Zombies VS. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

Unicorns and zombies battle for supremacy in this ultra cool collection of short stories edited by YA rock stars Black and Larbalestier.  The rival authors engage in a fervent back-and-forth argument before every story, each claiming that her supernatural creature is the more badass of the two. But the spectacular stories the two editors have assembled make it very hard to choose between Team Zombie and Team Unicorn. Among my favorites were Garth Nix’s inspired opener “The Highest Justice,” a medieval tale that includes both a zombie AND a unicorn, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s surprisingly touching zombie romance “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and Margo Lanagan’s tragic story of an unholy union between unicorn and maiden in “A Thousand Flowers.” Maureen Johnson brings the funny with “The Children of the Revolution,” a story of celebrity zombies that almost made me pee my pants laughing, and Meg Cabot also keeps it light with “Princess Prettypants,” about a rainbow-colored, flower-scented farting unicorn who can also kick butt when necessary. More serious are Carrie Ryan’s, Scott Westerfeld’s and Libba Bray’s darker visions of a future America where frightened and cynical teens must abandon the adult rules of the world before the zombie apocalypse and create their own new societies from scratch. There’s even more, but I leave the rest for you to discover when this unique collection comes galloping/shambling into your local library or bookstore.  And what team am I on? Well, it was hard to decide since many of my fav author peeps swing the other way, but since I am ultimately an optimist and romantic at heart, I could always only be firmly in this camp:

(Sorry, Justine!)