About the Story:
In this alternate universe, zombies began to lurch eastward from California in 1847, claiming the lives of Ishmael's wife and young child. Guilt and remorse over their deaths leads Ishmael to become a member of the reviled Militia, ragged bands of bounty hunters who kill and scalp all the zombies they can find. When the novel opens, Ishmael has spent the last two years fighting the undead and is bone-weary and heartsick after forcing himself to complete one final horrible task.
There, in 1849 Manhattan, we find Ishmael wallowing in the November of his soul. He flees his past and the plaguey land to ship aboard the ill-fated Pequod, ruled by mad dismasted Captain Ahab; but there is no escape. Incidents during the whaling voyage trigger flashbacks of the grisly and guilty memories Ishmael has tried to suppress. Through these flashbacks you learn the story of his life with Lilith and their daughter Gennie, and of his battles against zombies in the Militia.
Ahab also gets a backstory, this one told through his fitfully scribbled log entries. You learn the truth about the loss of Ahab's leg; you discover why Ahab's own guilt regarding the zombie plague drives him to madness as he hunts the White Whale; and you'll learn more about enigmatic Fedallah, the Persian mystic, who reveals ancient and arcane knowledge regarding the true nature of the White Whale and zombies.
The book introduces two new types of zombies and toys a bit with the disease vector, but that's all I'm willing to say. I hate spoilers. However, honoring Melville's chapter "Cetology," in Zomby Dick you'll find the chapter "Zombology," in which the three types of zombies are elucidated. At length. You'll also learn the etymological origins of the archaic spelling of "zomby."
Both Ishmael's and Ahab's backstories give an entirely different slant to what Melville laid out in the original Moby Dick, and I hope the new plot surprises you.
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