Snell's novella, "Mortal Gods": Superheroes battle zombies and Lovecraftian beasts.

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Product Description

Join authors D.L. Snell, John Sunseri, Ryan C. Thomas, and David Dunwoody as they fire four more rounds into the growing horde of living dead. * MILLION-DOLLAR MONEY SHOT: The dead are rising in Aruba, and Vince has just made off with a couple million in mob money. As if mob hit men and rotting corpses weren't bad enough, the big trouble is the creatures in the water-the ones who only come onto shore at night... * MORTAL GODS: A man with the ability to call objects into existence awakens in a zombie-swarmed alley with no memory of his past. Aided by a duo of heroes-one incredibly strong, the other psychic-he digs to uncover his identity and the source of his gift in a nightmarish landscape infested with mysterious creatures. * LOST SOULS: Three art students on a working vacation at an isolated New England cottage make a terrible discovery. The rustic setting seems to be perfect inspiration, but their lives are quickly consumed by the ghastly legacy of what lives beneath the nearby cemetery. * ENEMY UNSEEN: It's not the sight of the walking dead that scares CIA agent Rhonda White. It's the fact that someone is controlling them-someone whose new bio-weapon is up for bid on the black market. And if Rhonda doesn't stop it, the world will never be the same.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #281263 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

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Customer Reviews

Four mini shots of zombie greatness
THE UNDEAD: HEADSHOT QUARTET is the fourth installment in Permuted Press highly entertaining zombie anthology series THE UNDEAD. This installment marks a departure from the regular form in that normally books in the UNDEAD series contain short stories rather than long fiction. But, as the name implies, HEADSHOT QUARTET is a collection of four zombie novellas with varying themes and styles that compliment each other quite well. Let's take a look at them shall we?

Million Dollar Money Shot by John Sunseri- Vince has a problem. Once, a few days and a lifetime ago, he was a hit man. But since then, things have changed. Now he's in Aruba on the run from his former employers with a bit of their money and the dead have stopped dying and are hungry for human flesh. And that's not the worst part. The worst part are the angry, tough as nails fish men that come out of the sea at night.

This novella grabbed me from page one and didn't let go until I was about halfway through the next tale. Sunseri's prose is very engaging, easy to read, and highly entertaining. The tale is a real page turner, starting off strong and not letting up even at the end. The characters are all believable, the dialogue is realistic, and the story overall is very satisfying as part of this collection or as a stand alone. All in all "Million Dollar Money Shot" is a perfect contribution to the UNDEAD series.

Enemy Unseen by Ryan C. Thomas- CIA analyst and Cuban specialist Rhonda White has just been handed her first field assignment: to find the name of a man who has been seen with drug smugglers and gun runners. Seems simple enough right? Wrong. Soon enough Rhonda is up to her neck in the living dead, Voodoo rituals, and a new biological weapon that could mean the end of the world as we know it.

Thomas's style holds the readers attention and manages to weave a very interesting tale to boot. The story, while a bit slower paced than its predecessor, is no less engaging. The interpersonal dynamic between White and the agent assigned to help her as well as that with her superiors adds a very nice layered feel to the tale, though at novella length it feels as if it is a bit rushed. Enemy Unseen would have worked better as a longer piece, though it manages to come across quite well all on its own.

Lost Souls by David Dunwoody- Three art students on a winter vacation to an isolated New England cabin are looking for a retreat from everything, with a chance to work on their individual thesis. Instead, what they find is an old cabin with a past, a cemetery haunted by the surprisingly real corpses of it's occupants, and land whose very earth is cursed. Will any of them make it out alive?

For fans of Dunwoody's previous work, particularly his tale "Grinning Samuel" in THE UNDEAD, you won't find any better tale in this collection than "Lost Souls". While not my personal favorite out of the four offerings, there is a lot to enjoy here. The story is well paced, the dialogue is very interesting, and there are just enough scares and splatter to appease the most die-hard hardcore horror fan.

Mortal Gods by D.L. Snell- A young man with no memory, no name, and the ability to make objects magically appear out of thin air teams up with a psychic and a strong man to save the world (or at least their city) from the living dead , giant spiders, and Lovecraft-ian beasts. Will his search for his identity lead them to a solution to the problem of the living dead? Or will any of them survive long enough to find out?

Ever present in THE UNDEAD series, Snell once again delivers his special brand of cross trope zombie fiction. This time he combines not only zombies and tentacles, as he did in ROSES OF BLOOD, but he has also mixed in super heros, psychics, and maniacal Fulci dreamscapes. All of this in lesser hands could lead to a very muddled mess, especially in the shortened length of a novella, but it is a testament to the talent of Mr. Snell that it manages not only to work as a novella, but as a damn good story to boot.

All said, HEADSHOT QUARTET is one hell of a collection and deserves a place on your shelf, preferably right next to your copies of the other UNDEAD books. This collection is amazing, and in my opinion is the best contribution to this series since the first collection. Definitely a buy.

(This review first posted by myself over at [...])

Zombie goodness!
Once again Permuted Press does not let down. Four tales of zombie madness. each one is different and the collection as a whole manages to put a few new twists on the good ol' zombie genre. Good reading right here friends. Read or die!

Four for fighting
The latest installment of the Undead anthologies consists of four novellas that take us in four new directions for loads of zombie fun.
While each story is unique, at least three of them have anywhere from a scent to a full blown flavor of HP Lovecraft. I loved reading Lovecraft years ago and Million Dollar Money Shot in particular ties in well with the whole Lovecraftian Mythos. I felt that Lost Souls, with its dark and foreboding New England setting also had a hint of Lovecraft to it, and Mortal Gods ties in with DL Snells novel Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines, which seemed pretty heavily influenced by good 'ol HP as well. Enemy Unseen takes things in a slightly different direction, with traditional voodoo instead of a more Romeroesque approach to the undead.
Overall, this was a fun read and my desires to criticize each story fairly limited. Yes, I could have seen one or two of the stories being served well if they were full blown novels but each author was able to put together a pretty nice tale, mostly with less than 100 pages each.
Overall, a great compilation and I look forward to more novellas like this one in future editions of "The Undead".