The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog tour (also known as the CSFF) is a group of people dedicated to reading and reviewing Christian speculative novels. This month, we are reviewing Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos.
I. Loved. This. Book. In fact, I loved this book so much I’ve decided to break it down and blog on it for the full three days of the blog tour. So grab your stakes and silver bullets and get ready for a wild night!
Cool Factor: First thing I loved about this book: the title. It’s one of those that makes you do a double take and stutter, “Say what?” Night of the Living Dead Christian. And yes, that’s what the book is about. Monsters, dark creatures, and things that go bump in the night, Christian style :).
Matt uses monsters like Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in a tongue-in-cheek way to show how we as Christians can be. It’s a funny and scarily accurate portrayal at the same time (pun intended).
The story starts off with Matt (the author) on neighborhood watch late at night. He finds two of his neighbors out fiddling with an electric box. One neighbor is a mad scientist. The other is a robot (I mean android).
He finds out they are trying to invent a device that will drive away all werewolves in the neighborhood. When they start up the machine, a bunch of zombies come lumbering down the street in the moonlight. Not quite what the machine was suppose to do.
Then the werewolf appears (yes, there really is one living in the neighborhood). Matt realizes it’s one of his neighbors down the street. Matt follows the werewolf to his house. After a jumbled attempt to capture the werewolf, the werewolf actually captures Matt.
The werewolf explains to Matt that he wants to get rid of the beast within. He has given up on Christianity because the promised “transformation” never happened. He is still a wolf. And now it has driven his wife and his daughter away.
The werewolf pleads with Matt to help him find a way to become a man again. And thus the story begins.
I loved this book. I laughed, I cried (tears of sadness, not humor), and I thought about the book long after I finished it.
Tomorrow I will take a look at the Writing Factor and Wednesday I will dive into the Spiritual Factor of Night of the Living Dead Christian. Until then, take a look at what these other CSFF Bloggers have to say:
*In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Morgan L. Busse 
I’m intrigued!
Amy, this is a great, funny book. I definitely recommend it. And if you like it, check out Matt’s first book, My Imaginary Jesus 🙂
Gotta agree with you about the title — excellent!
And I laughed, too, and was made a think a bit more often than was quite comfortable, but that’s a good thing.
Hi Keanan!
I love titles that just grab you, and this was one of them!
Love the enthusiasm! Did you ever read “My Imaginary Jesus”? A lot of people actually seemed to like that one more than this one. (Me, not so much.)
Hi Julie! Yes, I also read My Imaginary Jesus. Loved the book. But I think I liked this one a little bit more 🙂
Morgan, I’m glad you. loved. the. book. 🙂
I’m looking forward to your thoughts the next couple of days. You might be interested (on the writing side)… on Wednesday I’m going to post a link on my blog to an earlier, much different draft of the beginning of the book. Different characters, jokes and direction. You might find it interesting…..
Hi Matt! Thanks for stopping by 🙂 I will have to check your link out…
Excellent summary – I have high respect for anyone who actually writes their own summary rather than grabbing it off a website (like me).
Yes, I love the book too. However, it’s hard to tell people about sometimes– “yes, great inspirational read…it’s called ‘Night of the Living Dead Christians’…” And they all move away from you in small group!