“I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus: A Breathers Christmas Carol” by S G Browne (Gallery Books, 2012)

The bestselling author of the hilariously entertaining zombie book, Breathers, has a Christmas treat for you: a zombie holiday novella featuring some of the characters you’ve come to love from Breathers.  It’s a Christmas miracle like no other; one you won’t soon forget.

Andy Warner is having problems.  Other than being a zombie, he’s also a test subject in a horrible lab, where the employees care nothing about their zombie guinea pigs and will poke and prod, burn and dismember, and do whatever they feel like with them.  But after the unfolding events of Breathers, this is what his life has become now.  Zombies no longer have any rights whatsoever; many have been put to rest permanently, while those still around are trapped in these labs across the country.  But Andy has a plan to spring him and his fellow zombies out of this prison, along with the help of a zombie support group.

Once on the outside, Andy does his best to keep his friends safe, but also make sure they have a regular supply of fresh human to keep them healthy and well.  Funnily enough, when people treat you like nothing more than a corpse in a lab, you don’t care that much when you want to eat them.  But the people from the lab are looking for them, scouring the city, and eventually they will be found.  Though Andy also knows he has an ally in one of the laboratory employees, but doesn’t know why.

And in the middle of all this, Andy meets a lonely nine year-old girl who believes he’s Santa, because he was dressed as Santa (the perfect disguise at Christmas) and wants just one gift in the whole world: to have her bad parent of a mother pay more attention to her and love her.  So now Andy has a guilt problem to deal with, as well as to save all his zombie friends and himself from getting caught and thrown back in the lab.  He knows if he gets caught, he’ll end up on the body farm this time.

Browne does a great job of replicating the voice and tone of Breathers, putting you right back in the world he created and making you realize how much you missed it.  Andy even comes up with a few haikus to entertain you.  Readers will be thrilled with this Christmas present, and be left wondering if Browne will be writing any more adventures of Andy and his unusual gang.

Originally written on December 4, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.

To purchase a copy of I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus from Amazon, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.

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“Lucky Bastard” by S. G. Browne (Gallery Books, 2012)

The bestselling author of Breathers and Fate returns with another entertaining and funny book that is well keeping in the style of one S. G. Browne.  Readers who have come to enjoy Browne’s particular style, humor, and characters will be delighted in this latest offering with Lucky Bastard.

Nick Monday is not your usual private detective, by any means.  He’s what you’d call a luck poacher.  Yep, that’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  Since he was a young child, he knew he’d inherited the “family gift,” and then went on to make a business out of it, as so many luck poachers do.  All he has to do is shake the lucky (and soon to be less than lucky) person’s hand and the luck is magically transferred into him.  He’s not sure exactly how it works, it just does.  The person isn’t necessarily unlucky from them on, he or she is simply no longer lucky.  As to how Mr. Monday can tell whether a person is lucky, it’s sort of like sensing someone’s midichlorian count and the strength of their force, like an aura in a way.  There are several gradations of good luck, from some good fortune on up to easily picking those winning lottery numbers.  And just as there is good luck out there, there’s also bad luck, but Nick does his best to stay from that.

Except bad luck seems to keep finding him wherever he goes.  He lives in San Francisco, after having to leave another state for some shady business, but soon finds himself getting on a number of people’s bad sides, including the supposed daughter of the mayor of the city, Tuesday Knight, who offers him $100,000 to get back her father’s stolen luck. (Yes, Nick was the one to steal the luck originally; and no, it’s pretty much a one way thing when you take someone’s luck.)  He also finds himself mixed up and seriously pissing off a Chinese mafia kingpin.

Lucky Bastard is over the top and fast-paced, taking you all over the wonderful city of San Francisco, but Browne does a great job of suspending the reader’s disbelief, creating a character that isn’t perfect by any means – in fact he gets quite annoying – but remains true to the writing and the character, keeping readers hooked to the very last page.

Originally written on March 13, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.

To purchase a copy of Lucky Bastard from Amazon, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.

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