Friday, February 19, 2016

The Last Weekend: A Novel of Zombies, Booze, and Power Tools by Nick Mamatas

4 of 5 Stars     Review copy

Despite having the word "Zombies" in the title this novel is far from your typical zombie fare.  If you're looking for a brain munching gore-fest, you may want to look elsewhere.

On the other hand, if you're familiar with the Billy Wilder directed film-noir, The Lost Weekend,  based on Charles R. Jackson's 1944 novel of the same name about an alcoholic writer, then you're in for a real treat.

It is within this context that The Last Weekend: A Novel of Zombies, Booze, and Power Tools is a great success.

In post apocalyptic San Francisco, Vasilis “Billy” Kostopolos, failed writer and accomplished barfly, finds work as a "driller" for the city.  It's his job to respond to calls to find the newly dead and destroy the brain before they can reanimate.  There's a great line in his interview for the job where one of the interviewers asks his current occupation.  When Billy responds with writer, the second interviewer tells the first to put down "unemployed."

Mamatas fills this story with interesting characters, top to bottom, even incidental characters, like a typewriter salesman, are fully fleshed out.

The Last Weekend: A Novel of Zombies, Booze, and Power Tools is a solid literary work on the life a "writer" after the onset of the zombie apocalypse.

First published in March of 2014 by PS Publishing, The Last Weekend: A Novel of Zombies, Booze, and Power Tools is now available in Hardback, Paperback, and e-book formats from Night Shade Books.

Recommended.

Nick Mamatas is the author of six and a half novels and several collections.  Nick is also an anthologist and editor of short fiction including the Bram Stoker Award-inning Haunted Legends (co-edited with Ellen Datlow).  His fiction and editorial work has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award five times, the Hugo Award twice, the World Fantasy Award twice, and the Shirley Jackson, International Horror Guild, and Locus Awards.

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