Saturday, April 6, 2013

C'mon and Do the Apocalypse by Brian Panowich and Ryan Sayles

Zelmer Pulp is putting out the kind of books that I have always assumed would gain popularity with the advent of electronic books--short, entertaining collections of novellas (or novelettes or whatever the hell you want to call them), something that the big publishing houses will never do.

C'mon and Do the Apocalypse is two zombie stories (FREE this weekend) I thoroughly enjoyed. Brian Panowich's "My Wife Dawn...and the Dead" takes a standard suburban family and plops them in the center of the apocalypse. One would assume this would lead to social critiques of suburban life and consumerism and blah blah blah, but Panowich follows a different path, instead making these everyday people flawed and likeable. Despite the ensemble cast, I found myself rooting for these characters to beat the odds. The violence is controlled and real--especially when a calloused teenager has to take out her own sister. And the ending is touching without any sentimentality... or, for that matter, hope.

Ryan Sayles brings the nasty (even for a zombie story) in "28 Days of Mutilated Zombie Whores Later." It's about Nelson who (appropriately enough...) runs a brothel of zombie whores. This is a classic zombie  blood bath complete with a bunch of unredeemable characters who probably didn't have a shred of humanity before the apocalypse. It's all good, pulpy fun--and delivers a completely disgusting, satisfying ending.

Zelmer Pulp has also released Hey, That Robot Ate My Baby, with five sci-fi stories that promise to be both mind-bending and offensive. 

4 comments:

  1. I will have to check these out, Chris. The quality of these covers are something to marvel at and I'm glad the "publishing houses" are failing in this regard. This is where the Indies shine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Impossible to keep up with all of these ebooks now. And I wonder if over-saturation of the market with certain types of books is going to be its demise. My first ebook sold much better than the second is doing. And I think one reason is it has so much more competition than two years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Patti, were you able to keep up even when it was all print? I always feel like I'm missing out.

    As far as sales--Pulp Ink did far better than PI2, but now All Due Respect is outselling both of them combined. It's a bit of a crap shoot.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Chris, thank you for the kind review. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm proud to write that Panowich and I started a little something here. I'm more satisfied by this project (and all the other ones we have in the works) than most everything I've done. it's only upwards and onwards now. And yes, more zombies are coming.

    ReplyDelete