I Left My Brains in San Francisco: More than Just Zombies

Lately, I’ve caught myself reading books with zombies in it.

I don’t really like horror. I read enough of it in my youth to stock me up in nightmares for years to come.

But zombie books are…well, I guess they’re horror. Right?

Even so, I can’t help but recommend I Left My Brains in San Francisco, the second Neeta Lyffe book. (I loved the first one, too.)

Though it’s a book with zombies in it, it’s so much more than that.

Author Karina Fabian writes from a place of hilarity and faith, and somehow, there are zombies involved.

Here’s a taste of what you’ll find in the book (shared in a recent interview I did of her at CatholicMom.com):

Action!

The zombie before her was more of a blur. Her peripheral vision had grayed. Her thoughts scattered and ran about like scared rabbits. She couldn’t go down the side. She couldn’t fight. She couldn’t make the stairs. The catwalk pounded with more undead answering this one’s call.

The zombie had herded her toward the dead end.

It reached for her and reflexively, she kicked at it with her good leg, a modified roundhouse to knock its hand away. She managed to kick off two of its fingers, and it paused in confusion as they flew over the side.

Romance!

Backlit by the blaze, the man she loved swung a monofilament sword at the last undead, taking its neck off in a clean 360-swing.

Her heart pounded in her chest for reasons having nothing to do with extermination.

He walked to her, swinging the sword in fancy swoops before turning it off.

“Ted, how?” She pointed at the burning hoard.

She could hear the grin in his voice. “Napalm sticks to zombies.”

If they hadn’t been covered in gore, she’d have thrown herself at him on the spot.

Humor!

While Rii stood by with a power blaster of anti-zombie foam, Hi ambled up to the prone zombie, sword relaxed but ready in his left hand. He watched the undead mime struggle against the imaginary coffin, nodded appreciatively, and tossed a twenty into the hat. Immediately, the Wasted Mime started clawing with fervor, dug himself up, and brushed himself off.

Now some of the crowd in the front stepped back, but those behind them did not budge.

It picked up the hat, checked the money.

The crowd took in a breath.

It faced Hi.

Hi made a polite little bow.

The crowd gasped. Cameras flashed.

The zombie bowed back, deeply and theatrically.

Hi lashed out with his sword, its blade cutting deeply and theatrically into the zombie’s neck.

The re-killed corpse folded over.

The crowd broke into wild cheers.

Kelsey smiled big for the camera. “And there you have it! Looks like a mime isn’t such a terrible thing to waste after all. I’m Kelsey Gardenberger and we just had ‘Time to Re-kill’ on the Zomblog.”

I really enjoyed this book, and since the version I read was an early version, I am looking forward to snuggling up with it again here soon. (I have earned a few novels. Oh yes. I have.)

One of the things I most love about Fabian and her writing is how she doesn’t pull any stops. She’s unabashedly Catholic, but that doesn’t ruin her writing (and oh, haven’t we all seen that?). She’s unapologetically hilarious, but that doesn’t make them unimportant. She’s rooted in scifi and horror, but she finds a way to appeal to me through the drama and characterization she does so well.

All in all, highly recommended.

*Yes, I know Karina. Quite well. That doesn’t stop me from being a fangirl and from choosing to promote and review her book of my own volition.