I admit it; I was a zombie virgin. I couldn’t see the point. Crowds of ragged shuffling hungry dead clamouring to eat the main characters and those same characters running away, hiding, holing up somewhere until eventually they succumb, or move on. Where’s the sense in that? Then, this weekend, I read Tankbread. Now, I’m hooked on ripped throats, putrid slime and severed limbs. I imagine traditional zombie fans will be delighted by Tankbread: the fights to the death, and to the death again. Mannering writes so well you can smell the decay. It’d make a sensational movie, only I’m pretty sure I won’t be brave enough to watch it. But Tankbread isn’t all squirting blood and mashed heads—it offers something more; Tankbread is sophisticated zombie. Because the motivation here isn’t simply survival, but when everything is gone, Mannering asks the question, what is it that’s worth surviving for, and indeed, what is not?