Review of 35 ZOMBIE TALES by Michael A. Kechula

BooksForABuck.com, June 2016

What will you do when the zombies come? Will you run and hide? stock up on flamethrowers and barbed wire? Rely on chocolate chip cookies or pudding? Hire a team of CIA assassins? Search for payback for what they did to your family or perhaps search for a missing loved one who might well have become a zombie? Will you fall in love with a friendly one? Or perhaps youï¿½ll want to turn the tables on the zombies and eat their fingers or make secret weapons out of the materials that hold them together. Any way you look at it, zombies change everything. Even if theyï¿½re still holed up in Haiti.

In 35 ZOMBIE TALES, author Michael A. Kechula (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of works by Kechula) speculates on all of these possible reactions to zombie incursions and many more. The stories range from horror to humor all the way to romance but in each of them, Kechula delivers a charming zing.

A US Presidential candidate will grant civil rights and instant citizenship to thousands of zombie war prisoners. Pray that she doesn't get elected.
A college professor brings a special guest into his classroom: a horrid-looking zombie. Many students fled. One who stayed soon wished he hadn't.
A scientist trains zombies to detect werewolves hiding in shopping malls. The fun begins when the full moon rises.
A woman falls in love with a zombie that stars in a travelling road show. He's billed as "The Friendliest Zombie in the World." Should he ignore unruly teenagers who disrupt his performance?
A street vendor sells freshly-amputated zombie fingers served on sandwich rolls or lollypop sticks. They may be delicious, but eat them at your own risk.
A woman declares war on zombies for kidnapping her fiance. Maybe she should have attended Army infantry training before heading to the Haitian jungle.
A smuggler doesn't believe zombies exist, but is forced into to marrying one. Definitely not a marriage made in heaven.
A mayor wants to trap a zombie that lusts for pretty women's brains and chocolate chip cookies. Should the mayor use his beautiful wife as bait, or will cookies do the trick?
A scientist tries to transform frozen human corpses into kinder, gentler, vegetable-eating zombies. Will his new method of zombification work?
A private eye is hired by a movie studio to catch dozens of zombies to act in a new horror movie. Can he persuade zombies to travel from the Haitian jungle to Hollywood? Is it really a good idea?
The thirty-fifth piece is a short manual on how to prepare for the next zombie war. Read it very carefully. It may help save the lives of you and your loved ones.

Kechula literally wrote the book when it comes to creating flash fiction and micro-fiction and this collection of zombie stories shows Kechula at his best.

Four Stars

Reviewed 6/21/16

ZOMBIE TALES is no longer in print.

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