Zombies vs. Unicorns, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier
Author: Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier, editors
Genre: YA Anthology / Fantasy and Horror
Pages: 432
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in November 2010
I guess Black and Larbalestier have been debating the merits of zombies vs. unicorns on the Internet for a while now, but I missed the hoopla until it finally spilled over into this anthology of twelve stories. At first, I thought that each story would be a death match between a zombie and a unicorn, but that would have gotten old fast, so I’m glad instead that each author represents a side: on Team Zombie, it’s Alaya Dawn Johnson, Carrie Ryan, Maureen Johnson, Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare, and Libba Bray; on Team Unicorn, it’s Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, Margo Lanagan, Diana Peterfreund, Meg Cabot, and Kathleen Duey.
The two editors, Holly Black pulling for unicorns and Justine Larbalestier for zombies, duke it out in the introductions to each story. These “arguments” get repetitive quickly, because when it comes right down to it, there isn’t much to say about zombies vs. unicorns that isn’t handled better just by reading the stories. I’m not saying that some of these intro pieces are not funny, because they are, but as a cumulative effect they grow boring. Still, it doesn’t cost much to read them, and they do introduce points of contention in the zombies vs. unicorn debate (for example, is it more interesting that zombies represent society’s political or social illnesses, or that unicorns paradoxically symbolize both virginity and raw sexuality?).
I’ve read a lot of zombie stories (and seen a lot of movies), but my experience with unicorns is more limited: Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, which I don’t remember well as a novel or a cartoon from my childhood; Holly Black’s short story “Virgin”, and . . . that’s about all I can remember. So, I was actually looking forward to reading the unicorn stories, just to see what’s out there in the modern day, but I ended up on Team Zombie anyway. I don’t know if I find zombies more interesting because I enjoyed the stories more, or if I enjoyed the stories more because I find zombies more interesting, but it’s still the case: overall, the zombies won out.
I liked all of the zombie stories in this collection, but my top ones were: “The Children of the Revolution”, by Maureen Johnson, the zombie babysitting story which was funny and creepy and had a killer ending; “Bougainvillea”, by Carrie Ryan, which is set in the same universe (after the Return) as her two novels and continues her excellent storytelling; and “Prom Night”, by Libba Bray, which had a subtle, disquieting ending as doomed teenagers, after all of the adults in town have been quarantined or killed, attempt to soldier on with the high school tradition of prom.
For the unicorn stories, the only one I really cared for was “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn”, by Diana Peterfreund, which is set in her Rampant universe and definitely made me want to read the novel. Several of the stories explored the dangerous side of unicorns, but this was the one I felt did it best. I also enjoyed Meg Cabot’s “Princess Prettypants” as a kind of as tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted revenge fantasy, and I thought two of the others - Margo Lanagan’s and Kathleen Duey’s - were both disturbing in a good way. (I’ve come to expect that from both of them, though I’ll admit that as someone who admires Lanagan’s short stories, I was kind of disappointed in her entry.)
Both sides of the debate concerned themselves with issues of power, violence, and sexual desire (or should I say, sexual hunger?), but I thought it was curious that a lot of the zombie stories I liked had a strong romance element, involving zombies of various sentience levels, while several of the unicorn stories focused more on their dangerous side, often as a vengeful judge/punisher of wrongdoing.
Cover comments: Honestly, this book should sell based on the cover design alone. The cut-out of the zombie fighting a unicorn, and the cartoonish but graphically violent scenes of their death match ranging over hill and dale, is some of the most clever packaging I’ve seen. Not only does it effectively present the focus of the book, it’s hilarious and eye-catching. It's like looking at an I-Spy or Where's Waldo book, but with a sick twist.