Following a couple of tours in Afghanistan Jim Pike has lost his faith in humanity and especially the optimistic philosophy of the Star Trek universe. So what could be worse than finding yourself with a hotel job, a hotel which is about to host a Star Trek convention? With the Hotel being flooded with various costumed geeks the only thing which Jim is looking forward to is seeing his sister, but strange things have been happening in Houston all day and they go from strange to outright weird when guests start turning into zombies...

Night of the Living Trekkies is a new comic novel by Kevin Anderson and Sam Stall. I had some real reservations about the book prior to reading it, after all the combination of Star Trek with the Zombie genre hasn’t been done before and there is a piece of you which doesn’t want to find out why.

So, it was a pleasant experience to discover just how good the book was. True, it’s a bit clunky at the beginning as it over explains some of the references, spoiling the joke, which let’s face it is a fairly pointless thing to do. Zombie fans will not care what the Trek references mean and any Trekker worth their salt will know what the writers are alluding to. Thankfully this settles down quite quickly and the humour in the majority of the book uses a subtle knowing nod to fuel its humour rather than explaining the puns to death.

The narrative is not as light as it may at first seem. Although Jim Pike was an uber Star Trek geek prior to going to war, the Pike we meet is a much more troubled character. I did fear that he would turn into a mindless hero once the action kicked off, and whilst he’s pretty good at combat, he is a reluctant hero who goes on his own journey of redemption. His story provides a believable backbone to the action.

Supporting his fight against the zombies is Princess Leia, and a motley crew of surviving fans, all dressed in their costumes. I particularly liked the scene when Jim decides that the only way that any of them are going to survive is for them to remain in character, which is not so great for Willy, the only survivor of a red shirt club.

Apart for some lack of subtlety at the beginning of the novel, the story is written well, with believable characters - even if they are in an unbelievable predicament. The only joke that isn’t explained or used as a knowing wink is the hero's name and if you can’t work out how they got that, much of this book will go straight over your head.

7

Charles Packer