FRANCE, 1180 A.D.
Judgment Has Come
An ancient evil leads a rampaging army of demons and undead warriors across the countryside. Martin, a failed Templar, is slain on the field of battle only to be reanimated in service to the very evil he hoped to destroy. The Black Yew, the dark force that controls the undead army, considers him a gifted minion.
But life is not done with him yet.
— From the back cover
Toothless is a 2010 historical fantasy/horror novel by J.P. Moore. The book features zombies, the Knights Templar, zombie Templars, visionaries, Irish monks, werewolves, demons, plague, and the Black Yew, an eldritch abomination in the form of a gigantic evil tree. It's also notable for its use of an undead, speechless protagonist, and for its medieval take on the zombie apocalypse.
Toothless originally appeared in 2009 as podfic, read by the author, and the whole audiobook is available here
. Read the first three chapters here.
This book is not to be confused with the 1997 film starring Kirstie Alley, or with the character from How to Train Your Dragon.
Tropes appearing in Toothless:
- A Boy and His X: A Girl And Her Zombie.
- Atrocious Alias: The cart demon gives the dead men demeaning new names when they're revived as zombies.
- Fan Disservice: One character rips another's clothes off. It is... the polar opposite of sexy.
- Gorn: Lots of detailed descriptions of battle and messy slaughter.
- Large Ham: Lots of characters in the audio version, in the best possible way. The voice of the Black Yew, for example. "FALLEN. ARRIIIIISE!"
- Our Werewolves Are Different: The werewolves' transformations here only seem to work one way.
- Our Zombies Are Different: There are "shamblers" (mindless, lurching zombies) and "sentients" (fast zombies who can still think like humans). No one eats brains, but the sentients feed on the life force of humans whom they kill.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Much of humanity is too busy fighting other humans to band together against the Yew.
