Book Review: Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion

I'm afraid that I'm the one who feels like a zombie as I sit here doing the prep work to finish off this blog post and publish to the greater World Wide Web.  I could say it has something to do with the book being reviewed below, but to be honest, I wrote this review nearly a month ago, and was simply waiting to post until I was off the holiday break in December.  No, the problem is more localized than just a rather... ahem... obtuse book.  More like my battery is run low right now.

Still looking for either part-time day work to supplement my night job, or in lieu of that, full-time daytime work that pays well enough to replace what I have now.  Money is still incredibly tight, but we're hanging in there. 

Played checkers with my six-year old for the first time on Thursday afternoon.  She won the first game by a close margin, but I mauled her for the second.  And then she wanted to play a Barbie matching game.  Good fun, overall.

And hey - now it's Friday!  That's always a good thing.  Hope your day is going well.

Source: Amazon.com

Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion, by Alan Goldsher

From the book’s cover:

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT'S TIME TO REALLY MEET THE BEATLES.

For John Lennon, a young, idealistic zombie guitarist with dreams of global domination, Liverpool seems the ideal place to form a band that could take over the world. In an inspired act, Lennon kills and reanimates local rocker Paul McCartney, kicking off an unstoppable partnership. With the addition of newly zombified guitarist George Harrison and drummer/Seventh Level Ninja Lord Ringo Starr, the Beatles soon cut a swath of bloody good music and bloody violent mayhem across Europe, America, and the entire planet.

In this searing oral history, discover how the Fab Four climbed to the Toppermost of the Poppermost while stealing the hearts, ears, and brains of smitten teenage girls. Learn the tale behind a spiritual journey that resulted in the dismemberment of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Marvel at the seemingly indestructible quartet’s survival of a fierce attack by Eighth Level Ninja Lord Yoko Ono. And find out how the boys escaped eternal death at the hands of England’s greatest zombie hunter, Mick Jagger.

Through all this, one mystery remains: Can the Beatles sublimate their hunger for gray matter, remain on top of the charts, and stay together for all eternity? After all, three of the Fab Four are zombies, and zombies live forever. . .

Synopsis:

I can only give half a book's worth of synopsis. I did not make it through the whole thing. Basically, this is a zombie/undead stylized version of the history of the Beatles. If the "Fab Four" were three zombies and a ninja lord, that is. The alternative world in which these Beatles exists is one in which zombies are commonplace, and so are vampires, super-human ninjas, ghosts, etc...

The book starts by recounting the early careers of the members of the band, including the variety of "fifth" Beatles that were part of the band in its formative days. At least as far as I know, that is; I'm no Beatlesologist by any means.

The book focuses on John Lennon to start with, postulating that he was bitten by a zombie as a baby, and that this experience caused him to be part of the "Liverpool Process" of zombies, a unique bunch who are quite powerful, quick, and capable of doing many super-human feats of skill and such. Lennon then brings Paul MaCartney in, and then George Harrison, and later Ringo Starr joins (though Ringo is a Ninja Lord and not a zombie like the others).


The author, Alan Goldsher / Source: AlanGoldsher.com


I got through the book to a part past where the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. The book says that these "zombie" Beatles were trying to take over the world via hypnosis, and that during their famous appearance on that now historic variety show, they put a trance on the entire audience viewing or listening, told them to buy their debut album, and then were unable to say what else they wanted their captive audience to do because their hypnosis trick wore off too soon. The book does not disclose what the next two steps of the Beatles commands were to be. The book evokes a chuckle here, but for me, these chuckles were in relatively short supply. Read on and I'll explain.

I can only assume that the book follows the rest of the Beatles story in rough form. It adds in the constant embellishments of a scary world full of monsters, senseless violence, zombie sex behaviors, drugs, vampires, ninjas... I said all this already, yes? Well, look up the history of the Beatles and then imagine it all with a gloss of slime and filth, and you've got the idea.

What I liked about it:

There were a few funny parts. For one, and this could be from an actual biography, there is an account from Mic Jagger (after a supposed zombie hunter/zombie battle between him and the three of the Beatles in a recording studio): "Next thing I remember it's three days later and I'm passed out in Keith Richard's bathtub, right next to Keith Richards, who, as was often the case, was also passed out in Keith Richard's bathtub." Good one.

As for the audiobook itself, it deserves praise. The narrator was first-rate. He does imitations of the various members of the band, as well as Mic Jagger, a passable Ed Sullivan, Howard Cosell, Bob Dylan, and I'm sure the others whose voices I didn't know were also top-notch renditions. This was probably why I managed to make it through over half the book. The delivery was nice.

Comic book artist Jeffrey Brown took inspiration from Paul Is Undead and drew up some illustrations from the book's plot.  / Source: ComicsAlliance.com

What I didn’t like about it:

I'm sorry to be down on this thing, if you have read it already and happen to like this book. I mean no disrespect of a particular sort or another. But for me, the half of it that I did read was a near complete waste of time. The book is one of those mash-ups that attempt to imbue literature or historic events with some far-out concept. I read one like this previously, and reviewed it fairly positively. The book in question was Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I liked that one for the most part, but Paul is Undead lacked most of the charm that Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters had.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't faint away at foul language, violence, drugs content, nor even some raunchy sex material - though all those would have affected my recommendation of the book just the same. And Paul is Undead has all these things, in spades. And yes, I also fully realize the Beatles were by no means choir boys in real life. They had their share of wild adventures and drugs and sex and such. But the inclusion of the preposterous zombie/fantasy monster content was just way overboard. It is as if the author, Goldsher, was trying to be as absurd as possible. And that's OK, I guess, but it really got to be a bit much for me. Every sentence in the book goes to great lengths to hype the zombie stuff to overt - and too often obscene - degrees. It lacks any semblance of subtlety.

I guess I might have stuck it out, as I did through Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (and that one was silly too), but Paul is Undead seemed to lack the genuine charisma and innate appeal the narrative of that other book offers. For example, when the Beatle zombies smoke Marijuana, their necrotic digestive systems expel purple flatulence of a most foul nature. The riffing of the author on this "purple haze gas" got real old, real fast for me. And this is only one little tidbit of a mountain of gross-out silliness that just wore me down.

What I learned, if anything:

Nothing of great value, I'm afraid. The historical details of the real Beatles is so obscured that I was left wanting to read a real book about them just so I might separate out the clunky content from Paul is Undead. Don't come to this book seeking any real knowledge, unless you are into wild conspiracy theories about how the Beatles were really keen on murder and Edgar Allen Poe and stuff. Hey, maybe they were (for all I really know), but that doesn't excuse this book, just the same.

Photographic portrait of the "Fab Four," with their attendant signatures.  You'd be surprised (or maybe not) by all the stuff you get when you type in "Zombie Beatles" or "Paul is Dead" into a Google Image search.  I decided to skip most of it and just put this rather vanilla image here instead. / Source: The KidsWindow.co.uk

Recommendation:

Seeing as I didn't finish the book, you can take that alone for what it is worth. It is not particularly poorly written, but the subject matter combined with the constant gross-out factor of the zombies and their blood and maggot-soaked "lives," violence, brain-eatings and creepy sexual escapades was enough to turn me off.

Then again, if you take it as being just silly and dumb, and you enjoy all the zombie stuff and the repetitiousness of the jokes and the gags and such, you might like this one. To me, it was like those "Garbage Pail Kid" trading cards from my boyhood. Almost as though the author and some buddies got together and said: "How gross and revolting can we be?" The book appeals to a juvenile sense of taste, and there is certainly a market for that. If you are that market, sign right up for Paul is Undead.

Learn more about Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion. by Alan Goldsher, on Amazon.com


The parting comment:



While on the subject of zombies, this one is interesting.  Maybe a zombie apocalypse isn't so far-fetched after all, yeah?

A two-for-one on parting comments today.

Source: WikiHow.com

 People say I use a lot of commas.  I say, I'm just trying to keep things in perspective.  After all, a comma could be the difference between a simple afternoon snack with a loved one and a ravaging horde of cannibals chasing a geriatric meal on the hoof.  I'm just saying.