Like Book of the Dead
(1989) and Book of the Dead 2
(1992), which Skipp co-edited with Craig Spector, this uneven anthology of 27 zombie stories takes as its starting point the premise of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead
, the classic horror film about a world overrun by armies of the flesh-eating living dead. The book offers a few genuine treats, including the late Robert Bloch's "Maternal Instinct," a black comedy of zombie shenanigans in Washington, D.C., and Douglas E. Winter's deadpan critique of life and art, "The Zombies of Madison County." Jack Ketchum is doubly represented with "The Visitor" and "Twins," in which the zombie holocaust is just a thread in the fabric of the larger human dramas they unfold. Unfortunately, because this volume has been delayed for 10 years, many of its stories come off as unoriginal or derivative. Most of the contributors try to overcome the limitations of their theme either by ratcheting up the gore and mayhem or indulging in outrageous frat-boy humor. (Mar.)
