Confession time - I was really prepared to be underwhelmed by Brainchild, which the publisher has dubbed "a full-color, 64-page, perfect-bound anthology with an Undead theme."
You see, it's that last bit, the "Undead" part, that kind of put me off. "Undead," at least in my book, pretty much translates to zombies and zombies really haven't done much for me since I was 16 years old and Dawn of the Dead was in the theaters and the concept still seemed fresh and exciting.
But I stand corrected, as I so often do. Because if the truth be told Brainchild is kind of on the nifty side, for the most part, and manages to breathe a little bit of life - pardon the expression - into the old zombie warhorse.
Oddly enough, what impressed me most about this anthology was the artwork. Which, for me, is quite a switch since I'm not at all a visually oriented sort of guy and I'm rarely impressed by that sort of thing and I generally just briefly skim over the pictures on the way to the text. Having said that, there is some genuinely eye-catching stuff here, if I do say so myself.
As for the other "artifacts," which are put together to suggest the somewhat fragmented ramblings of a group of survivors of a zombie outbreak, its kind of a mixed bag. There are a number of more or less traditional short stories, several shorter pieces that could reasonably be called vignettes, a poem and even a nonfiction piece on the role of female zombies in film and books.
But for me the best piece was the snippet - somewhere between vignette and prose poem - that opens the work. In just a few words this one truly succeeds where so much other zombie lit and film has failed, in that it captures the sheer horror that such a situation would actually entail.
Not bad, but if you're going to order one make haste, as this is a hand-numbered limited edition of 250.
William I. Lengeman III is working on getting in touch with his inner zombie. More at http://wileng.home.mindspring.com/.
© William I. Lengeman III
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