Zombies vs Unicorns, an Anthology (2010)

zombies vs unicorns
holly black, justine larbalastier, editors

read: august 2010

So, as you should know by now, I'm not really a huge fan of short story collections, as I'm not really a fan of short stories. however, a lot of my favorite YA authors have chosen this year to be part of anthologies (Diana Peterfreund, Claudia Gray, I'm looking at you!), i have found myself reading more of them.

Which makes them a little hard to review - having so many different stories and authors.

However, I think this is the best collection I've read in a long time. First of all, you have zombies, which usually means the end of the world, which of course I love. And then you have killer unicorns, which thanks to Ms. Peterfreud, are the coolest things ever.

I remain fully on Team Unicorn, though Scott Westerfeld's zombie story, and Carrie Ryan (come on, she like re-invented zombies) as well as Garth Nix's (truly creepy - wait, that might have been a unicorn story too) were stand-outs on the zombie side.

But when you have a baby unicorn in a cardboard box in a garage who you know is a man-eating monster, another unicorn named (I kid you not) PRINCESS PRETTYPANTS who actually FARTS RAINBOWS, is there really a chance? Meg Cabot, I love you too.

Plus it was edited quite well, though I think Justine did a much better job defending zombies than Holly did with unicorns. But that's probably just because unicorns haven't always been scary, while zombies have. Going against the grain!

Conclusion: enough stories that I don't think you should miss to read it.

(Winners: Diana Peterfreund, Meg Cabot, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfeld, Carrie Ryan. Major winners.)