Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies is certainly true to its name. Both highly interesting animals have their own stories attached to them, though I found I enjoyed the Killer Bunnies one (BunRabs by Donald J. Bingle) the more entertaining (and darkly humorous) of the two. As in most anthologies you have your amusing stories (BunRabs or Ninja Rats on Harleys), to your sad wistful tale (for lizzie) to your downright creepifying tale (Bone Whispers). To some degree I enjoyed all the stories, but some left me feeling disappointed.

The White Bull of Tara, by Fiona Patton, left me feeling rather indifferent. It employs a lot of Celtic and Druidic mythology and legend into it, but the story didn't hold my interest as keenly as Patton's storytelling usually does. As I mentioned before Bone Whispers, by Time Waggoner, creeped me out. There's a giant...mole badger type thing that munches on bones of dead people. Which isn't the creepy part. The creepy part is how the main character reacts to it all. I kind of just hurriedly moved on to the next story.

for lizzie, by Anton Strout, pays homage to Strout's own recently lost pet and is both sweet and sad. It ties in with his Simon Canderous books (Dead to Me and Deader Still), but doesn't require any backstory and is self-contained. I liked the literal usage of the word 'book wyrm' as the animal of the story.

Mostly I enjoyed the stories by the authors I did know or had read before (with the exception of Fiona Patton) and found a couple of authors who's work I now want to check out. As far as multi-author anthologies go, this one was a win. The cover is unfortunate, but there must always be casualties to good taste right? ( )

"Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies," edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, is a 2009 anthology of original stories dealing with animals in various configurations from hilarious to poignant. “Bunrabs,” by Donald J. Bingle, details how a group of chickens manage to fend off ravenous, blood-thirsty rabbits; “Watching,” by Carrie Vaughn, explains that pigeons might really be spying on you after all; we’ve also got Ninja Rats on Harleys (Elizabeth A. Vaughan), Bats in Thebayou (Steven H. Silver) and my personal favourite, were-foxes (“The Ridges,” by Larry D. Sweazy). Quite a fun little collection of stories, featuring a number of writers with whom I was unfamiliar; it’s always nice to discover a new writer! ( )

Dare I?

That is a magical cover.

A mix of 15 stories with non-humans as parts of the story. some horror, some humor, some sci-fi. Some also much better than others. ( )