Book Review of Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion by Alan Goldsher

Not being a fan of the Beatles, I may not have been the right audience for this book. I thought, as a zombie book, it would still hold some interest for me, but it did not.

Part of the problem with Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion by Alan Goldsher, is that the characters didn’t really develop, and there really were too many to keep track of. This is written as if it is an oral history, told to someone who is writing a book about Lennon and the rest of the Beatles (but mostly Lennon). The characters are all over the place, either they are zombies, or vampires, or ninjas, or something else altogether. But, since there were so many it was hard to keep track of them, or care about any of them. The story didn’t really seem to build upon itself, to give a cohesive story. Sometimes the switches seemed so abrupt that it seemed as if the information from the previous character wasn’t even important. In fact the only somewhat fun character was Ringo.

The bigger issue I had with this novel was that it seemed to be written for a teenager who was into violence, and balls falling off (literally). The humor didn’t stay with me. It all seemed very juvenile. There was a lot of fighting, and there was a lot of going back and forth in the band, and a lot of backstory that was unnecessary. It was all just a little too much.

The final issue for me was that none of the characters really grew, and the ending was predictable. The novel read as the same issues and in fighting between the characters, over and over, and it became tedious. Then at the end there were a lot of characters that were mentioned that weren’t needed (such as Hunter S. Thompson), who only had one single section for their story. The end was predictable because what was going to happen was mentioned several times throughout the novel. In fact, it was mentioned so many times it became repetitive.

As a zombie novel, I wanted to like this, but I really barely got through it. I wanted to skip a lot, or just not finish the novel. In fact, I was bored. So, I’m sorry to say this won’t be one of those zombie novels that I keep and cherish as a great zombie novel for forever. If you are a Beatles fan this might be okay for you, otherwise I don’t recommend it.