B.F. Dealeo, Fifty Shades of Brains

B.F. Dealeo, Fifty Shades of Brains.  Seattle: Ambauminable LLC, 2013.

Fifty Shades of Brains is another straight rip-off parody of E.L. James’ infamous BDSM best-seller. In this version, rather than being a financial titan, the Master is a zombie hunter who protects a post-apocalyptic Seattle while keeping his own zombie-fied family out of sight—which eventually poses a problem. His partner, or apprentice, is a recent graduate whose initial attraction to him is based on his ability to procure real coffee.


People bought the original Fifty Shades for the sex, not because it was a good writing—it’s routinely described as awful prose. Fifty Shades of Brains, though, is both a good story and well-written; it would be loads of fun even without the sex (but the sex scenes are fun too), even though it shares a consistent first-person narrative voice with the original. This isn’t an easy book to recommend, but for the subset of readers who want to mix sex and death, it provides a delightful distraction.