I have never been a huge fan of zombies, but there was something really appealing about a mash-up of zombies and the classic Alice and Wonderland, so I was willing to give Mainak Dhar’s Alice in Deadland a try.

Other than the title and several characters that only lightly resemble characters found in the Carroll classic, Alice in Deadland is a story all its own. 15-year-old Alice Gladwell is an expert zombie slayer who is the top of her class. One day a particular Biter catches her attention (he wears Bunny Ears), and she follows him down a dark hole where she encounters the Biter’s Queen.

The Queen has an old, tattered copy of Alice in Wonderland, and claims that Alice is part of a prophecy. In the company of the Queen, Alice learns that she may have been fighting for the wrong thing–and people–her entire life.

While Dhar can certainly tell a mildly entertaining story from beginning to end, Alice in Deadland unfortunately failed for me on so many levels.

Writing style. Dhar’s writing is very simplistic; he doesn’t play around with switching up sentence structure, so most of the novel is very straight forward with subject, verb, and direct object in that order. This became especially tedious for me throughout the numerous action scenes.

Editing. I read a finished version of Alice in Deadland, but felt as if I were reading a very rough first draft. There were lots of repetitive phrases, most notably the description of the Biters as being “lifeless”. Nearly everywhere, “its” and “it’s” were incorrectly used. Unfortunately spell checker doesn’t catch those types of mistakes, which is why it is important for authors–especially ones who choose to self-publish–to have numerous beta readers who can hopefully spot these problem areas, and to hire an editor that will carefully comb through and help iron everything out.

Alice. Alice was not a believable character to me. I didn’t think she was strong or brave, or the type of person that would be at the top of her class. If she were, I don’t think she would have followed Bunny Ears. In numerous situations, Alice contemplated suicide or wished that someone would kill her so she would no longer have to fight.

Plot. I really wanted this to more closely resemble Alice in Wonderland because it’s such a trippy book. Once I found out about the Queen’s crazy idea of a prophecy, I was eager to find out exactly what that prophecy was. However, I don’t think that we ever learn what the prophecy was, and that was disappointing because it was what drove me to keep on reading.

Yes, a combination of Alice and Wonderland sprinkled with zombies could be a totally amazing story idea–but only if it’s done right. I almost think it’s unfair that Alice in Deadland has this title since the only commonalities between the two are Alice, a Queen, and a copy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.