By Chris Pauls and Matt Solomon
Deck Z. The Titanic. Unsinkable. Undead. Yes, you really did see that. Deck Z is about an infestation of Zombies aboard the Titanic.
The year is 1912 and Theodor Weiss, a German scientist has discovered a strange new plague that turns its victims into mindless, flesh-eating zombies. His laboratory experiments show that the sinister toxin could have a positive side � it could hold the key to a panacea for every plague.
Weiss uncovers a military plot (there�s always a military plot) to use the toxin as a biological weapon. He steals the only sample vial and decides to flee to America as far away as possible from the German Army�s operatives. As luck would have it, he manages to procure a ticket on the maiden voyage of a large, anonymous liner, where he can easily blend in and hide in plain sight. What a stroke of luck he managed to get a ticket for the Titanic�.
Ridiculous premise, and hilarious strapline aside, is Deck Z any good? Surprisingly, yes it is! Deck Z is not the most weighty of tomes, running to only 222 pages. Before reading, I presumed that Deck Z would roar along at a ridiculous pace, draw vague outlines of characters and rely on schlock and splatter to keep the reader entertained. So I was pretty surprised to find the writing was pacey, but also had some style to it. If you�re looking for historical facts and in-depth biological terminology, you�re not going to find it here. The authors have actually managed to paint a reasonably detailed picture of the characters and settings in a very small number of pages. I feel that Deck Z could have run to twice as many pages if the authors had been given the scope to add back story to the characters. That they could make their characters interesting and �solid� in such a short space of time is a talent in itself.
However, and if you love Sex, Gore and Mutants, this will be the important question, is the gore any good? There�s not actually that much of it. And what gore there is, is not lingered over. No vivid descriptions of flesh-eating, mutilation and carnage, which we would expect from the plot line. You can�t have zombies without a platter of blood, the odd gobbet of brain tissue and loving descriptions of flesh tearing, rendered in violent hues. But there is precious little of that here.
I really enjoyed Deck Z and rattled through it in a few hours. I confess that I�m a bit confused. If I�m reading something with a hilarious premise, I want blood, guts and the odd gag about escaping stomach gases. What I found in Deck Z was a ridiculous story, written well, with a big dollop of intelligence, a feel for character development and a potentially nasty cliff hanger at the end. I absolutely loved it. Deck Z is well worth a read. I also think that given more pages, Chris Pauls and Matt Solomon could write a potentially great horror story. Maybe about Vampire Nazis living underground. Or has that been done already �.??
Reviewed by Tracey Katz