Moving Forward A Novella of Life After Zombies by Jamie Lackey

​Aha, thought the name sounded familiar. Check and yes, I’ve read the author before. Twice, in fact. Both times to great enjoyment. This novella didn’t bring great enjoyment, but some enjoyment was had all the same. And the primary cause of that enjoyment was the story’s originality. Something not easy to do in zombie fiction, because there’s so much of it.
And most of it follows a formula. And this one didn’t. There are, mind you, a few genre books that focus instead on zombies as thinking beings, Scott Kenemore’s books come to mind for one thing, but this is more like the long game situation.
So a zombie tried to snack on you and you got away? Well, the good news is that you’re ok, for the moment anyway and possibly for the foreseeable future, it’s a death sentence, but a prolonged one and not without its perks. You’ll get stronger, tougher, you’ll practically become a superhero…and then it might eventually kill you. Or not, You may have months or decades. But in any case, there is life afterwards and a forward direction.
It’s an interesting set of rules. And the book’s protagonist finds herself living them after she heroically intervenes one day during a zombie attack in the park. So the social and familiar implications and ramifications of her situation are really interesting, especially when it comes to her family.
After the attack, she gets to go live in a facility for similar inbetween individuals and the book follows her story. I didn’t find a story especially emotionally engaging, which is most likely a strictly personal thing and would vary for different readers, but it was an entertainignr ead all the same. A short and fairly compelling read and it does a good job of reinventing the rules of a familiar story, so for that, kudos. Zombie fans (and why wouldn’t you be a zombie fan, seriously?) will likely enjoy this original novella. Thanks Netgalley.