Zombies of the Gene Pool (Jay Omega) - Softcover

McCrumb, Sharyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345379144 ISBN 13: 9780345379146

Publisher: Fawcett, 1993

Synopsis

In the 1950s, a group of young science fiction writers, dreaming of literary immortality and calling themselves the Lanthanides, buried a time capsule with their stories and relics from the time. Now, in the 1990s, when several of them have become famous, the surviving Lanthanides are getting together at a special convention to dig up the capsule and open it. But the convention is startled by the appearance of a writer who was supposed to have died thirty years ago. Then murder materializes to throw the agenda further into chaos. Now, Jay Omega, author of Bimbos of the Death Sun, and his significant other, Dr. Marion Farley, must separate science fact from fiction -- and unearth a killer with a story of his own to tell.

About this title

About the Author

Sharyn McCrumb is an internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author whose work has been honored with all five of the major awards in crime fiction (Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero)—with two Best Appalachian Novel awards. She is the creator of the Ballad series, which began with If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O; and her satirical mystery series featuring forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson. McCrumb lives in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, less than a hundred miles from the Smoky Mountain valley where her ancestors settled in 1790.

From Kirkus Reviews

Here, the frisky McCrumb (If I Ever Return, Pretty Peggy-O, The Windsor Knot--both 1990), with deadpan humor and bull's-eye accuracy, skewers the science fiction genre, its eccentric authors, and outlandish fans and their nitpicking fanzines. Jay Omega and Marion Farley (the paperback Bimbos of the Death Sun) agree to accompany fellow professor Erik Giles (a.k.a. sci-fi writer C.A. Stormcock) to a reunion of the ``Lanthanides,'' a group of would-be writers who lived together in Wall Hollow, Tennessee, back in the Fifties. Now, one is dead, one is a Hollywood nabob, one is publishing a fanzine, and a couple are still writing and have become sci-fi stars. At Wall Hollow, they plan to dig up a time capsule they buried with some of their early work and cash in on their later fame by auctioning off publication rights to the highest bidder. Then someone starts killing them off, beginning with the reunion crasher--the supposedly dead author Pat Malone. Omega, with the help of computer log-ons, finally figures out not only whodunit but why...or does he? Author McCrumb has one more twist up her sleeve. Funny bits throughout, but the constant sendup of beloved sci- fi shticks begins to seem mean-spirited, and Omega and Marion are little more than walk-ons. Still: an engaging read. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fawcett
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0345379144
• ISBN 13: 9780345379146
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 288