The Complete Double Dead
The Complete Double Dead is a compilation of Chuck Wendig's book Double Dead, and the novella Bad Blood.
Coburn wakes from a "nap", not of his own choosing mind you, only to find that the world outside has gone to hell in a handbasket. See, Coburn is a vampire, and vampires need blood of the living to survive. All that he sees outside are zombies, which make no meal at all. So how's a vampire to live out there?
Coburn has to follow his nose, literally. He scents some people, alive people, and knows he needs to track them down to continue his undeath. And he realizes that he has to be the shepherd to his new flock, his walking Capri Sun. And that's not as easy as it sounds either. Especially when your cows attempt to abandon or kill you. Or both.
Coburn and his flock try to get across the country, because they've been told that's where there is a lab working on curing the zombie problem. On their journey they encounter the shuffling zombies, the cannibals, the Juggalos who own the midwest, and the new zombies. Faster, stronger, smarter than any other zombie. Ones created accidentally by Coburn when he gets distracted and can't move fast enough to evade the bites of the shuffling hordes. They are the hunters, fearsome predators who are the only real challenge to Coburn, aside from himself.
Coburn is an ego driven force, one who constantly reminds his snack pack that the only reason they're still alive is because he allows it. He's not very likable for most of the story, but he does begin to grow on you, and in the novella, you are given his backstory. You learn about him, and begin to understand why he is the way he is. Most of Double Dead focuses on the trek across America, while Bad Blood focuses on San Francisco, and the challenges presented there.
I really enjoyed having both pieces together in one place, it felt a bit more complete and answered some of the questions you were left with at the end of Double Dead. While you *could* read either as a standalone, you're much better off reading them together.
Wendig is a great author, combining tongue in cheek humour with horror, and making the humour scary and the horror funny. This was a fun read, and I definitely recommend it to fans of horror, to fans of irreverent humour, fans of the absurd, and anyone who likes a good old vampire vs zombie tale. As long as they like some oddball twists in their reading. I give it four stars, it's written in a style that is all Wendig. The cadence of the book cries to be read outloud, and I had a hard time not reading some of the sillier bits verbatim to my furry overlords. They were not as amused by the phrasing as I was, much to my dismay.
Anyway. Read this book. You'll laugh, you'll chuckle, you'll wrinkle your nose in reaction to the vivid descriptions of things better left said by Chuck via Coburn. Trust me, it's worth the nose wrinkling and the laughs.
I was given a copy of the book by the publisher to review, in return for an honest review.
