There’s a big difference in the way “literary” writers and genre writers approach science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Genre writers revel in their worlds of wild imagination, so much that it plays an integral part in the plot and the action. To writers like Jose Saramago, Cormac McCarthy, and Kevin Brockmeier, genre conventions are mere backdrops to a greater purpose. As a reader, sometimes this works for me. I enjoyed McCarthy’s The Road. Not so much Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead.

The Brief History of the Dead boasts an interesting premise: that dead people live in a city (much like the concept of limbo) until all the people who knew you in life die. Your time in the city is determined by the memories of the living. Mash this idea with a viral outbreak that leaves all but one human alive and you should have a winner. Unfortunately, Brockmeier gets bogged down in his own heavy-handed sentimentality to make this novel memorable or even interesting.

The plot alternates between two threads—the city of the remembered dead and the adventures of Laura Byrd. Laura Byrd is stranded in Antarctica and thus spared a death by the virus. We meet the inhabits of the city and experience their day-by-day activities. The characters ponder their existence and reminiscence about their past lives. We follow Laura as she makes two daring treks across the frozen land of Antarctica in hopes of rescue.

Sounds exciting, right? Yet Brockmeier fails (or doesn’t bother) to make the reader like anybody in the book. I suspect the author believes that his earnest attempts at sentimentalizing the wonders of love, family, health, and death effectively replaces the connection readers need with the characters. It does not.

For example, one of Brockmeier’s central characters is Luka Sims. Luka is written as an immature college professor who likes to talk in asinine newspaper headlines: “News flash! Man loves girl!” Laura Byrd, the book’s central character, is given no personality. All she does is endure the cold and play word games ad nauseum (though she is one tough lady!)

The bright side of the audio book of The Brief History of the Dead is the narration by Richard Poe. I look forward to listening to more of his narration.

A young writer and editor from Appalachia Kentucky, Jason Sizemore has seen his fiction appear in nearly two dozen books and magazines. He’s a prolific non-fiction writer, having dozens of essays, reviews, and editorials published in print and on the web on varied subjects such as gaming, geek culture, and politics. He earned his college degree from Transylvania University, making him an ideal candidate to head a horror magazine. He was a 2006 Stoker Award nominee for his work on the Aegri Somnia anthology.

Jason invites you to visit his personal webspace.