VAMPIRES & GHOULS & ZOMBIES, OH MY...

I don't know how this happened, I'm not an admirer of these stories, yet I picked up four of them (yes! four!) at the library. So I read them, and for the most part have enjoyed them, although if I never read another one about a zombie I'll be very pleased. Here's my reviews; I hope you enjoy them.
THE RADLEYS, by Matt Haig, chronicles the angst of abstaining vampires and the falsity that characterizes their lives. I loved this one, the writing was clean and illuminating (vampires? angst? yes!), the characters very compelling. It's a 5.
THE BUNTLINE SPECIAL, by Mike Resnick, puts Thomas Edison in Tombstone AZ in time for the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Alternative history/western/fantasy/vampire, I guess you'd call it. Prolific, award-winning author Resnick has brought together the Earps, Bat Masterson, assorted criminals and gunslingers (including a zombie named Johnny Ringo), a lot of magic, Edison's inventions, and Geronimo as a magician. It's a 3.5.
PARIAH, by Bob Fingerman. I wanted to finish this, as the premise is fascinating and the characters - all stuck in a New York apartment building as zombies down on the street wait to starve them out -  are varied and very well drawn, although several are totally unsympathetic. But I just don't like zombies. Maybe you do, and if so this is an excellent read, I'll give it a 4, but don't ask me to justify that for something I couldn't even finish. I guess it's like being given a fab bottle of wine but being unable to drink it all?
CASTING SPELLS, by Barbara Bretton is reviewed elsewhere on its own, but it's a great romance touched by magick and populated by every kind of odd critter ever invented. It's an 4.5...even more if you like magic stories.

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