Review of Peter Clines’ <Dead Men Can’t Complain> short stories

Narrated by: Ralph Lister, Ray Porter
Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
Release date: 23-05-2017

This is the author that wrote The Fold, and 14 both books I enjoyed but are not of the genre I’d normally listen to, that being sci-fi, thriller, horror kind of stories.  He also wrote a series called EX-heroes, however I tried and failed at listening to it.  Turns out the zombie thing is not for me.

Structure of the book

This book however is a collection of Short stories.  This kind of book is perfect if you’ve just come out of a long winded story and you want to relax a bit, or a particularly heavy non-fiction book in which you’ve learned a lot or had to take a lot of notes, and just need a break of sorts.

The individual stories are as follows:

1. Mulligan – a cop interviewing a lizard that seems too real
2. Bedtime Story – A super hero that protects the world as he sees fit
3. The Long Deep Dream – An investigator that seems to be chasing his own doom
4. The End of the Experiment – A time machine philosophical discussion
5. Flesh Trade – the criminal underworld brief moment in time of the super natural slave trade
6. Red Necromancy – Redneck necromancy story of success & failure
7. The Hatbox – A story of accidental discovery of zombies
8. The Apocrypha of Gamma – a interesting look at sentient androids in the future trying to find the religion of man. And how religion of some sorts may always be used in the future.
9. Dead Men Can’t Complain – A man that becomes a zombie and has to adapt to a world where a zombie apocalypse has taken place, recovered yet hated within society. (A addition to the series of Ex-Heroes)
10. Forged – a story of greed, gypsy magic and immortality
11. Contraption – a fantastical mystery machine that just begs to be solved, yet has a price

Narration

The stories are broken up between 2 narrators, Ray Porter which does fairly deep, dead pan kind of narration, perfect for apocalyptic or serious science fiction kind of stories and Ralph Lister which has a more posh English/ American accent, and gives depth to other stories.

I think this combination really works well

Recommendation

Do it.  Listen to this book.  While I probably wouldn’t want to listen to a continuation of any of these stories in a longer format, actually maybe 1 or 2… in these short story formats, they were perfect.

The combination of 2 different narrators was also pleasant.

At the end of the day, the book is only 5 hours long and it is pretty entertaining.  That being said, its probably not worth 1 whole credit, so try to get it either on sale or one of those 2 books for 1 credit kind of deals.   Sample of Dead Men Can’t Complain