Review: Zombies vs Unicorns - Inoculata & Cold Hands

Zombies vs Unicorns
Multiple authors (anthology)
Release date: September 21st, 2010
by Margaret K. McElderry

Goodreads / Purchase

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths--for good and evil--of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

*This review is part of Zombies vs Unicorns month co-hosted with Literary Exploration, YA-Aholic and YA Bookmark*

Review of Inoculata by Scott Westerfeld & Cold Hands by Cassandra Clare

From Uglies and Mortal Instruments... to zombies! Seems like everyone is converting to zombies! I don't blame them, team zombie really is where it's at!

Scott Westerfeld and Cassandra Clare's stories have something in common, and that something is also what was discussed in Lia Habel's guest post last week - they both make it clear that zombies are not dumb! From George Romero's slow, sluggish, mindless flesh-eaters, to the 28 Days Later or Zombieland zombies who are capable of intelligent thoughts, are fast and self-aware. Yep, zombies have evolved. They can even become boyfriend material - although that still raises eyebrows if you really think about it. The point is : zombies are underestimated. Scott and Cassandra have both brought up this evolution in their stories. One considers that zombies are simply bored, while the other has them living amongst humans like old friends who smell. 

Zombie evolution

As my first venture into this book of zombies and unicorns anthologies, I was satisfied and amused. I picked both of these first because I have a fondness of their previous work and found myself super curious how they would write zombies. I found the Scott story pretty entertaining - I even wished it was novel-length. It definitely has a really intriguing concept. As for the Cassandra story, it was passable. It felt very weak as far as the zombie "world-building". I could think of quite a few plot holes behind the zombie existence. Regardless, it was still light and fun.

4 Hot Espressos

Review: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes
(The Mortal Instruments, #2)
Cassandra Clare
Published March 25th, 2008
by Simon & Schuster

A murderer is loose in New York City ...

... and the victims are Downworlder children. Clary Fray and her fellow Shadowhunters have a strong suspicion that Valentine, Clary's father, may be behind the killings. But if he is the murderer, then what's his true motive? To make matters worse, the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, has been stolen, and the mysterious Inquisitor has arrived to investigate, with his eyes vigilantly targeted on Clary's brother, Jace.

Clary will need to face some terrifying demons and even more terrifying family decisions. No one said that the life of a Shadowhunter would be easy.

City of Ashes is the sequel to City of Bones. It's a strong and gratifying installment. It had a lot more happening than in the first, very action packed, still witty and sarcastic, though the storyline as a whole didn't advance very much. I did still enjoy it, maybe even a bit more than City of Bones.

The characters weren't any more developed in this book. Everyone is basically the same, well except for one. We're introduced to a few new characters though. The one that stands out the most is Immogen, she's a Bitch! But keeps things interesting for sure. Also, I know it's going to be resolved (or so I'm told) but the Clare/Jace relationship is still weird to me. I guess being in their shoes it would be hard to accept it and move on, but still icky.

Just one quick note on the writing. I notice the re-use of a few eye rolling quotes from the first book : "quick as a flick of Isabelle's whip"? Just reading that makes me feel awkward.

There weren't as many twists in this one. And the few given weren't hard to figure out, however it didn't make them any less interesting. I'm really loving where they're going with Simon. I'm intrigued to find out why he's as he is. There are a lot of openings for City of Glass and it's bound to be very interesting and hopefully we'll have a lot of questions answered.

4 Hot Espressos

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Previously reviewed in The Mortal Instruments series: