io9 is one of my favorite websites because every day it seems like they always have at least one article that captures my attention. Along with DA and my email, it’s one of the things I check on every day. Case in point was when an article cropped up about a trailer for a book called “Night of the Living Trekkies.” Besides the fact that I love Star Trek and zombie movies, the title sounded so ridiculous that I had to click on it. The plot is simple enough but so fascinating that I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it myself: a zombie outbreak at a Star Trek convention.
I know that at first it may sound funny. But it’s also pretty scary if you think about it. Take, say, 9/11. I wasn’t there when it happened, let alone witnessed a building fall firsthand, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to see one. But if you made it happen at a place I’m familiar with, that makes it feel more realistic and therefore scarier. Kind of like in that movie “Jumper,” where Hayden Christianson finds his father dead and “Family Guy” is playing in the background. I see “Family Guy” on tv every day, so in some weird way that made the murder more real for me, if you know what I mean.
What helps is that the authors have obviously been to conventions themselves and they know how they work. It helps that the hero of the story is a bellhop, so he goes to all the various rooms and we hear about all the prepping involved to get the con started. And all along the way you get snippets of the outbreak to come, be it some guy complaining that a "mime" bit him to mysterious "bums" loitering in the parking lot. Since he used to be in the army, our hero has a "sixth sense" and knows something's wrong. So when the zombies inevitably attack the hotel en masse, he has to lead an army of refugees, including his own sister, to safety while using the virtues taught by "Star Trek" to survive.
Most of the characters may be cookie cutter stereotypes of survival stories but they do get in some good dialogue. There's also a lot of in-jokes to "Star Trek" and even "Star Wars" (you'll have to read the book to see why), which serves as a good counterbalance to the action. So all-in-all it's a very fun book. It's also reasonably short, so if you're looking for a light and entertaining read where people mow down zombies dressed like Spock then this is surely it.
, I decided to do a trilobite. I was originally going to do mastadons since they also lived in Ohio, but then I found out they're Michigan's state fossil, so that would have caused some heads to roll.
