Old Reads Reviews. Zombie House – By Brian Kirst
Between 1989 and 1994 author Martin James published 3 quick and gory horror novels (including one – yip! – about a haunted skyscraper). And that, unfortunately, is about the sum of biographical information to be found thus far about the talented James.
Therefore, letting words speak, bloodily, for themselves – Zombie House published in 1990 by Pinnacle Horror chronicles the decimation of phobic Terri, her second husband Chuck and Terri’s ‘boogerman’ believing son Bobby.
Falling in love with the crumbling Ritter House, Terri convinces refurbishing pro Chuck to move her and Bobby in. Soon strange smells, spooky mutations and a blue streaked warped room begin to affect both Bobby and Terri invoking the attention of a vengeful, local voodoo priestess.
Yep, here James plays around, nicely, with the more traditional notion of Zombies – a person culled into an uncontrollable, slavish spell – one who is dead but seemingly aware of the brutal, constrictive transformation occurring in the body.
Haunted by the memories of the ravenously eternal Marcus Ritter, Chuck’s bulbous sweat drenched mother and a father caught with his pants down, James peers far into the fear dreams of Terri and Bobby while simultaneously ladling on the bone scraping violence that is part and parcel of a horror tale. Aided by some enjoyably scrappy supporting characters (including a confident neighborhood girl and an effeminate turban wearing physic healer), James creates an intriguing universe – making this long out of print tale a nice yard sale or paperback book club find.
"Zombie House" was written by James Kisner who penned the book under the name Martin James. He wrote a large number of books, one of which was "Zombie House" and another which was "Tower of Evil"
I had the privilege and honor of meeting Jim back in 2006 when I purchased "Zombie House" and "Tower of Evil" from him directly.
His book Tower of Evil quickly went on to become one of my favorite Horror books ever.
I am honored to have these two books signed by him and personally inscribed to me. I can honestly say I value them as prized possessions.
Upon reading this review of "Zombie House" I was elated to see that others had found Kisner's
work just as enjoyable as I did.
When I read that no other biographical information could be found on the author I pulled up his website so I could copy and paste some info here for the readers and fans to see and was disturbed to find that it was no longer in existence. Upon looking further into the matter I sadly discovered that James Kisner died in June of 2008.
You can read a little bit more on this absolutely awesome author and person here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kisner and see more of his works here: https://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/james-kisner/
R.I.P. Jim, You were a great writer and good person!
– Chris Adler