Now, this might be both a biased review as well as an over critical review, seeing as I have a story in this book. However, I deem it necessary to give it my full attention and love as a reviewer regardless. Code Z: An Undead Hospital Anthology is one of those really good zombie anthologies that will keep the reader hooked from the beginning with a creepy tale of the undead and follows straight through to the end with continuous thrills of zombie mayhem. It’s a journey of discovery of all the various ways a zombie can basically look, act, sound, kill etc. in one book! What’s more is that it all revolves around a single theme… hospitals. This is almost like a zombie outbreak book, where patient 0 comes into play, however, what Code Z: An Undead Hospital Anthology does differently is bring many established authors together for the enjoyment of the reader too!
Lyle Perez-Tinks, the editor of this anthology, which is published by Knightwatch Press, took his time to put together the stories in such a manner as to flow and make the read easier and much more enjoyable. Starting off with Undead on Arrival by Armand Rosamilia and following it with more death and despair and virtually no survivors. As always, I could go into depth and review every single story individually, but that isn’t fair, because this is a compilation of stories and should be reviewed as a collection rather. Therefore, when looking at the book, it’s contents and stories, we have an anthology that gives horror lovers that gore fix (and believe me, there is a lot of gore) as well as give the reader sleepless nights.
Keeping that in mind, I’ll admit that in some places the book did lack, not in many, but there were some things that jumped out at me and said: “Boo!”. Sometimes the stories were just a tiny bit too short or ended too abruptly, other times the story felt slightly too long, but in the long run though, the editing was brilliant and the formatting… well, I could find no fault in it. As for the cover art, David Naughton-Shires outdid himself once again, making it look like the classy zombie anthology it truly is.
I’m not ashamed to say that I am extremely happy to be included with the contributors of this anthology. Rebecca Besser, Shawn M. Riddle, Eric S. Brown, Anastasia Wraight and more, they all have quite unique ways of getting the message across and certainly give the reader some proper chills with their sick imaginations… I felt right at home.
So, if you have nothing better to do with yourself this weekend and don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Hop on over to Amazon to purchase your copy of Code Z: An Undead Hospital Anthology and enjoy the gore. Enjoy the virus spreading through your veins… enjoy as your blood become tainted with delight… enjoy as you become obsessed.
