Kevin Long, who is the author of The Undead At War is the same person as the Republibot 3.0 who wrote Ice Cream and Venom, which I reviewed a while back (I note that he’s come out of the closet on that authorship now). I thought his work showed a lot of promise then, and I’m happy to report that he’s only gotten better as a writer.
Although there are some stand-alone stories in the collection, the bulk of the stories fall into two sequences—the Undead stories (which, in spite of expectations, are not about zombies or vampires), and the Redneck Universe stories, which culminate in the last part of the book, a novella called “Home Again.”
The Undead stories are actually concerned with the question of medical life extension. What if we could preserve the brains of people whose bodies have died, hook them up to a virtual reality scenario, and put their brain power to work? Plenty of moral ambiguities are explored, and the texture of the narrative is enriched by the fact that the narrator, one of the Undead himself, is not a particularly admirable man, and has every reason to wish to postpone his absolute death.
The Redneck Universe stories have a Heinleinian flavor, and concern a mass exodus from earth by a large number of people who form colonies—entirely without the support of any terrestrial government—on distant planets. The essential theme of all these stories is the alienation experienced by people trying to find a way to be human in environments no human has ever known before. The narrator of “Home Again,” the bittersweet novella at the end of the book, is further torn when, on returning to earth, he finds himself (because of the effects of relativity) subjectively only a few years older than when he left, but faced with a world where everything has experienced decades of change. Christians are likely to have trouble with the one religious scene in this story, and also with its conclusion, which is nevertheless dramatically justified.
If you’re a science fiction fan, especially one with libertarian views, I think you’ll probably like The Undead At War. Cautions for language and adult situations.
, being a sympathetic boy who grows into a despicable coward and returns to being sympathetic again. It’s a beautiful, challenging picture of divine grace (not like the one to the right here). 