Zombies vs. Unicorns

Before we get down to talking about how zombies are better than unicorns, we have to announce the winner of the signed Sarah Rees Brennan books. Only...we're not going to just announce the winner. You'll have to read below to see who it was!

Recently two of us here at whatchYAreading sat down and read a fantastic anthology full of our favourite authors. We both liked it so much that we thought we'd do a joint review. And that's where things went wrong. We tried to agree on a favourite story, a favourite author, but we couldn't. All of our communications we suddenly filled with shouts of "Team Unicorn!" Or "Zombie's eat unicorn's for breakfast!"

And so, we did what any self-respecting book blogger would do. We had an argument.

Team Unicorn: Unicorns kick zombie ass and the whole world knows it.

Team Zombie: I'm sorry. I think you have that backwards. ZOMBIES are the ass kickers. Unicorns are prissy losers.

Team Unicorn: Nono, this book proves my theory. Unicorns Win. Zombies...wither away because no one cares about them.

Team Zombie: What are you talking about? Zombies ruled this book! Did you not read Carrie Ryan's story!?

Team Unicorn: I read it...and then quickly moved on to Margo Lanagan's which was funny and awesome.

Team Zombie: If by Margo you mean Maureen, and by Lanagan you mean Johnson, then ok, that makes sense. Or perhaps you meant Cassandra Clare? Her story was as amazing as her books. The gut clenching angst of it was...amazing. See? I can't even speak I'm so stupefied by the zombies' infinite superiority

Team Unicorn: ....actually, Maureen Johnson is possibly my favourite author in this book so I'll give you a point there. But that is exactly why the Unicorn's totally rocked this book. The majority of my favourite authors were on Team Zombie and I still loved the unicorn stories more.

Team Zombie: Well, the majority of my favorite authors were on Team Zombie and I still loved the Zombie stories more. Your point is negated.

Team Unicorn: Did you read The Third Virgin? How was that not awesome, and metaphorical, and brilliant? Man, I want to meet a disturbed and violent unicorn

Team Zombie: It was good, sure. But Bougainvillea was better.

Team Unicorn: I disagree.

Team Zombie: Zombies are harder to love, and yet the stories are all so good! I mean come on, farting rainbows? Way less cool than decomposing flesh and brain nomming.

Team Unicorn: Yeah, but that Unicorn helped with a rescue mission! And high school vengeance! All the zombies did was...eat people. Gross.

Team Zombie: Unicorns killed Nymphadora Tonks. John Green said so. It therefore must be true.

Team Unicorn: Don't bring John Green into this. If the author wasn't in the book, they are a moot point.

Team Zombie: John Green writes honest books about reality and how hard life is! YOU MUST TRUST HIM!

Team Unicorn: See previous point. (Also, John Green licked a cat....and you're telling me trust him?)

Team Zombie: I bet Scott Westerfield would agree with John Green. And HE is in the book. On the winning side!

Team Unicorn: Yeah, and his story had rebellious teenagers being idiots.

Team Zombie: Right. Humans. Not zombies!

Team Unicorn: They voluntarily became zombies. And then screwed with each other emotionally.

Team Zombie: I didn't see them lining up to become unicorns. Did you!?

Team Unicorn: Dude! I will join that line! Diana Peterfreund wrote a story about girl who discovers her own strength and passion. She went against the social norm and made a discovery that will affect her whole world. What did people in zombie stories do? Get eaten, watch others get eaten, and generally think about death and destruction. Lame. Unicorns saved lives, reputations, and kingdoms. And some of them killed people. The cover so much more than dumb old zombies.

Team Zombie: Some of them killed people? You had unicorns sucking the lives out of people! Lame. Eating brains is way cooler. Besides, the zombie metaphor is the cooler metaphor

Team Unicorn: But I only saw one metaphor with the zombies. The unicorn's can be altered to fit a plethora of metaphors.

Team Zombie: Which makes them less cool. They don't have an identity! And really, Zombies are a cooler fear. The undead, digging yourself out of a grave, the constant need to feed. The writhing and unstoppable masses of The Returned in Carrie Ryan's world? How can that not send a weird spark of discomfort through you.

Team Unicorn: Yeah..discomfort. I prefer the awesome spark that Unicorns send though me.

Team Zombie: No, no, no! The idea that the dead can't stay dead, that they're the people that you loved but they aren't them anymore.So much more tragic than fluffy white unicorns. Unicorns just make you giggle. Like, if I saw an angry unicorn, I'd laugh. Zombies....shudder.

Team Unicorn: Unicorns have a permanent weapon on their head. They are nothing to laugh about. Zombies are dumb and slow and ugly.

Team Zombie: I permanently keep a can of mace in my car. That doesn't make me dangerous. I mean, look. At the end of the day, if I got stabbed with a unicorn horn, maybe my life could be saved. If I got my brain eaten, I'd just be a zombie. Zombies make more zombies. Superiority. They are a conquering monster!

Team Unicorn: You don't unicorns make more unicorns? Despite the unicorn enjoying the presence of a virgin, this doesn't necessarily mean that they are all virgins.

Team Zombie: They can't make ME a unicorn. Or our contest winner, Heidi! But I bet zombies could make zombie unicorns.

Team Unicorn: Hmmm....I wonder if Unicorn could cure Zombie-ism and then there could be this all out battle of zombies trying to turn unicorns into zombies and unicorns trying to zombies back into people...preferably virgins.

Team Zombie: I say definitely not. Zombies are always hungry. The unicorns lack their stamina.

Team Unicorn: How do you know what the unicorns lack? This is my story! Wait...we're supposed to be talking about a book.

Team Zombie: We have been! Zombies are cooler therefore zombie stories are cooler therefore the zombie parts of the book are cooler.

Team Unicorn: Keep telling yourself that. We all know that unicorns are more awesome than Zombies. And awesome beats cool. Every time.

Team Zombie: Zombies don't die. They get the last word. See? Victory.

Team Unicorn: I see you have just as much maturity as Justine Larbalestier.....UNICORNS!

This was certainly a clever idea, but the execution is lazy and boring. My eyes kept drifting off the page - never a good sign. I didn't bother to finish the book, but I read about half of it, so I feel I'm justified in writing a review. Anthologies are always a risk, but the subject seemed too much fun to pass by. Unfortunately, the stories feel phoned in, and the editors' commentary is too inside joke-y for the reader to garner anything from. Zombies vs. Unicorns is a well-packaged waste of time. Please note: I really wanted to like this, and am flummoxed by all of the great reviews.

This books looks adorable, I could (and did) look at it for hours.

I'm not a big zombie fan but the zombie stories were by far the best. I don't know if they are original or anything but I enjoyed them. The unicorns were a bit of a let down but I don't know what would make a good unicorn story so I can't judge much.

The premise of this anthology is great -- a campy idea, well-executed. So you're all going along with the fun of it -- and then you read Margo Lanagan's "A Thousand Flowers." Man, that girl can write. What a story - and just masterfully told. As usual, Lanagan breaks a variety of rules (shifting narrators, for example) that lesser writers can't get away with. But she does it masterfully here and it just elevates this fun, campy premise into high art. "A Thousand Flowers" is alone worth the price of admission here. (And that's where the five star rating comes from).

This book was pretty amazing, but left me wanting so much more I could hardly stand it!

Team Zombie
The stories for the zombie side were pretty amazing a few of my favorites were cold hands, love will tear us apart, and definitely prom night! either way I was left hoping the writers would go on but who knows

Team Unicorn
Like team zombie left me wanting more...the one story that will never be forgotten would be the care and feeding of your baby unicorn...wished it went on

Either way I highly recommend this book!

Do you like zombies and/or unicorns? If the answer is yes, you are likely to enjoy this fascinating collection of short stories edited by Holly Black (Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie). "The Children of the Revolution" by Maureen Johnson is my favorite zombie story, about a young woman who gets a job babysitting some very unusual children. "Princess Prettypants" by Meg Cabot is my favorite unicorn story, about a girl who receives a rather unexpected birthday present. Read, or listen to this fun collection of short stories! I recommend this book to adults as well as older teens.

Which is better, zombies or unicorns? Brilliant concept, but instead of a battle royale of imaginary creatures, it's just short stories about zombies or unicorns.

Frankly, most of the unicorn stories suck. Zombies rule!

Most of the unicorn stories weren't very good, except Princess PrettyPants one, and the Care and Feeding one was good until the end (lame?). But about 75% of the zombie stories were good. I just thought it was a little crass, at times, and I found the prevalence of same sex tendencies to be strange (very adult themes for a young adult book).

Forget about pirates and ninjas. Vampires and Werewolves is so 2008. Don't even talk to me about salty vs sweet or angels and demons.

There is something far more important to debate.

Even more important that Edward/Jacob, Will/Jem, Puck/Ash debates.*

No, seriously.

Which is better: the zombie or the unicorn?

This heated debate has raged for centuries** and now, at last, two authors have sought to settle the matter once and for all in Zombies vs. Unicorns (2010).

This anthology was edited by Holly Black (leading Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (leading Team Zombie). Each team is comprised of six young adult authors including most of the big names you'd expect to have an opinion on the matter.

As editors Black and Larbalestier also include an introduction to each story with a bit about the origins of the mythology and the inspiration or appeal of the story. Then the opposing editor (Larbalestier if it's a Unicorn story or vice versa) will put in a few ribs about why the story (and the creature in general) is totally lame. The introductions are funny but after going through twelve of them they started to become ever so slightly grating.

The book design also includes a handy icon to identify each story as pro-zombie or pro-unicorn.

I'm not actually much of a short story reader but I picked this collection up because there was a lot of hype and a small chance it would be shortlisted for the Cybils which would mean I had to read it anyway (it wasn't and actually that decision makes perfect sense--if you were wondering).

As with any collection, some of the stories in Zombies vs. Unicorns were quite good. Garth Nix's opening story "The Highest Justice" sets up the story nicely with a creepy zombie and a severe unicorn. Stories by Meg Cabot, Diana Peterfreund, Naomi Novik, Cassandra Clare, and Libba Bray were all lots of fun.

Unfortunately this review isn't about individual stories.*** It's about the anthology as a whole.

Again this might be because I don't read a lot of short stories, but a few stories in the whole reading process because a struggle. The fact that I am solidly on Team Unicorn also probably helped. Almost all of the zombie stories felt too long. They were too creepy, too icky and just too much for me in one concentrated book.****

Zombies vs. Unicorns is a breezy book sure to entertain anyone with an interest in zombies or unicorns. Some of it is fun. Some of it is, honestly, kind of gross. Some of the stories were excellent. Some of them were not. At the end of the day Zombies vs. Unicorns had its moments but the stories were too divergent (in terms of quality, style and content) to really feel like a cohesive collection.

*I'm actually the only one on Team Puck but that's okay.

**Or, you know, since February 2007 when our intrepid editors began discussing the merits of each supernatural creature.

***And even if it was that only amounts to six stories I truly liked. Frankly fifty per cent is a great stat for a book.

****Proof: I had a dream last night that I couldn't leave my house because the yard was infested with zombies that wanted to eat me. I might never read a zombie story ever again. To be fair Margo Lanagan's unicorn story was also truly awful in terms of gore. If nothing else I learned that I should probably skip her books since the style of her story just didn't work for me.

Possible Pairings: I was going to do pairings, honest. But truthfully there are too many to name. If you want something to read after loving this anthology I'd suggest going through and picking up some of the other works by writers whose stories you enjoyed.

We recently embarked on a very long driving trip and this great collection of stories provided hours of entertainment for all of us. This is such a clever idea and we wish we could find more audiobooks like this one.

It was so awesome- not everything was gory zombies (although there was a ton and I love it) and surprisingly, not ALL the unicorns were all rainbows and.... Whatever you associate with unicorns. The zombie stories= perfection (Team Zombie, bitch!) and some of the unicorn ones kicked ass. Awesome!

I read the unicorn stories, and thoroughly enjoyed about 1/3 of them, loathed one or two. But that's not what really interested me in this anthology to begin with, I must admit my heart belongs to the hungry undead! 3 stars for the unicorns, 5 for the undead...but the book flip-flops between the two types of characters ,you could easily read all of one type of story and not the other if you wish (doesn't hurt there are little zombie or unicorn icons on the top of each page to let you know which type of story you're into, either).

Skip this one if you crave page after page of flesh ripping gore from your undead friends. The zombie stories in this are not centered so much around people trying to survive after outbreaks as you find with many other stories.....they're more in depth than that, with everything from your oddly-animated but non-threatening (well, usually) reanimated dead to your 28 Days Later 'infected' zombies that play some pivotal role in the interpersonal relationships of main characters. I don't mean to make the stories come off as soap-opera-ish, they're not, it's not the often-expected group of survivors trying to eek out another day of survival against hoardes of living dead. But the zombies included in the stories are important contributers to the tale, even if not always the main focus, making this collection a nice break from your 'usual' zombie stories. I LOVED about 1/2 of the zombie stories, liked most of the others- there really isn't one I can say I dis-liked. As often happens in anthologies, I found my appetite whet for more work by some of the authors included. The works included in this book are not only terrific zombie tales but opened my eyes to 'new' to me authors I intend to further delve into. A good way to sample some of the lesser known horror writers.

This audiobook was the perfect family entertainment for a long road trip with teenagers... extremely funny and very well narrated! keep in mind that it may not be suitable for younger listeners, but although there is explicit language in a few parts, overall it's pretty suitable for young and older teens. Great concept, wonderful execution... makes me want to go road tripping again!