Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction
Ed. by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Unless you’ve been living off the grid for the last decade — which wouldn’t be bad training for a zombie apocalypse, by the way — the living dead have pretty much completely taken over popular culture: from books to films to cable TV series, they’ve been popping up everywhere from Japan to Cuba. Canada too? Of course!
In fact, Dead North suggests, zombies may be thought of as native to this country, their presence going back to Aboriginal myths and legends. In this new anthology of mostly original short stories we see deadheads, shamblers, jiang shi, and Shark Throats invading such home and native settings as the Bay of Fundy’s Hopewell Rocks, Alberta’s tar sands, Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery, and a Vancouver Island grow-op. Throw in the last poutine truck on Earth driving across Saskatchewan and some “mutant demon zombie cows devouring Montreal” (honest!) and what you’ve got is a fun and eclectic mix of zombie fiction, with a special interest in environmental issues and the sometimes thin line that separates the quick and the dead.
Alex on SF 