A Fool’s Guide to the Undead (Jeff Folschinsky Books)

Jeff Folschinsky’s A Fool’s Guide to the Undead is a refreshing take on the supernatural genre that treats the apocalypse less like a gritty survival movie and more like a poorly documented startup launch. The story begins with Dana Buttermore, whose experience serves as a perfect analogy for a developer navigating poor API documentation. She’s been led to believe by “terrible tomes of knowledge” (and every movie she watched as a kid) that the undead are slow-moving. When she encounters two creatures that can actually run, she feels personally misled, even briefly considering a lawsuit for the “denied… crucial piece of information”. This feeling of being “denied documentation” hits home for anyone in tech who has ever inherited a project only to find the “how-to” guide is entirely wrong.

The dialogue between the “living challenged” characters is where the book really shines as a corporate satire. Watching two zombies—one of whom identifies as “handy capable” because he’s missing an arm—argue over whether they are zombies or “awesome” vampires is pure gold. They even debate the semantics of calling their creator “The Master,” arguing that the term is “degrading and racist” and puts them in a “subservient position”. One suggests “The Boss” as a better alternative to avoid “glorifying the discrepancies of the classes in the workspace”. It’s a brilliant, darkly funny look at identity politics and HR-speak infiltrating even the afterlife.

I loved the concept of the “Nexus.” It’s described as a “place between places” that functions like the “buttermilk frosting” between layers of a reality cake. It is “nowhere, but at the same time… somewhere.” The setting of the “Mystery Spot Museum and Burrito Emporium” is a masterclass in absurd UI; characters have to use “cosmic politeness” and specific triggers such as snapping and knocking three times, to access the “Employee Entrance”.

The book also explores how the undead operate on “instructions written into [their] very bones,” which can be “overwritten” by confusing them with irrelevant data. I lost it when Miss Lydia stopped an attacking undead woman by reciting a complex math problem about trains leaving stations. It turns out the undead are “fairly easy to confuse” if you hit them with enough “temporary overwriting”. Whether it’s Penny distracting a “wall of decaying flesh” with a fact about Napoleon Bonaparte being defeated by a pack of rabbits or characters using “Please” as a “magic word” to bypass mystical locks, the book constantly subverts expectations. If you’ve ever felt like your job was a series of confusing incantations and irrational “Master” demands, this book is for you.