By Kevin David Anderson & Sam Stall

Horror fiction writers Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall are lifelong Trekkies and, having decided it would be a good idea to mix the two genres, they came up with "Night of the Living Trekkies" the tale of a Star Trek Convention that goes very, very bad. Of course, it's a perfect fit for Quirk Books, who have published other genre mashups like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" and while, at first, I thought this was going to be another book in that vain - taking an old Star Trek story and spinning zombies into it - it's much more fun than that.

Our hero is Jim Pike (geddit?), once the biggest Star Trek fan in the world, but a couple of tours of Afghanistan have almost totally destroyed his faith in human nature and now he's hiding from responsibilty as a security guard at the small Botany Bay Hotel in downtown Houston, But Jim's life is about to be turned upside down as the hotel prepares to host the 5th Annual GulfCon - billed as the “largest Starfleet Convention in the western Gulf Coast region” - and thousands of avid Trekkies sporting homemade uniforms and brandishing homemade weapons are set to invade his usually quiet life.

Meanwhile bizarre things have been happening in Houston all day, and they're are about to take a turn for the worse as a virus starts to turn the normally placid conventioneers into savage flesh-eating zombies. Pretty soon Jim finds himself leading this group of rag-tag Trekkies, defending the hotel and convention center against hordes of flesh-eating undead and the only way this is going to work is if they all stay in character. Suddenly, all of their useless knowledge about particle physics and old Star Trek episodes has a genuine real-world application and, while hotel employees and regular civilians are dying left and right, our Trekkies summon strength and courage by emulating their favorite starship-voyaging characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed Night Of The Living Trekkies, way more than I thought I would, because I'm not much of a Star trek fan and I don't watch horror movies unless I'm tied to a chair with my eyelids taped open. This however is not a disadvantage. The book starts fast and gets straight into the story, moving at a pretty relentless pace all the way. It's not a literary masterwork and there's some clunky exposition during the opening set-up scenes but the prose is easy to read and the characters, Jim Pike in particular, are decently enough written that you'll be quickly drawn into their world, identifying with them as fellow nerds and geeks even if the Con scene is something that you'd generally avoid like the plague.

Obviously the dialogue is brim-full of jokes and knowing references to Star Trek, Star Wars, geek culture, comic books, fanboys and girls, conventions and generally nerdity but it flows so effortlessly that you needn't worry if you don't get them all, the underlying message carries across and you'll still be entertained. In fact if you're a zombie fan you'll likely not care about the Trekkie references and if you're a Trekkie you'll appreciate the zombie story while laughing out loud at the humour.

Billed as the lovechild of Galaxy Quest and Dawn of the Dead, Night Of The Living Trekkies is a fun read and a more than decent attempt to write a zombie/sci-fi/horror/comedy/action story(!) Pick it up and give it a go, it's an easy, quick read and you'll enjoy immensely, and if anyone's daring enough to give it a go it'd definitely make a fun movie.

Night Of The Living Trekkies is published by Quirk Books and is available from Play.com, Blackwell and all good book stores.

Kevin Anderson has a website and a blog and Sam Stall also has a website.