BOOK REVIEW: The Undead That Saved Christmas

The Undead That Saved Christmas is an anthology of stories, poems, carols, AND comics written by horror fans for horror fans that was collected and assembled by anthology editor and book reviewer Lyle Perez-Tinics. Or as I like to call him: Da MAN!

I’ve been following Da MAN! and this project for a few months now. What this project is (or was and will be) is that Lyle set out to do something unique and truly great for society. Put together a book of short stories, carols, and comics encompassing zombies…and Christmas. AAHHHDDD that is fucking awesome. But the thing is not only does that make for a captivating read but this book is also giving back to this world after zombies have taken so so much.

The Undead That Saved Christmas is proof that Horror Fans are the BEST Fans. This book set out to do two things…add more zombies, gore, and Christmas to our lives…AND put presents under trees for foster kids at Christmas. Proceeds from this book go to the Hugs Foster Family Agency to help buy presents for kids this Christmas. Now THAT is what horror is all about. Also the gore, nudity, blood, guts, eye gouging, elf torture, and brutal murder. But mostly giving.

Man this poster gives me such a hard on. This is such a great tribute to Scanners.

AND the story fucking OWND.

I have tremendous respect for this book and what it sets out to do. So much respect that I even submitted a story for this anthology that got rejected (Probably due to intense awesomeness…besides this will give me something to blog about this Christmas) and I hold no ill feelings towards that. Lyle (Da MAN!) is a great guy and his intentions are above the normal capacity for mere human thoughtfulness. Also, he was kind enough to send me a screener copy (MY FIRST SCREENER COPY! WOOO!!) to review for him and also to help promote the book.

So lets review and promote baby!

This story is every bit as amazing as the poster depicts.

You can tell this thing was put together with serious reflection. He didn’t just throw the names of stories into a hat and pull them out, there’s enough combination between stories to keep this book moving. You’ll read a story about a Frozen Elf Zombie and switch to a serious Family death Zombie story. It just goes back and forth instead of the stories being bunched together so you absolutely love the first half and hate the second. It makes the pace of this thing go very quickly.

The stories. Oh LAWD! the stories. There are a couple dozen stories in this thing…maybe more I don’t have the book in front of me…but I loved ALL but like two. And those two didn’t suck or anything, they just weren’t as good when compared with the rest. And it also has to do with my dislike of first person written stories. I just have a hard time imagining it, it's just not my thing. (And that's ok, it's not bad, it's just not for me.)  Novelists and filmmakers really need to read this thing. There’s more originality, hilarity, and amazingality in this book than anything big publishing/Hollywood has been putting out lately. The stories range from just ridiculous fun to serious of the serious. All of them truly unique of one another.

One story in particular…"Brains Like Figgy Pudding" was just fucking great. It had me rolling through the whole thing. Not only was it a great story but it’s structure stood out from all the rest. The chapters went along to the theme of The Twelve Days of Christmas and the story was told in reverse. Each chapter leading up to the beginning and each chapter throwing you for a loop. I didn’t see any of that shit coming and I loved it. The humor thrown in was just genius.

Then just when your getting sick of reading stories…it ends. But it’s not over, oh no no, then we move on to Christmas Carols and some original poems. There’s a few pages of these, all of them are pretty amazing. But from there we go to my favorite part…the comics. There’s like 5 or 6 of them…all of them very well drawn. The last one was just the most fantastic thing I’ve ever read. I don’t even want to spoil it a little for you, I was laughing to hard it made me cry. I loved it!

Pictured: Santa about to get PWND!

Also one of the better "serious" stories in this thing.

Ok so now that you know this book is awesome, go buy it. Even if your not sold on what I just told you, buy it anyway and help put some presents under some kids' Christmas tree this year. Every bit helps and you’ll be getting something kick ass in return as well.

You can find more information on The Undead That Saved Christmas’ facebook page or you can check out Lyle’s book review website, Undead in the Head, I’m sure he has some details about this thing on there.

One last thing, if you enjoy writing and missed this opportunity, not to worry. Da MAN! will be doing this again next year with The Undead That Saved Christmas Vol 2 AND The Undead That Saved Christmas: Vampire Edition! BAM…your mind is blown.