Views and reviews

Two new reviews over the interwires today. The first is of "The Afflicted" in Fantasy Literature, which describes it as "a zombie story that manages to be a touch original, likening zombies to those suffering from senile dementia (the first sign that one is starting to turn in his world is an inability to think straight). One becomes a zombie only gradually in this world, just as Alzheimer’s patients tend to fade away slowly. The parallel makes this story more painful than the usual zombie story, in which zombies are nothing but cannon fodder; here, they are people first." The second is a review of "The Last Islander" at Tangent, where reviewer Bob Leishman says "Matthew Johnson tells the story of a displaced people and he does so particularly well," concluding simply "I liked this story."