Released: 28 May 2016
Author: Jack Strange
OK so i was excited to get to read this early I was sent my review alpha copy a few days back and delved right in. I'm no fast reader, but on getting into this book it's certainly hard to put down.
An hour can go by while I read a good twenty or so pages.
Which isn't a good thing, because my go to place to read is usually on toilet!!!
So when i eventually decide to put this down there are usually two occurrences
1. My legs are dead
2. The rest of the household isn't happy
(we do have two toilets damn it!)
So we start this story with an erstwhile protagonist who works for a cheap cable TV channel. He's been tasks by his arse of a boss to reinvigorate an old cookery series from the seventies staring one Floyd Rampant.
( brilliantly ripping of Keith Floyd but in such a charmingly delightful yet tongue in cheek manner)
His uncle is a brilliant inventor, who just so happens to have created a machine that can bring the dead back to life.
Rampant has unfortunately been dead for quite a while, but to save his job and possibly secure a brighter future our protagonist comes up with the idea of using his uncles machine to bring back rampant from the dead so he can do a small introduction to each of his older shows episodes.
Skeptical that it even works they first try the Lazarus machine on his uncles next-door neighbors dead cat, Henderson. Dead due to our hero flattening him with his car earlier on. It works albeit not quite right as the cat ends up still being squashed in the middle.
This is all the proof he needs to gather a band of scalawags to help him dig up Rampant's corpse. Low and behold the machine works though it takes a longer time and seems to have better regenerative effects on Rampant, he's brought back only with a jaundiced yellow complexion.
Something happens here that completely surprised me, our protagonist is not the hero of the book!
There's a funny twist right here in more ways than one. So after some casual sodomy along with other desires quenched Rampant decides that him vs the UK, no better yet the world is a bit of uneven odds.
He then thanks to a program about an up coming chefcon gets the idea to recruit the chef elite as zombies and take over the world. We meet a few more hero types along the way now, which is a good good thing. OK that's as far as i'm going to spoil it folks, for you know i rarely give away the endings to things unless they are worryingly abysmal trash.
This book is far from worryingly abysmal trash, it does things to bring back my childhood of watching Keith Floyd reruns on BBC 1 and 2 then on food network. so thanks for that nostalgia. It even works to bring in a refreshingly new take on the zombie apocalypse genre.
It's not all laughs and giggles in this comedy horror it's positively gore filled and has some amazingly strong characters, even if some don't last as long as you'd like!
Just when you think you've read everything you possibly can read a new gem like this is mined from the rough. A Very enjoyable book. I would like to give this a four out of five for being a light in a tired genre, unfortunately I enjoyed it far to much to give it even that good score.
Meaning that Celebrity Chef Zombie Apocalypse is going the whole hog and getting itself a decent and strong 5 out of 5 THN gold stars. Thank you for reinvigorating a tired genre and giving me such a good read Jack!
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