Bob Fingerman

It's the zombie apocalypse, and a handful of survivors are holed up in a Manhattan apartment building, caught between a seething mass of the undead out in the street and a seething mass of toxic masculinity inside. There's kind of an interesting premise for a zombie story here, and a bit of humor and such, but, honestly, it really is primarily just a constant parade of dysfunctional male horniness, from the pathetic to the downright psychopathic. There are some female characters, mind you. show more There's the one, for instance, who somehow manages to exist mostly only in relationship to men and/or babies even when we're in her POV. And the plot device one, whose primary trait is her lack of a personality. I don't mean that she's written two-dimensionally, either. I mean, that's literally her deliberate defining characteristic, leaving her free to be used, abused, and lusted after by men without the hindrance of actually having any opinions about it.

And, OK, there is a bit of a satiric, or at least sardonic flavor to all of this, or a vague attempt at one, anyway. Fingerman certainly isn't putting these guys forward as role models, especially the vile frat boy rapist character. But, still. Ugh. It's not even so much that it's all highly unpleasant. Zombie novels are allowed to be unpleasant. It's that it gets so tedious. At one point, I literally yelled "I'm tired of hearing about your fucking boner!" at the page. Fortunately, I was alone at the time.

Rating: 2.5/5. Usually, books that I rate that low have poorer writing than this one, just on a prose level. But in this case the decent-enough writing is probably the main thing saving it from a lower rating still. show less

This was an in-depth look at a modern day vampire trying to etch out a living in New York City. A bit of a whiner, Phil finds immortality has many drawbacks and isn’t the smooth sailing he has been led to believe by books and movies. He misses the sun, having to go out only at night. He finds it difficult to continue in his normal life as he looks 27 but is 54, people are starting to notice that he looks too young. His family have finally passed on, after years of looking at him strangely, show more disgust and horror slowly dawning on their faces. Feeding is both time consuming and difficult, he has been trying to limit himself to feeding every other day and picking on the homeless, or setting himself up to be mugged and turning on the mugger.

New friends are hard to make and old friends have disappeared from his life. Except for one old friend, his weirdo friend Shelly that he wishes would go away. Instead he appears at the worst times and clings to him like a leech.

Then things change when he meets Eddy, a fellow vampire. Eddy becomes his guide through the dark and twisted underbelly of vampire life in New York City. One of the things I took from this book is that people are strange, whether they are vampires or not. And New York City is the Mecca towards which strange people gravitate.

A different look at vampires. Inventive, darkly humorous and sadly depressing, yet a very intriguing genre read that actually is original. show less

A darkly humorous, modern twist on the vampire story. Phil Merman is immortal, but hates his life. A middle-aged man in the body of a twenty-seven year old, he has no family or friends, except the deeply creepy and persistent Shelley Poole, and works part time digitally archiving old photographs of violent deaths. He feeds on the sly, venturing out into the bowels of New York to prey on the dregs of society, because he figures homeless people and drug dealers will never be missed. Such is show more his depressing existence until he meets Eddie Frye, an older and better connected vampire who introduces him to more of their 'kind' in the city, and then life really starts to get complicated for Phil.

The vampire in fiction enjoys the same immortality as the legendary bloodsuckers themselves, from Dracula to Twlight - there will always be a market for such novels, so it's fun to read wry interpretations of the classic tale every now and again. Phil Merman is a miserable vampire - he didn't want to be 'turned', misses his wife, hates his job, and really detests having to feed on the great unwashed to assuage his conscience, such as it is: 'I was never part of the rah-rah , up with people pep squad, but I used to have some empathy. The late great Bill Hicks once described humanity as, "a virus with shoes". Maybe so. But to paraphrase the Beef Council, "[Human]. It's what's for dinner." ' Neither does he understand the appeal of immortality, which is the one supposed advantage of vampirism that I can never understand - who wants to live forever? He's just getting along, living by himself, working at night, and getting more bitter and twisted with every unchanging year. Phil's running commentary on his pathetic existence is smart, snappy and observant, however, sort of like hard-boiled narrators Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe gone over to the dark side. St-st-stuttering Shelley is more of a comic book creation, and his obsession with Phil is rather predictable, but then Phil's reaction, and not the action itself, makes this such an entertaining novel. Eddie the mentor also amused me greatly. show less

Pariah is a book about zombies. I love zombies. Naturally, I expected to enjoy this book, but I was completely unprepared for how amazing Pariah was.

It's the zombie apocalypse and the government has boarded people up in their apartment buildings. As those few humans struggle to survive, they notice a girl who can walk among the zombies. Mona wanders unharmed through streets filled with shambling undead. The zombies see her, they just don't care. While the survivors try to unravel the mystery show more as to why Mona is immune, psychological aspects start coming into play. Trapped with neighbors for months, hiding from certain bloody death has caused mental health to deteriorate. Mona's ability pushes some survivors a little closer to the edge.

The thing that made Pariah that much better than other zombie books was the humor. It was biting, very dark and mean at times. It fit with the situation the survivors found themselves in. People are on edge, at their very breaking point and the sarcasm laced dialogue is deep, funny and feels almost too real.

Pariah includes zombie portraits drawn by the author. These were both impressively done and helpful to understanding the state the zombies are in. Pariah is funny and disturbing with terror on many levels both fantastical and realistic. Definitely the cream of the zombie crop. show less