title: Alice in Zombieland
authors: Lewis Carroll and Nickolas Cook
genre: fiction/humor/zombie spoof/parody
pages: 240
published: February 2011
source: ARC sent for review from Sourcebooks
first line: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do.
rated: deliciously twisted
3 1/2 out of 5 stars
Esteemed author Nickolas Cook gives new life, or rather takes it away, in his version of Alice in Alice in Zombieland. When Alice follows the Black Rat down an open grave, she falls and falls into a world full of the undead, rotting flesh, and characters beyond her imagination. But there’s something troubling Alice. Her skin is rotting and her hair is falling out, and she has the haunting feeling that is she remains in Zombieland any longer, she might never leave. Can Alice escape Zombieland, and stay out of the Dead Red Queen’s clutches along the way?
I've actually never read Alice In Wonderland, but I have seen the film version so I know the basic storyline.
In this zombified version, Alice is playing in a graveyard near her home with her sister when she spots a Black Rat nearby and follows it down an open grave.
Alice ends up in Zombieland where the Red Queen rules over the living and the dead.
She ends up meeting strange characters, most of whom seem to not be alive, yet not wholly dead. Some of these strange characters are the Conqueror Wurm and the Corpse Turtle.
Alice herself is starving and has a strange craving for live meat, and finds it hard to focus on anything but her hunger and how yummy some of the characters she stumbles across look. Her hair is also falling out and her skin has a blue tint to it.
As she goes through Zombieland, Alice tries to find her way back home. She finally comes across the Red Queen herself and her small army of zombies.
This was a fun read, I enjoyed the Cheshire Cat scene and the Tea Party scene the most.
"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a Dead Hare. Visit either you like: they're both zombies."
"But I don't want to go among dead people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all dead here. I'm dead. You're dead."
p.108
I found Alice in Zombieland to be very twisted, plenty of scenes were gruesome and not for the faint of heart. The illustrations within the book were entertaining and I finished this one in one sitting.
If you're a fan of spoofs and zombies, you might enjoy this one.
As for myself, I'd like to read the original soon. I do wonder how close to Carroll's original story this parody is.
She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the pale, smelly mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large black wurm, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly supping on a freshly dismembered human ear which it had stolen from the nearby graveyard and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.
p. 69
Special thanks to Sourcebooks.
