THE DEEP ONES: "The Dead Kid" by Darrell Schweitzer

"The Dead Kid" by Darrell Schweitzer

Discussion begins March 31, 2021.

First published in The Book of More Flesh (2002).



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.johnjosephadams.com/the-living-dead/free-stories-excerpts/the-dead-ki...

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?853778

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Living Dead
The Emperor of the Ancient Word and Other Fantastic Stories

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Schweitzer
https://www.blackgate.com/the-sorcery-of-storytelling-the-imaginary-worlds-of-da...
http://www.johnjosephadams.com/the-living-dead/author-bios/interview-darrell-sch...
https://will-couvillier.livejournal.com/55143.html
https://tinyurl.com/f86mx5st

The Living Dead for me.

I thought this was a pretty effective use of the horrific as a mirror to the mundane world. I liked that Schweitzer spent a minimum of time on the origin story of the zombie. Schweitzer succeeded, for me, making the zombie an object of pity.

I guess that, technically, this is one of Schweitzer's "old school chum" stories.

I really didn't expect the turn the story took when Alfred turned up again; I was expecting a bleaker and grislier end.

Liked it a lot.

>You're right. Completely missed it was an "old school chum" story.

Speaking as someone who has a younger brother, one does not expect them to be an instrument of redemption.

Having a somewhat estranged one, I can only agree about younger brothers.

Ah, I've had to face up to the fact that my younger siblings have all shown themselves to be smarter and braver than me on occasion.

I feel guilt about slighting living authors again. I read this one online. And I really liked it (despite or because of the sharp reminders of how horrible childhood can be?).

Agree it was an effective combination of zombie weirdness and childhood sentimentality, while avoiding the stereotypes on either hand. Typically I don't find zombie tales interesting, but this one I did.

The timeslip at the end was completely out of place and made me wonder if, in this world, zombies are in fact time-travelers. But that wouldn't explain the Dead Kid's decomposing body.