Review of Dead Reaping (Zombie Armageddon) by Ian Woodhead
5 stars
Mr. Woodhead’s zombies are among the most twisted I have ever encountered, which makes them winners in my perspective (as zombies). I won’t call the author twisted, but he surely does know how to write this type of character and he must have spent his life to date in close observation of humanity in all its stripes, because he surely does know character delineation. For example, “Dead Reaping” excellently exposes small-village insularity: the bigotry, the “Us against Them” mentality, the arrogance and egotism (notice The Magistrate, but also the foot soldiers, some of the neighbors, and others). Classism, species racism (humans vs. the dead, humans vs. the “tainted,” dead vs. tainted, “hunters” vs. tainted, “climbers” vs. humans), and the usual let’s live on the lowest common denominator of human decency found all too often in contemporary society.
It can’t be easy for any author to find something new and original to say on the Zombie subject (or for that matter, vampires or shifters, either) but Ian Woodhead without fail always does: his Zombies are distinctly different (just wait till you read about the Abbott and his merry men; or “Our Lady” and her preternatural prophesying and metaphysical connection to the “tainted). Each time I finish one of his stories, I just think I’m finished, but actually I want to go back immediately and read it again.
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