My “book club” chose to start the year right by cramming Jurassic Park and Night of the Living Dead into a blender and smashing the Puree button! After we broke our blenders with those old VHS tapes, we picked up Jurassic Dead and made it the first book of 2022.
Written by Rick Chesler and David Sakmyster, Jurassic Dead follows Ecoterrorist Alex Ramirez through a wild adventure. In the beginning, Alex is exploding Russians in Antarctica in the name of Environmental Activism and soon finds himself a survivor of a ZOMBIE ATTACK! But, these aren’t any normal zombies, no, no; these are Human Dinosaur Zombie Hybrid Monsters! Or, HDZHM for short. They’re not even the slow zombies of Sean of the Dead, no these are really fast zombies like 28 Days Later. On top of that, their Dinosaur DNA gives them enhanced strength and endurance!
Oh no!
Alex’ problems only get worse when he gets caught by his dad! Angry Dad gets him out of big trouble with (the science military?) and arranges travel back to civilization. But instead of relaxing on a beach back home, Angry Dad, Alex, and some other characters find themselves on an island inhabited by a seemingly endless horde of HDZHMs… Zombies… I’m just going to call them Zombies.
Oh, also there are giant zombie dinosaurs stomping around, but they’re not really a big threat. They mostly just run around yelling “I’m gunna get ya!” in their screamy dinosaur language, but, much like a wiley coyote, they never get ya. To the best of my recollection, the Zombisaurs only munched one person, and that just isn’t enough! Six people were consumed in Jurassic Park (5 in the movie), and those were just normal, boring dinosaurs, not awesome zombie ones!
In all, the story was fun and campy. It was full of cliches, gross, gory scenes (though oddly, not involving being eaten), and a variety of characters like Scientist 7, and Military Man 4. I’d rate it a solid 3 out of 5; it kept me entertained, but also disappointed me in ways that I can’t really complain about. It told me there would be zombisaurs and I got zombisaurs.
Hopefuly the second book will have more than three Zombie Dinosaurs. With a title like ZEVOLUTION I have really high hopes for something ridiculous, like maybe a Zombisaurnado. Who knows?
Well, I will soon. It’s on the reading list.
Average Rating