Fiend

May 15, 2013
Tweakers versus zombies. That's about it, really. Stenson's narrator is Chase Daniels, a white-bread methamphetamine addict with a habit of describing his physical symptoms in excruciating detail. Our guy has been holed up for weeks with his best friend, Typewriter, getting "spun" on those glorious little shards of glass. When Chase rubs his eyes, looks out the window and sees a little girl devouring the carcass of a dog, he thinks it's just a vivid hallucination. It turns out that he and Typewriter managed to bypass a zombie apocalypse that plays out just like the ones you've seen on TV, with the creepy exception that the virus makes all its victims giggle. The apocalypse is enough to make Chase think that his ex-girlfriend, KK, was right when she skipped off to rehab. When Chase finally reunites with his lady love, though, he's saddled with her new boyfriend, and they're both high as Wu-Tang. The gang eventually figures out that smoking or shooting is the only way to avoid becoming a giggler, theoretically giving them free range to keep getting high. But scoring scante and avoiding their brethren addicts isn't easy even in a world without cops. Stenson's percussive style and grotesque imagery lend themselves well to the story. A crisply written, grisly mashup tailor-made for black comedy junkies.

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July 1, 2013

When Chase Daniels surfaces from a meth bender to find the world overrun with zombies, he hopes he's just on a very bad trip. Grabbing his best friend Typewriter and his ex-girlfriend KK, both fellow tweakers, Chase heads off to find someplace with more drugs and fewer dead people. But if all that remains of humanity are zombies and meth addicts, there really is no safe place. Stenson draws realistic portraits of junkies who will do anything for their next high; zombies are just another obstacle. VERDICT There is a certain raw power to Stenson's language, although his descriptions range from icky to deeply horrific. This Trainspotting for the Walking Dead crowd might appeal to those willing to take a trip to the dark heart of an addict's depravity, with zombies on the side.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
How would you react if you suddenly realized the world was in the throes of a zombie apocalypse? Well, if you're stoners Chase Daniels and his friend Typewriter John, you immediately figure you're hallucinating that little girl feasting on the rottweiler, and you look around for another hit of meth to make the bad images go away. But this is no hallucination. Luckily, as Chase and Typewriter soon discover, being high stops the virus, or whatever it is, from turning you into a zombie; so as long as we're high, they figure, we're safe. It was probably only a matter of time before somebody got the bright idea of grafting a stoner comedy onto a zombie story, and Stenson, in his debut effort, performs the surgery very well. Chase and Typewriter come off as your typical goofy, addle-brained druggies, and the zombie elements of the story are appropriately frightening. Chase and Typewriter are a lot of fun to hang out with, and a surprising dramatic scene at the very end of the book leaves us with an unexpected catch in our throats. Very nicely done.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)