Return of the Living is a mystery horror novel written by Jonathan Wojcik (best known for Mortasheen, Don't Get Spooked, and Awful Hospital) released on September 11, 2020
, which takes place in a world where everyone's already dead.
To further elaborate, absolutely all life on Planet Earth - every animal, plant, and microorganism - mysteriously died out a long time ago. In their places, an unimaginably vast number of ghosts have haunted the wasteland left behind ever since, spending their free time following a single obsession their entire afterlives - or in other words, their personal "definitions." One ghost, named Alma, haunts a dusty old library, but her main definition is an acute fascination with biology. However, learning all she can from biology books when there's not a single creature left to find from these books, she's left unsatisfied and jaded in a crude simulacrum of a small town governed by a mayor of dubious leadership and competency.
However, everything changes the moment Alma witnesses a living, breathing organism for the first time in centuries. A question arises; how will she tell the other ghosts of this momentous discovery and convince them that the biosphere is about to bounce back?
More importantly, what will she and her friends do when life begins to pose a threat to the dead?
Not to be confused with The Return of the Living Dead.
Return of the Living contains the following:
- The Afterafterlife: It's speculated about what happens after a ghost wisps, but they don't know any more about it than we in real life do about a potential afterlife.
- After the End: All life on Earth is gone. But as the title implies, that might be changing soon.
- All Animals Are Dogs: It's unclear what kind of animal Gregory is, but his behaviour has hints of dogs and cats.
- Animalistic Abomination: The living beings that appear throughout the book.
- Apocalypse How: The backstory includes a total extinction of all life, including bacteria, on a planetary scale.
- Apocalyptic Log: The Professor keeps records of her work that caused the apocalypse
- Apocalyptic Logistics: Everybody is dead, and ghosts don't need much, so this trope is justified
- Asshole Victim: The Mayor is one of the ghosts who get completely deleted when taken over by their living counterpart. Luckily, Gene, his former human self, is much more of a decent person.
- Author Appeal: Jonathan Wojcik, who is a biology enthusiast who loves all things Halloween and weird horror, writes a book about a ghost who is a biology enthusiast with a plot full of Body Horror and grotesque monsters.
- Badass Bookworm: Alma loves reading over everything else, but she's also one of the most competent ghosts in town. She's also able to read hundreds of pages of the professor's notes in seconds to find out about their plans.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Juniper's living body is a giant butterfly-like creature made out of vertebrate flesh and plant parts.
- Body Horror: The titular Living.
- Bond Creatures: Gregory has a pretty close bond to Edith.
- Bookworm: Alma haunts a library and is defined by reading books.
- Cassandra Truth: Alma and Juniper investigate the missing ghosts and sightings of living beings, but the Mayor convinces everybody else that nothing of this is true. Later it's revealed that he knows everything about the happenings
- Chameleon Camouflage: Angelo's new body is capable of changing its color and looks chameleon-like in general.
- Creepy Doll: Edith looks like the head of a giant doll, and has what looks like a rather disturbing Slasher Smile.
- Cute Bookworm: Alma adores books, especially biology books.
- Cute Ghost Girl: The protagonist, Alma, could qualify
- Dead to Begin With: Everybody died hundreds or thousands of years prior to the story, and all the characters are ghosts.
- Dem Bones: Boris looks like a human skeleton which is able to shrink and grow. Gregory and some other ghosts also have some bones showing.
- Demonic Possession: Some of the ghosts manage to do this after being swallowed by the living
- Disaster Democracy: The mayor and the city council
- Eldritch Location: With the plot taking place in a literal Ghost Town After the End, the bar is pretty high, but the professor's laboratory qualifies.
- For the ghosts, the abandoned power plant also qualifies because, due to the concrete walls containing salt, it's one of the few places where they can't float through walls.
- Endearingly Dorky: Alma and Juniper when it comes to their favorite subjects.
- Evil Is Visceral: The lair of the professor is overgrown with meaty vegetation that's actually a part of her body.
- Fearless Undead: Aside from whisping, there's not much a ghost has to fear. Until living beings start appearing and devouring the ghosts.
- The professor counts on Alma's self preservation instinct to keep her captive until her research is advanced enough to merge with her. Alma, having nothing to lose, tries to merge with the professor much sooner than anticipated.
- Friendly Ghost: Most characters in the story
- Fog Feet: Alma and many other characters have these.
- Future Primitive: Most of the technology is no longer understood because ghosts cannot operate it
- Gashadokuro: Boris, who looks like a skeleton, can grow to enormous sizes. Also, Gashadokuro are mentioned as a type of ghost.
- Ghastly Ghost: With everybody being a ghost, there are obviously some among them who are not well-meaning.
- Ghost Amnesia: Nobody remembers their life before death. When Alma is confronted with the memories of her living self, it feels like the memories of another person.
- Ghostly Glide: Most characters move like this
- Ghostly Goals: Every ghost has something that defines them, and not doing it for some time causes them to become less defined and eventually lose consciousness altogether, like a second death.
- Ghostly Wail: The sirens and banshees are known for this.
- Hardboiled Detective: Boris is much less quirky than the other main characters as he investigates disappearances around the city, to the point where he intimidates ghost citizens into following city ordinances. Turns out in life he was actually a garbage person instead of working in law enforcement.
- Haunted Heroine: The protagonist is a ghost herself.
- Haunted House: Most ghosts have a main "haunt", a place where they spend most of their time doing whatever defines their personality.
- Hidden Depths: At first, Boris comes across as the mayors brutish enforcer, but he also deeply cares for Edith and Gregory and is pretty intelligent.
- Humanoid Abomination: The professor when she manages to stay in a somewhat human form.
- Humanity's Wake: Humans and every other life on earth is long gone by the beginning of the plot.
- LEGO Genetics: Pretty much the professor's thing.
- Mayor Pain: The Mayor is very annoying to Alma and even the rest of the city council don't like him that much. It later turns out that he works together with the big bad.
- Meat Moss: Juniper has created a city park out of vegetation that's actually made of her ghostly body parts.
- The professor's lair is overgrown by meaty vegetation that's part of her body.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Played with. While the bodies created by the professor contain the memories of former humans, their souls or personalities are contained within their ghosts. But those ghosts have made their own memories and become completely separate people in the hundreds or thousands of years after their death. When they unite with their new bodies, one of the identities wins out, while the other is completely erased. So you could say that the mind may become a plaything of the body if it isn't defined well enough.
- Miracle-Gro Monster: Growing footprints are the first hint that the living are capable of this.
- Nature Spirit: Juniper has shades of this.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Gregory becomes this for Boris
- Non-Human Undead: It's not clear what exactly he is, but Gregory is definitely a ghost pet.
- No Indoor Voice: THE MAYOR SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS, BEFITTING HIS Large Ham NATURE.
- Our Banshees Are Louder: Banshees are sometimes mentioned as one of the types of ghosts existing in the setting.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghosts are the souls of the living, but lose all of their memories upon manifesting. As such, they need to hyperfocus on whatever occupation defines them or risk "whisping", which would lead them to lose their consciousness for good and essentially die again. They are extremely prone to loop the same behaviour over and over again. Their bodies are not tangible normally, but with great effort, they are able to touch physical things. Also, they cannot cross a line of salt and every grain of salt is like an impassible barrier that goes higher than any ghost has ever managed to float.
- Plant Person: Juniper loves plants and has grown a ghostly city park where she recreates the plant species of the old world from heir own ghostly body.
- Post-Apocalyptic Dog: Gregory might qualify, but it's not clear if he's a dog.
- Pupating Peril: After swallowing Juniper, the giant caterpillar-like Living seems to die and there is no more trace of the ghost. But near the end of the book, it's revealed that Juniper took over the body of the creature and transformed into a butterfly-like creature.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Alma wonders late in the book why some electrical devices still work. It becomes an important plot point shortly after.
- Restart the World: The professor plans on replacing all of the ghosts with creatures housing their memories from their human lives. It works out, but in many cases, the ghost takes over instead of the former human.
- Scavenger World: To a lesser degree. It's extremely difficult for a ghost to interact with physical objects, but they can do it und will sometimes use the stuff of their human ancestors.
- Serial Killer: Despite everybody being dead, there have been some "serial whispers" around who cause other ghosts to become less defined until they whisp. They have probably been serial killers in their former lives.
- Silly Spook: Many ghosts have some endearing or funny qualities.
- Sizeshifter: Boris, who's appointed by the Mayor as the town detective.
- Spooky Silent Library: Alma's haunt, where she spends her days reading biology books.
- Stealth Pun: The Mayor manifests as a large, hovering sphere with arms and a face, and when he talks for too long, he visibly deflates; the guy's an airhead.
- Transformation Horror: The battle between Juniper and the professor
- Town with a Dark Secret: Underneath the town, the Professor is experimenting to bring life back, which would exterminate all of the ghosts personalities. And the Mayor is working in secret with her.
- Tropey, Come Home: Early on in the book, Gregory runs away and Alma has to find him. This is one of the first signs that something is not as it should be.
- Undead Child: There are many among the ghosts.
- Undeathly Pallor: Many ghosts have pale colors.
- Urban Ruins: The setting of the book is one of the many ruined cities on earth, inhabited only by ghosts.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The professor is capable of transforming into all sorts of shapes and sizes, The Thing style.
- Whodunnit to Me?: Played with. Alma is a ghost and works on finding out who killed not only her, but all life on earth.
- You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost: Said word for word by Alma (who is a ghost) to the professor.
