Vasilis "Billy" Kostopolos is a Bay Area Rust Belt refugee, a failed
sci-fi writer, a successful barfly, and, since the exceptionally
American zombie apocalypse, an accomplished "driller" of reanimated
corpses. There aren't many sane, well-adjusted human beings left in San
Francisco, but facing the end of the world, Billy's found his vocation
trepanning the undead, peddling his one and only published short story,
and drinking himself to death.
Things don't stay static for long. Billy discovers that both his
girlfriends turn out to be homicidal revolutionaries. He collides with a
gang of Berkeley scientists gone berserker. Finally, the long-awaited
"Big One" shakes the foundation of San Francisco to its core, and the
crumbled remains of city hall can no longer hide the awful secret
lurking deep in the basement. Can Billy unearth the truth behind
America's demise and San Francisco's survival - and will he destroy what
little's left of it in the process? Is he legend, the last man, or just
another sucker on the vine?
Nick Mamatas takes a high-powered drill to the lurching, groaning
conventions of zombie dystopias and conspiracy thrillers, sparing no
cliché about tortured artists, alcoholic "genius," noir action heroes,
survivalist dogma, or starry-eyed California dreaming. Starting in
booze-soaked but very clear-eyed cynicism and ending in gloriously
uncozy catastrophe, The Last Weekend is merciless, uncomfortably
perceptive, and bleakly hilarious.
