Zombies! Help please...

[Juliana]

With book suggestions, not with the actual zombies. I live on the 18th floor so I reckon they'll take a while to work themselves up here.

I'm going to a book signing/round table next weekend with a Zombie theme - going mostly for networking purposes as its run by three editors - but have never read any zombie literature. I thought it might be a good idea to:

a) have an idea of the main work/authors out there within this theme and

b) read something before I go. Not too scary please! (I don't really like horror unless its very mild)

Thanks!

 

[The Judge]

I don't usually read zombie books (or horror) either, but I got a freebie last year which I did read -- Dust by Joan Frances Turner. In case it helps here are some thoughts I posted in my book non-blog while I was reading it:

As noted in this week's blog I've been looking at a few freebie books I'd received at FantasyCon last year, but the only one holding me so far is Dust by Joan Frances Turner, a book written from the perspective of a 15 year old girl who just happens to be a zombie. Fresh isn't perhaps an appropriate word for a zombie book, but there is a gaiety to the writing which fits with the girl's view.

I'm still making my slow way through Dust, over half-way now but it's becoming a tad repetitive in the narrator's continual thoughts and language – not inappropriate for a 15 year old girl, but a little wearing. I still find the subject-matter as nauseating, regrettably, which is one reason why I've not progressed more quickly.

Dust is now done and dust-ed. I continued to love Turner's voice, her writing and her way with words, but ultimately I didn't feel the story matched the promise of her talent. I don't know if it was intended as an allegory or something, but I distinctly got the impression it was meant to be more than simply a tale of the undead who get turned into, er, well, differently-undead undead.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Where is an evil overlord zombie expert when you need one...

Cell by King is an easy read

Also, if you want a bit of a laugh, Shaun of the dead is well worth a watch, it is an excellent send up of the genre. If nothing else, you will know the cliches, but it is a film, not a book.

World war z by matt brooks, Mr. Springs recommends. It apprently sells very well.

 

[Juliana]

Ooh, lovely, thank you both!
(if you can use the word lovely in a thread on zombie lit...)

 

[Mouse]

I love Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter by AE Moorat. The title's 'demon' hunter, but it's about zombies. And it's really gory but it's hilarious. Cracked me up.

 

[j d worthington]

Depends on the type of zombie. If you're looking at what most people think of these days (flesh-eating resurrected corpses with little or no consciousness), then there's a plethora of books out there. You might look into reading the novelization of the film which made this version so well-known, John Russo's Night of the Living Dead -- or just watch the 1960s film (which Russo also co-wrote).

Or you could go even more traditional, and look up William F. Seabrook's travel book The Magic Island, about his time in Haiti, and read the chapter "Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields" -- supposedly a true account of an encounter with the real thing. (True or not, it is an interesting and rather disturbing read.) Henry S. Whitehead also wrote a piece titled "Jumbee", which is another form of the zombie, somewhere between the physical and the ghostly....

 

[Juliana]

Thanks Mouse and j.d.
Great suggestions from j.d. but I think I have to stay away from film versions, as I'm an extreme wimp when it comes to horror!

 

[Joseph Gutierrez]

that's is the thing, zombie are scary on the screens!!not in books. (and more profitable also)

try to find something else

 

[nerd literature]

I am not a zombie fan but I World War Z was amazing. I do not hold out high hopes for the movie. It looks rubbish. If you want to go scientific there is a great book called the Serpent and the Rainbow. I recall the movie being okay and it was one of Wes Craven's earlier movies. Also I've been looking to read Wellington's Monster Island, this is a trilogy as well.

Best, Rob

 

[zaltys13]

If you like to read nonfiction you might try The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis. This from the Wiki:

The Serpent and the Rainbow is a book written by ethnobotanist and researcher Wade Davis published in 1985. He investigated Haitian Vodou and the process of making zombies. He studied ethnobotanical poisons, discovering their use in a reported case of a contemporary zombie, Clairvius Narcisse.

 

[amuteforamuse]

+1 recommendation for World War Z.

If you're after a book that provides a view of the world following a zombie apocalypse, this is the book for you. It is written as a bunch of interviews from dozens of people in all walks of life and they come together to show an overall viewpoint.

If you want to know how disabled people fare in an apocalypse or how blind people could survive, then this is the ideal book.

I used to read it at night but it made me dream of zombies (which still frighten me to death at the grand age of 41).

 

[zaltys13]

+1 recommendation for World War Z.

If you're after a book that provides a view of the world following a zombie apocalypse, this is the book for you. It is written as a bunch of interviews from dozens of people in all walks of life and they come together to show an overall viewpoint.

If you want to know how disabled people fare in an apocalypse or how blind people could survive, then this is the ideal book.

I used to read it at night but it made me dream of zombies (which still frighten me to death at the grand age of 41).

This sounds fantastic, I love Romero's Dead films, plus the usual suspects, Return of.., 28 Days Later, Fulci, Lamberto Bava, Living dead at the Manchester Morgue, etc, etc, but I have never read a Zombie novel, this sounds like something I could get my teeth around thanks for the recommendation.

 

[zaltys13]

I am not a zombie fan but I World War Z was amazing. I do not hold out high hopes for the movie. It looks rubbish. If you want to go scientific there is a great book called the Serpent and the Rainbow. I recall the movie being okay and it was one of Wes Craven's earlier movies. Also I've been looking to read Wellington's Monster Island, this is a trilogy as well.

Best, Rob

Sorry, I should learn to read what other people have written before I stick my oar in. I also thank you for the World War Z recommendation.

 

[Randy M.]

Not sure if this is available in the U.K., but in the states Otto Penzler put out a sort of retrospective anthology, Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! Some debatable inclusions, but much fun reading, and it might be of interest for the progression of the zombie over a century or so.


Randy M.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Now that I think about it, I've never read a zombie novel. As popular as they are on screen, they don't seem too popular in literature. Unless I'm missing an entire section when I go browsing.

 

[JoanDrake]

Zombies, to me, are a novelty genre. The first one, Night of the Zombies, was actually used as an argument for censorship, an example of 'blood porn' in the 50's.

After that there was a several decade hiatus but then they returned as metaphors for consumerism.

There was, meanwhile, an actual drama/"documentary" about so-called 'real' zombies, called "The Serpent and the Rainbow". Directed by Wes Craven, the movie is good if you don't take it real seriously, as it was later revealed to be more than a little "enhanced" storywise.

And there are the endless vehicles for the luscious Milla. She deserves better but I'll take her in these anyway.

I've yet to see or hear of the Great American Zombie Novel/Movie. Most I've heard of lately are actually comedies, AFAICT. (Though I haven't seen "Lollipop Chainsaw", I hear the scenes where she beheads her boyfriend are Oscar material)