Today, we give you a supernatural double-shot of goodness, in the spirit of Smugglivus! First up, it’s the lyrical stylings of Ryan Mecum, followed by a zombified version of a holiday classic from Adam Roberts…

Vampire Haiku by Ryan Mecum

Publisher: How
Publication Date: August 2009
Paperback: 144 pages

Summary: (from amazon.com)
You hold in your hands a recently discovered poetry journal – the poetry journal of a vampire. William Butten was en route to a new land on the Mayflower when he was turned into a vampire by a fellow passenger, a beautiful woman named Katherine. These pages contain his heartbreaking story – the story of a vampire who has lived through (and perhaps caused) some of America’s defining events. As he travels the country and as centuries pass, he searches for his lost love and records his adventures and misadventures using the form of poetry known as haiku.

Read along, and you just may find a new appreciation for – and insight into – various events in American history. And blood.

Review:

Earlier this year, Ana and I read and reviewed Ryan Mecum’s delightful Zombie Haiku – and we liked it so much, we of course responded with alacrity when he invited us to review his new poetic book, Vampire Haiku.

Like Zombie Haiku, Vampire Haiku is written entirely in a series of haiku (that’s a three line poem, with 5-7-5 syllables per line), but tells an overall story. This novel is the poetic journal of a man named William Butten, a translatlantic passenger on the good ship Mayflower in 1620. En route, William meets a lovely married woman named Katherine – who isn’t exactly what she seems, as becomes clear to William when she drinks his blood and turns him into a vampire. Over the next few centuries, the vampire William documents his adventures, his conquests, and his love for Katherine in his journal (all in haiku form, of course).

And what can I say? Mr. Mecum does it again with his winsome Vampire Haiku, capturing a slightly different interpretation of American history through a vampire’s eyes. This slim, glossy book comes in a cool package – the interior of the book, the accompanying illustrations, photographs and blood spatters are gorgeously composed – and the haiku are as fun as ever. A few favorites:

The syllable count
for “vampire” is confusing.
Two? Three? I’ll guess two.

Blood tastes like cherries
mixed with a lot of copper
and way too much salt.

When a mosquito
pierces my neck and drinks blood,
is that irony?

I just saw Twilight.
It’s labeled a vampire film,
but I don’t know why.

These were not vampires.
If sunlight makes you sparkle,
you’re a unicorn.

Even better than the humor, though, is the unrequited love story between William and his Katherine over the ages – it adds a touch of bittersweet heartache to the book.

Though I think I still prefer Zombie Haiku (as a zombie fan first and foremost, this is a – pardon the lameness of the pun – “no brainer”), Vampire Haiku is a wonderful little book, and another solid entry from Ryan Mecum. Perfect for a stocking stuffer, or for someone looking for a quick, quirky pick-me-up. Definitely recommended.

Rating: 6 – Good

I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas by Adam Roberts

Publisher: Gollancz (UK)
Publication Date: October 2009
Hardcover: 160 pages

Summary: (amazon.com)

Marley was dead. Again. The legendary Ebenezeer Scrooge sits in his house counting money. The boards that he has nailed up over the doors and the windows shudder and shake under the blows from the endless zombie hordes that crowd the streets hungering for his flesh and his miserly braaaaiiiiiinns! Just how did the happiest day of the year slip into a welter of blood, innards and shambling, ravenous undead on the snowy streets of old London town? Will the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future be able to stop the world from drowning under a top-hatted and crinolined zombie horde? Was Tiny Tim’s illness something infinitely more sinister than mere rickets and consumption? Can Scrooge be persuaded to go back to his evil ways, travel back to Christmas past and destroy the brain stem of the tiny, irritatingly cheery Patient Zero? It’s the Dickensian Zombie Apocalypse – God Bless us, one and all!

Review:

Since the wild success of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies earlier this year (reviewed HERE), the taking of an established classic work of literature and zombifying it has become something of a trend. Adam Roberts’ I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas takes Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and twists it into something a little more…silly (and by “silly” I mean bloody, gorey, and brains-y).

The basic story is thus: Ebeneezer Scrooge, the miserliest of misers, he of the “bah humbugs,” turns out to be the only person in the world immune to the encroaching zombie plague (which he discovers after a re-animated Marley bites him on his backside). On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by three spirits (Present, Future and Past) for a specific purpose – to see the extent of the zombie plague, and to give him the motivation to stop it (by putting the maniacal mastermind behind the zombie outbreak to a preemptive death).

If you buy I Am Scrooge, you already know what you are getting into. This is a silly book that isn’t really about zombies as metaphor for human failings. It’s not George A. Romero. It’s not Kim Paffenroth or Robert Kirkpatrick. But, for what it is – a good, healthy dose of the ridiculous followed by a serving of Christmas Puddi-er-Brains – I Am Scrooge is wonderful. Mr. Roberts does not make the awkward mistake of trying to ape Charles Dickens’ prose (as Mr. Grahame-Smith attempted with Jane Austen), nor does he rely on A Christmas Carol too much. Instead, he takes the basic premise of the novel and writes a wry, brisk, slip of a book (it’s only 150 pages), that involves time travel, some famous author cameos, and the strategic location of Australia.

Seriously.

Add to that a sometimes-narrator that has fun with the english language, i.e:

‘Brains!’ moaned the beast, its arms flung wide as if in greeting. It writhed, slowly, jerkily, upon its wooden-knob of impalement. Of its impaling. Its impaleness. Of its Impellor.

Of its being impaled. Yes, I think that’s the right one.

…and you’ve got a party. I Am Scrooge is absurdism at its best – the final showdown will have you rolling your eyes, and yet strangely delighted. At least, I know I was delighted. I appreciated how off-the-wall silly this book was, and devoured it in a single sitting. It’s not War and Peace (or even A Christmas Carol) – but then again, it’s not meant to be. And for what it is, it rocks. Recommended, if you’re looking for silly, fast, and escapist. With brains.

Rating: 6 – Good

Reading Next: Raiders’ Ransom by Emily Diamand

Title: Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your…Brains

Author: Ryan Mecum

Genre: Poetry (Haiku), Zombies, Horror, Humor

Publisher: How Books
Publication Date: July 2008
Paperback: 160 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone collection of haiku in a purported journal.

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
What you are looking at is a document from the early days of the zombie plague. Little is known about the author before his infection–only that he was a poet. This facsimile of his actual journal recounts the events of humanity’s darkest hours through the intimate poetry of haiku. Inside you’ll find increasingly disjointed and terrifying three-line poems (all in the classic 5-7-5 syllable structure), and follow the undead poet on a journey through deserted streets and barricaded doors. Experience every eye-popping, gut-wrenching, flesh-eating moment of the eventual downfall of the human race from the point of view of a zombie, and gain insight to help you survive–if you can.

Review:

Zombie Haiku is without a doubt one of the most original takes on the zombie in the literary sense. Novels, short stories, comics, traditional verse, they’ve all been done before. But the haiku has remained untouched on the zombie menu. Until now, that is.

A notebook, its pages filled with drawings, scribblings and – of course – haiku, tells the tale of a rather poetic man as the zombie apocalypse strikes. The journal proper begins:

This is my poetry journal. In it, I will attempt to capture the beauty I see in the world in the form of a poetic structure called “haiku.” With three simple lines composed of five syllables, then seven syllables, and another line of five syllables, I will attempt to capture the earthly beauty which can be so overwhelming that I sometimes feel like I’m going to burst open. Enjoy.

But the actual story begins in another pen. A man named “Chris L.” relates how he is trapped in an airport bathroom, dying from a bite as a horde of hungry zombies lurk outside. All he has is this journal – wrenched from the severed arm of the zombie who bit him – and a pen. So, with his last few hours of life, the man that introduced us to his story stops writing, and invites us readers to read the haiku journal with him.

The journal itself is completely written in haiku, complete with pictures, blood, and illustrations. As my old English professor would love to say, this is ‘form equals content’ at its best. The journal begins with poetic (if silly) beauty, as the journal owner promises so joyfully in his introduction.

The bird flew away
with more than just my bread crumbs.
He took my sorrow.

Initially, the owner puts me in the mind of Brendan Fraser’s super-sensitive-dolphin-safe-tuna dude from Bedazzled, but with each new haiku the horror gradually unfolds. The poet is bitten and becomes one of the undead, and his haiku entries alternate between bizarre and horrific (and morbidly funny). Suspending disbelief that a zombie would retain the ability to write in verse and yet forget how to operate doorknobs or climb fences, Zombie Haiku is a delightful, crunchy, teeth breaking treat. It’s almost impossible to describe without using examples, so here are a few of my favorites, in progression.

Anyone out there
reading this haiku journal
give this to my mom

Dear Mom I love you.
This ain’t my most poetic,
but I really hurt.

Although my neck hole
used to whistle when I breathed
now I don’t breath.

Brains, BRAINS, Brains, brains, BRAINS.
BRaiNS, brains, Brains, BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS.
BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS, brains.

I lose my front teeth
while trying to pry her hair
out from between them.

She’s always with me,
especially if my gut
can’t digest toenails.

Everything I thought
tasted a lot like chicken
really tastes like man.

Blood is really warm.
It’s like drinking hot chocolate
but with more screaming.

Brains are less squishy
and a tad bit more squeaky
than someone might guess.

His stuck fingernail
is lodged between my molars
and makes my mouth itch

And the Pièce de résistance, from Chris L., trapped in the bathroom:

I don’t want to die.
If you are READING this, please find my wife and tell her I loved her. Tell her I’m SORRY for all the trouble I caused in our MARRIAGE and that SHE was a great wife…

Tell her I LOVED her
and THAT I want To EAT HER
AND SWALLOW HER BRAINS!

Yes, those last lines are written in haiku form! Perhaps that’s what zombies can do? Effortlessly create and write haiku. Brilliant.

Additional Thoughts: After we mentioned Ryan’s book earlier this week, he was awesome enough to email us and give us a list of his favorite haiku from the book, as well as a brand spankin’ new haiku just for Ana and myself!!!!

Thea and Ana
drag dripping handbags and moan.
Undead brain smugglers.

Here are a few of Ryan’s favorites from his book:

My rigor mortis
is mainly why I’m slower,
and the severed foot.

A man starts yelling
“when there’s no more room in Hell…”,
but then we eat him.

I loved my momma.
I eat her with my mouth closed,
how she would want it.

Shotguns don’t scare me,
which explains why I chased him,
and why I’m one-eared.

Love the Dawn of the Dead shoutout.

And, since we are confessed book dorks, check out Ryan’s video, “If Famous Poets Wrote Zombie Haiku”:

More fun is available online at his awesome website. Check it out, if you haven’t already!

Verdict: Hilarious, gruesome, and deliciously horrific. As it turns out, zombies can write haiku–and it’s bloody wonderful. Definitely recommended for any zombie (or haiku) enthusiast!

Rating: 7 Very Good

Reading Next: Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry