Look Out For… The Streets by Robert Dunbar
“Dunbar shows considerable skill in making us care for his broken and fallible characters”
Escaping horrors that prowl the back alleys of a nameless city, a group of young people find themselves trapped in a decrepit asylum … where unspeakable evil awaits them. Do the streets offer salvation? Or destruction?
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
“Just as there are broken people, there are broken places on this earth.”
So begins Robert Dunbar’s new novel, The Streets, which is a sequel of sorts to his earlier books The Pines and The Shore¸ although you don’t have to have read those to enjoy it. The Streets tells the story of a group of young people harried and cornered by something unspeakable: wild, feral and evil.
Like his previous work, the protagonists of The Streets are outsiders, loners and misfits; the settings they find themselves in, from the Jersey Pine Barrens of the first book to the urban decay of The Streets reflect their isolation. Dunbar shows considerable skill in making us care for his broken and fallible characters; we dread the bleak and unrelenting horror that seems poised to crash over them like a wave. In part this is due to his skill as a stylist, mixing both genre and literary influences into a style all his own.
And who could resist a book described by Greg F. Gifune as “Like One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, shot directly into your veins like a speedball”? Certainly not us.
The Streets is out now from Uninvited Books.
Look Out For… Zombie Apocalypse! Acapulcalypse Now by Alison Littlewood
“Another treat from the supremely skilled Alison Littlewood.”
The Hotel Baktun is an exclusive vacation complex that is about to open on the coast of Acapulco, Mexico. Owned by a mysterious multi-millionaire businessman, it is shaped like an ancient Mayan pyramid and its halls are lined with rare and expensive artefacts.
For Stacy Keenan, the hotel’s new Head of Security, things are already chaotic as the locals continue to put the finishing touches to the festivities while VIPs begin to arrive for the grand opening. When a Russian cruise ship turns along the shore and disgorges its cargo of flesh-eating zombies, the guests and staff soon fragment into various factions as they struggle to withstand the spread of HRV (Human Reanimation Virus).
As the armies of the dead conquer all that stand before them, and the human survivors prepare for a final battle against an unstoppable enemy, a horror even more ancient and terrible is revealed when ‘The Death’ comes to Paradise.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
The Zombie Apocalypse series has been running for five years now; the original volumes edited by Stephen Jones were multi-author anthologies, but recent volumes have been single author novels from Mark Morris, Lisa Morton and now Alison Littlewood.
Amusingly, for an author whose normal novels are often set in cold Yorkshire landscapes, Acapulcalypse Now is set in Acapulco. Littlewood has described writing the book as being “an absolute blast to work on”. It’s an over the top tale of a deluxe holiday resort in the shape of a Mayan temple overrun by the dead, full of laughs as well as scares–as all the best zombie stories are. Whilst seemingly very different to her previous work, the book seems like another treat from the supremely skilled Littlewood.
Amidst a sea of derivative zombie fiction, the Zombie Apocalypse series has always stood out as one trying to do something different, and this new volume from Littlewood is a fine continuation.
Zombie Apocalypse! Acapulcalypse Now is released on 17 September 2015 by Robertson.
JAMES EVERINGTON
