alive, and overwhelming frustration that [the zombie] could not make them dead." Oversensitive, depressed and caught up in hell on earth Dante sees the worst humanity has to offer where undeath just seems like a blessed end to a pitiful life.
Valley of the Dead is classic Paffenroth, a moody, dark, delicate blend of religion and zombies. It's easy to see why, in this "True Story" version of Dante's Inferno, Paffenroth is drawn to horror and religion simultaneously. Furthermore Paffenroth really captures the original feel of horror, beauty and devotion from Dante's Divine Comedy with sweeping strokes that simply should not be missed by true horror fans. Highly recommended, no, essential for public collections as an example of the depth and soul horror tales can possess.
Contains: Violence, language, gore

This book started out a little shaky, it used a old formula; person is far away from home when attack starts, and makes his way back slowly, only to find his loved ones dead/zombified. After that it goes straight into a survival story, and at one point I somehow managed to skip 3 chapters, and I didn't even realize it until I was near the end of the novel and I was wondering how a certain character was doing something, and I had no idea who he was. Going back to the chapters I missed didn't make the story any more entertaining unfortunately, though it did clear up my confusion. Perhaps the fact that I missed those chapters is coloring my review, but the whole fact that I did and did not realize it until the end of the novel... This book follows a very linear sort of storyline, and it's pathetically easy to see what comes next. Check it out from the library if you're a zombie fan {as I am) but leave off actually buying it.

Five out of ten. One man believes his is the lone survivor of a zombie outbreak and struggles to come to terms with what and why it all happens. Except he is not alone - and one day he happens upon another group of survivors and learns that maybe the zombies weren't so bad after all.½

Dying to Live, both the original and this book, the sequel, are heralded as "the intelligent man's zombie novel" and I can't think of a better description than that.

The second book picks up twelve years after the first as Zoey, the baby rescued at the end of the first book, prepares to be inducted into life as an adult-in-training. Between Jack, Will (aka Popcorn) and Milton (the other zombie Christ figure) the survivors have branched out quite a bit from their initial encampment in a museum. Now part of a prosperous town, with the zombie threat so far diminished that terror and survival has given way to a ritualistic reverence of the ambulatory dead, Zoey concentrates with precocious skill on the nature of their existence and surviving in a new kind of world.

As she faces danger from zombies and other humans she slices into the nature of the people around her (dead, living and somewhere between) with a painfully keen intellect. Harder-core horror fans shouldn't be disappointed. Through the commentary on human nature there are fights, gore, moaning undead and more.

There are also peculiar things happening among the dead, including a pair of zombies who seem to remember their lives before death, and who refuse to be dismissed as mere mindless creatures of hunger. Truman, once a philosophy professor, now a dead man, challenges the town's perceptions of the creatures who destroyed the world with his refusal to eat flesh and his joy of reading.

And because Paffenroth himself is a shrewd flayer of human behavior, there are not-so-subtle reminders that the walking dead are far less sinister than the living who embrace cruelty and savagery.

It's very readable, smooth and insightful. Intelligently horrific and outright beautiful in places, it's a must-read for zombie fans looking for something more than a zombie uprising story of a motley crew being picked off one by one.

Dying to Live is Kim Paffenroth's first novel and quite an outstanding first attempt. The story follows Jonah Caine who is the all-in-one underdog, hero, and saint. Wandering, alone, across the apocalyptic terrain Jonah eventually joins up with a group that has holed up in a museum. The group is lead by Milton, who the rest of the group looks up to as some sort of messiah. Jack, on the other hand is tactical and logistical leader of the group. From their first meeting, Jonah and the museum folks fight the undead and other evil in the world just to have a merger existence.

Dying to Live is by no means a simple zombie bash. No, it also takes a page from Paffenroth's Gospel of The Dead and is very much an examination of humanity. Many comparisons are made between the living and undead. This quote (taken from memory, so I hope it is correct) "We are not evil, just dumb and clumsy" highlights this aspect of the book. The living, just like the unliving, are prone to be dumb and clumsy. Often Jonah struggles with killing the zombies, as he still identifies with them. He also observes that in many ways that the living are much more cruel than the dead.

Also, those who read the biblical story of Jonah & the novel Moby-Dick will see some familiar ideas. For instance the beginning of the book will surely remind you of Moby-Dick, while later; the story of Jonah is invoked.

While Dying to Live is the most intellectually stimulating zombie novel I have ever read, fear not, there is plenty of action, gore, and fright to go around. There are some very well described combat sequences, some downright frightening parts, and one particular scene during Frank's story that will both make you sick to your stomach and scare the crap out of you.

Dying to Live is an absolute great piece of writing that will both stimulate your mind and deliver the action and gore that we all love so much. With this book Kim Paffenroth shows that there is more to zombie fiction than eating flesh and killing with head shots. Dying to Live is a welcome break from the typical zombie book and the new favorite on the top of my list.

Well, I saw this book on Amazon and was intrigued by the title.....Dying To Live: A Novel of Life Among the Undead. I read the short synopsis and decided that I wanted to read it. Good choice for myself. Seeing that I have enjoyed David Moody's Autumn series, I figured that this was going to be somewhat the same kind of story. I always enjoy a good zombie book (and movie too, as long as there are no cheesy effects!).
Well, this book follows the lives (or attempted lives) of a survivers of a plague that killed most of the world's population and made them the living dead. The action has already taken place when the story starts out. So right from the beginning we're following a lone surviver, Jonah, who thinks that he is the last. We go with him on his journey of killing the occasional zombie while making his way through the baren lands and then he finds more survivors hiding in a museum because he sees writing on a wall that say: ARE YOU DYING TO LIVE OR LIVING TO DIE? (Hence the title of this post......). This book contains lots of action and other obstacles that the survivors have to face that are not of the undead!
Please if you like zombies, go out and grab this one. This is an attention grabber and keeps you turning the pages again and again!½

Great & refreshing work ... They call it the thinking man's zombie novel ... I must say I enjoyed the cerebral aspects of the story - along with the standard fast-paced horror fare ... Definitely would recommend this book.

Like the real world the fictional world in Dying to Live is brutally unfair. One would expect no less from a book set a year after the world succumbed to zombies. This isn't a story of the uprising, the slow rot of the human beast. This is a tale part in retrospect, told by characters who are in a brave new world, but still remember and mourn their old world.

Jonah is a man living a grim existence, spared from the initial zombie take over, but finally persuaded to leave his seaborne safe haven to search out his loved ones. After finding his former home empty, with no signs of violence his life took a turn toward simple goals-- namely surviving. He wandered the countryside, with no purpose or goal outside of the drive to find food and not become food, until, by a million little coincidences, he finds a compound of survivors.

Hidden in what was once a museum the motley crew of living humans each have their own tales of how they came to safety, their own haunting losses and their own emotional battles to face just to maintain the will to survive in a dangerous world. Jonah and the war refugees wrestle not just with the undead, but with questions of how to, and even if they should, restart society in the face of the horrific future before them.

Flavored with a combination of Biblical end times and a touch of Richard Matheson's classic I Am Legend, Dying to Live is a novel that transcends the shuffling dead image of classic zombie fiction from the beginning, nearly taming the creatures by giving them an odd sort of humanity and exposing humans as the root of the evil.

Rather than flowing as a continuous narrative, the book stalls through episodic encounters and cliched character introductions. This can be forgiven, due to the pulp nature of the zombie genre. What can't be forgiven is the arbitrary final act that has characters so two dimensionally evil, they defy suspension of disbelief, while failing even to give the characters a worthy nemesis.

And you thought all those movies were just about zombies!

Paffenroth, a professor at Iona College, looks deeply into Romero films (including the non-Romero remake of Dawn of the Dead) and gives a theological perspective, using Dante as a conversation partner.

Paffenroth discusses the complex ways Romero handles race, gender and basic relationships between human beings. For example, one of the protaganists of Night of the Living Dead is African-American, but at no point in the film is race made an issue, even when this character is in conflict with other characters in the movie.

Paffenroth also hands out tidbits of information for casual viewers of the movies (Night, for instance, was shot in black and white because the director could not afford color...that is also why Dawn takes place in a mall.)

Paffenroth gives plenty of time to the two films I thought weakest in Romero's ouvre, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead. He gave me some new insights into both films, and while I still think Day was a major disappointment, based on Paffenroth's work, I am willing to give Land a second chance. Surprisingly, Paffenroth takes on the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and does it justice, I believe.