Chris reviewed They All Died Screaming by Blood Bound Books
None
4 stars
Well, where to start. Depending on when it was published (completed early 2020 apparently) it could count as Alternative Covid Stories. A terrible plague which makes people scream and self-mutilate until they die ravages America and by implication the world.
I'm reminded more of the Yacks in "Cities of the Red Night" than anything, but unhinged screaming rage is something I'm more than familiar with.
The last holdouts are a bunch of drunks in a bad part of town. And alongside this is a story of farm enslavement and weirdness that reads like "The Road" and "Vase de Noces" had a baby (then ate it): a kind of vegetarian intestinal tract. At times the main story reads like it's going to become a zombie novel in which case I would have just put it down because unless you're going to do something interesting with zombies then I lose interest. But …
I'm reminded more of the Yacks in "Cities of the Red Night" than anything, but unhinged screaming rage is something I'm more than familiar with.
The last holdouts are a bunch of drunks in a bad part of town. And alongside this is a story of farm enslavement and weirdness that reads like "The Road" and "Vase de Noces" had a baby (then ate it): a kind of vegetarian intestinal tract. At times the main story reads like it's going to become a zombie novel in which case I would have just put it down because unless you're going to do something interesting with zombies then I lose interest. But it doesn't. Are the paranoids right? Is the Earth going to wipe us all out because we as a species have lost the plot and are just stockpiling toilet paper (which is mentioned here so I wondered if it is more recent than it actually is)? Characters get a shot at redemption but it may be irrelevant in the end.
Diversity issue? One trans character, one asexual character is a start.