Jason Pettus of the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography has encountered my zombie collection What Will Come After, and thought it rotten!

And since I believe in total disclosure, and that there’s no such thing as a bad review, I’m here to tell you that not only did he feel it was—

a story collection that gets very tedious very fast

—and that I exasperated him so much he was moved to say—

J-sus, ask me how ready I am for that literary trend to be over!

—but that he also dubbed the book—

A big disappointment from the normally great PS Publishing

Sorry I let you down, Pete!

To read the complete review, visit the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography.

I’d intended to make daily reports during my week-long trip to the UK as I usually do while traveling, filling you in on my doings at the World Horror Con and the Stokers in Brighton, plus my few days in London after, but this time I failed. Oh, you could have found short bursts of news if you were following me on Twitter or at Facebook, but there were none of my usual meaty write-ups.

Was it that I was having more fun than I normally do? Or that the time difference exhausted me more than usual, leaving nothing left over for blogging? We’ll never know, since now that I’m back in the real world once more there’s no way I’ll be able to catch up here. But I should at least take a moment to say …

Nope, I didn’t win a Stoker this year, my fifth such loss. (I did take the stage to accept Gene O’Neill’s Stoker for Best Collection, though.) But how could I feel sad when the weekend also handed me a prize more important than any award—the publication of What Will Come After, my zombie collection from PS Publishing?

Here I am in the WHC art show, coming face to rotting face with Les Edwards’ original drawing for the cover.

You can find other photos from the weekend over at flickr. I hope that each of those pictures is worth the proverbial thousand words, because now that I’m in the thick of things, that’s all I have the time to share.

What Will Come After, my zombie collection from PS Publishing, was just reviewed by Publishers Weekly, and the anonymous reviewer absolutely hated, hated, hated the book, as can see below.

I don’t present it here to argue with the opinion—those of you who attended my presentation “How to Respond to a Critique of Your Writing” at the Montreal Worldcon know I believe a writer should never do that, because after all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity—but rather in the interests of full disclosure.

After all, if I share my glowing reviews, shouldn’t I also let you know when I get slammed?

In any case, here’s PW‘s verdict:

SF news industry veteran Edelman collects nine zombie-themed short stories, but the content falls short of its promise. Les Edwards’s cover illustration, which depicts the author as one of the undead, hints at Edelman’s fondness for self-insertion; alas, the title story, in which he narrates his own rise from the grave and rampage through suburbia, goes on rather longer than the thousand words that might match the picture. Even the Stoker-nominated “A Plague on Both Your Houses” and “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man” fall a little flat. Edelman’s prose is strong, but each story, regardless of perspective, seems to have been written in the same voice, creating a monotony that undermines any excitement.

Luckily, even if I didn’t find negative reviews as interesting as positive ones, the piece appears when my spirit is at its most impervious, because I head for the airport later today for the World Horror Convention in Brighton, where I’ll a) get to hold the final book in my hands for the first time, and b) possibly win a Stoker Award.

How can anyone possibly be down when facing that?

I learned this week that master anthologist and perspicacious editor Stephen Jones has accepted a story of mine for an upcoming project of his, Zombie Apocalypse, which you can read more about here.

And I learned today that there’ll be two different cover treatments for the book. On the left is the cover to the UK edition, which will be brought out by Constable & Robinson. On the right is the cover to the U.S. edition, which will be published by Running Press.

Each has its charms. If zombies can be said to have charms. Which I think that they do.

In other zombie news, my upcoming collection What Will Come After received its first review today, in which three of the stories are called “must reads,” and the book as a whole is given “4 out of 5 stars.”

Nice way to start off!

I don’t know what Santa gave you for Christmas, but whatever you got, I’m happier than you!

I’ve been nattering on endlessly about my collection of zombie stories due to be launched by PS Publishing at the World Horror Convention in Brighton next year, and already shared the wonderful Les Edwards illo of my zombified self.

Well, here’s what designer Robert Wexler whipped up for the jacket. (Click through several times to view at a larger size.)

This didn’t arrive gift-wrapped, but it’s the best Christmas present I could have gotten!

As for what you’ll find beneath that cover, here are the nine zombie stories included (three of which were Stoker finalists):

“What Will Come After” is original to this collection

“Live People Don’t Understand” first appeared in The Book of All Flesh, 2001

“The Man He Had Been Before” first appeared in The Mammoth Book of Monsters, 2007

“Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man” first appeared in PostScripts, 2007

“Goobers” first appeared in The Book of More Flesh, 2002

“Tell Me Like You Done Before” first appeared in The Dead That Walk, 2009

“A Plague on Both Your Houses” first appeared in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, 1997

“The Human Race” first appeared in Space and Time, 2009

“The Last Supper” first appeared in The Book of Final Flesh, 2003

Why not buy yourself one as a Christmas present today?

Les Edwards, who will be one of the Artist Guests of Honor at the 2010 World Horror Convention in Brighton, was commissioned by PS Publishing to zombify me for the cover of my upcoming collection which will launch there.

I have no idea what the drawing will look like once incorporated into a cover design, but here’s the raw image in all its gory glory.

I don’t know about you, but I creep me out!

More info on the book—which will incorporate all of my existing zombie stories and include an original tale written specially for the collection—will be forthcoming.

John Joseph Adams, editor of the zombie anthology The Living Dead—which reprints my Stoker-nominated piece “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man”—has just released the following trailer in support of the book.

Watch—and then buy!

The Living Dead—a reprint anthology consisting of more than 230,000 words of zombie fiction, including my Stoker finalist “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man”—has just been published.

To promote the book, John Joseph Adams has launched a Web site coinciding with the release. Go there to find complete text of the introduction and four of the anthology’s 34 stories, plus excerpts of several of the other stories.

You can read the opening of my story there, which represents its first U.S. publication, as it originally appeared last year in Pete Crowther’s UK-based magazine Postscripts.

But I’d also like to point you toward one of my all-time favorite stories by another, Adam-Troy Castro’s “Dead Like Me,” which is available online in its entirety.

I first read that story in Castro’s collection A Desperate Decaying Darkness, and I’ve probably read it at least a dozen times since. It’s a powerful and moving tale, and if you’ve never read it, you should go and do so now.

After which you should buy the entire book, of course!

John Joseph Adams, editor of the recent post-apocalyptic anthology Wastelands, which has been receiving rave reviews, informed me late last night that he’ll be reprinting my “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man” in his upcoming zombie anthology from Night Shade Books. The book, tentatively titled No More Room in Hell, will be published in October. Good news with which to start off 2008!

And for those of you who wanted to nominate the story for a Nebula Award last month, but couldn’t because the story’s original venue was a UK magazine, mark your calendars, because its eligibility period will begin in October with this first U.S. publication.