Wavering between 2 and 3 stars - A real shame.

Stephen Graham Jones is an absolutely brilliant writer, who has written several of my favourite books, inclduing what may well be my favourite novel (Mongrels), novella (Night of the Mannequin), and short story collection (Zombie Sharks With Metal Teeth). This book is not SGJ at his best.

The concept is of course excellent - Zombies, professional wrestlers, and bakers in a battle royale? Fantastic! Pure, schlocky fun, and it's clear that Stephen is having pure, schlocky fun with it, bumping tropes from wrestling (multiple characters are very thinly-veiled WWF characters or tropes) and horror B-movies together, and his skill in plotting and narrative are as clear here as they ever are.

On the other hand, this really feels like something SGJ had to get out of his system - Again, it is fun, and he is clearly having fun, but surprisingly it feels a lot less fun than his more serious stories because it's a lot less kind. Characters, true to B-movies, true to wrestling, are broad archetypes and often quite stupid, which feels jarring given the real humanity and depth of understanding with which SGJ usually writes characters - It feels uncharacteristically and unnecessarily nasty.

And that is the main issue with this book - In leaning so far into B-movie schlock, it loses the humanity which si SGJ's greatest strength, which comes as a surprise, given that the prologue is as good and characteristic of him as any SGJ I've read.

And then there's the other nasty elements - This story really feels like a 90s throwback, which is no bad thing necessarily, but... The throw back comes most in its treatment of homosexuality and disability - It's treatment of both felt very... Friends.

My advice - Read the prologue, smile at the name, maybe flick through, and then read Night of the Mannequins.