Review of Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall (2010)
Bottom line: A fun read for Star Trek fans who don’t mind a little spattering of bodily fluids and high body count. Ok, there was a lot of spattering.
Rating: Recommended if: you are a zombie fan and/or Trekkie
Blurb:
Journey to the final frontier of sci-fi zombie horror!
Jim Pike was the world’s biggest Star Trek fan—until two tours of duty in Afghanistan destroyed his faith in the human race. Now he sleepwalks through life as the assistant manager of a small hotel in downtown Houston.
But when hundreds of Trekkies arrive in his lobby for a science-fiction convention, Jim finds himself surrounded by costumed Klingons, Vulcans, and Ferengi—plus a strange virus that transforms its carriers into savage, flesh-eating zombies!
As bloody corpses stumble to life and the planet teeters on the brink of total apocalypse, Jim must deliver a ragtag crew of fanboys and fangirls to safety. Dressed in homemade uniforms and armed with prop phasers, their prime directive is to survive. But how long can they last in the ultimate no-win scenario?
Review:
This was my first honest-to-goodness zombie book. I generally stay away from that genre since I don’t handle gore and character deaths well, but when one of my cousins posted on Facebook about this book (zombies! Trekkies! Houston!), I just had to try it. The only other zombie books I’ve read are Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Zombie Survival Guide (see my reviews here). This was far more violent and graphic, it was just inside my comfort zone. What helped was that I went into it with the same attitude as watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie – this is just going to be ridiculous in terms of body count and method of dispatch, and also don’t get too attached to any of the characters.
All that being said, it was a really fun read. It did a good job of walking the line between homage to and mockery of Trekkies, the action was well paced, the plot was believable (well, you know, believable within the context of being a zombie book) and there was even character development! A true Trekkie would probably enjoy this even more than I did – get more of the jokes and so on. I’m not a Trekkie myself, but I married into a family of them. So I know a little bit about the shows and fan culture, but not a lot. That didn’t hinder my enjoyment at all, though. If you don’t mind the gore, this was a pretty lighthearted book overall, and a good way for me to dip my toe in the zombie water.
Get it! Amazon, Barnes & Noble
*If you use these links to make a purchase, Lector’s Books may receive a small commission. This will not affect your price or purchasing experience in any way.
4 Comments
Beth Waits
July 22, 2013Thanks for this recommendation! I typically stay away from these types of books, because I have a slight (or not so slight) zombie phobia, apparently known as “Kinemortophobia.” I mean…what’s worse than being un-dead? You can’t top that. Plus, they’re so hard to kill, etc. I also struggle with excessive gore and unnecessary character death, but I’ve never actually feared other scary/mythical/alien creatures. For me, zombies are in a category all by themselves. I’ve actually been making concerted efforts to approach this genre though, call it exposure therapy. My most recent attempt involved reading the synopsis of “World War Z” on wikipedia, but that’s as far as I got. This book may be too much of a leap, but I do like Star Trek, a lot. (I guess you are officially a Trekkie, or is it Trekker?, when you seriously consider purchasing a “rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock” t-shirt from thinkgeek) Maybe the Trek component would help to diffuse the zombie fear? Anyway, thanks for posting this review! I’ll definitely look for it the next time I go to the bookstore 🙂
lectorsbooks
July 22, 2013Zombies completely creep me out too! Something about the slow, inexorable onslaught just gives me the willies. If you want to jump into hard core zombie books, this would be a good one, since I found the humor did help balance out the violence and gore factors.
I don’t know if you saw my other zombie post, (oh, looks like I forgot to link to them in the post – about to fix that) but I’d strongly recommend Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It is kind of a zombie-lite if you’re looking to get you feet wet. The other book reviewed there is written by Max Brooks, who also wrote World War Z. It was pretty different, and it was more about zombies than a zombie book (maybe a meta-zombie book? 🙂 ) But again, if you wanted to try some exposure therapy, both of those would be good bets.
I guess I should have said Trekker as I’ve been told it’s less pejorative, but “Trekkie” is sort of ingrained in me. Who’s your Star Trek captain? My favorite is probably Picard.
Beth Waits
July 22, 2013They are soooo creepy! Blah! Maybe I’ll start with the Pride and Prejudice one; I’ll look up your review. Although, Elizabeth Bennet is one of my favorite literary characters, so if she becomes a zombie, that may scar me for life. Oh for sure, Picard – hands down. I’m actually re-watching TNG on Netflix right now. I also like Janeway quite a bit. There’s a great documentary that William Shatner did called, “The Captains.” He interviews all of the different Captains for the different series. I like it! Ohhhh…p.s. finished busman’s honeymoon (so good!) and Emperor’s Edge (really liked it! planning to read book 2 soon) Have you read the sweetness at the bottom of the pie?
lectorsbooks
July 22, 2013No, no – she isn’t a zombie. Think: Elizabeth Bennet, Zombie Hunter! I’ll have to watch The Captains, it sounds really good. I might even be able to watch with my husband! We can hardly ever find anything we’re both interested in. So glad you liked Busman’s Honeymoon and EE. The last EE book (at least in this story arc) was just released a few days ago, and so I’ve been thinking I need to reread all of them. I haven’t heard of the Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, but I’ll have to check it out.