Spoiler Free Summary: Zombies from Space…and Vampires is an urban paranormal story by Angela B. Chrysler. NOTE: If you follow my blog, you know that Angela is the captain of the Shush Brain, of which I am a loyal member. Also note, this book features characters near and dear to my heart, Weeches, Angela’s twist on zombies. You can take this review with however much salt you want, but consider this my disclaimer. Aria was just finishing up a night and talking to her father when a UFO flew overhead. The zombies attacking were unusual, right up until the vampire kidnapped her. Aria winds up on the ship full of a wonderfully ridiculous (and yet somehow familiar) crew. Zombies was a bit of fun Angela did on her blog that took up steam. It started as her just finding cool ways to write us Slush Brainers into the world, and evolved into this story.
Character: Aria is a solid character. I’d label this at YA hoping Angela is OK with that. Most stories that feature a young woman (Aria is 19), fall into that category. She’s a solid character to build around. She’s the one sane person in this madhouse of a story, and that makes her charming. Where everyone else is Level 11 zany, she’s the one normal spot in the book, which ups the conflict and provides an interesting backdrop to the story. As I mentioned above, every character in this book was inspired by a member of the real life Slush Brain. I’m biased here, but the cast is just a lot of fun.
Exposition: There’s a bit more here than usual, but you need to explain how alien zombies and vampires managed to pop up in modern day earth. It’s done with decent pacing, and there’s plenty of action to offset it.
Worldbuilding: This is solid. At least, it’s effective because the characters just roll with things. In a story like this (good, wacky fun with mayhem), it’s most effective when the characters behave as if they’d always expected this sort of stuff. In that regard, it reminds me of Slither. That’s not an insult. I LOVE that movie for the same reason I enjoyed this book. When everything is impossibly, hilariously hard to believe, everyone acts like it’s the normal, which helped Aria’s character and conflict.
Dialogue: This was top notch. Honest and real. Most of the effective character building was done through dialogue.
Description: This had most of the description in the right parts: action and mayhem. Though the characters are also very clear in the imagination. I honestly just loved seeing these characters come to life.
Overall: This has a bit of a cliffhanger, but the story is episodic in nature, so it’s to be expected. Every now and then, a reader needs a story that’s just good times and cool, zany action. This is that book. I enjoyed it, and I’m hoping to see more from the story.
Thanks for reading,
Matt
M.L.S. Weech 