hellfudge's Full Review: Max Brooks - The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete P...
You're in your house watching television. It's dusk, and the news is talking about riots in a nearby city. For some reason, many of the rioters have been taken to the hospital with bite wounds. Is this a red flag for you, or will you ignore the story like the rest of the world, only to become prey for an army of flesh-eating, reanimated corpses a few days later? They're coming for you, Barbara. Do you know what to do?
The Zombie Survival Guide would be an indispensable book if its subject matter had even a slim chance of being reality. Instead, it's a pretty funny novelty read, especially for fans of zombie flicks. And with the bombardment of theaters with such movies in the last few years, there are quite a few of us.
What author Max Brooks does in this book is to take a fantastically implausible situation and write about it as though it were hard fact, and he does so brilliantly, even going so far as to discredit and warn against using other fantastically implausible zombie stories, such as movies, as learning tools.
Brooks explains early in the book that the living dead have existed almost as long as man, and that while no outbreak has yet to be so large as to be believed worldwide, the possibility of armageddon by zombie is real. He explains how zombies are created, how they act, how to protect yourself, and most importantly, how best to dispose of them, right down to what weapons to use in what situation.
If that doesn't sound like enough to fill an entire book and keep that book interesting, consider the style of the writing. The Zombie Survival Guide reads exactly like a survival manual, intended to be browsed again and again as each situation arises. Trapped in a house with the living dead clawing at the door? There's a section for that. Riding across a zombie-plagued country in an open-topped jeep? There's a section for that, too. Have the living dead wandered into the river? There's even a section on SCUBA search and destroy missions.
Each situation is analyzed logically and scientifically, complete with illustrations, and devoid of the flashy, hollywood stuff that makes movies like Dawn of the Dead such poor teachers. A shopping mall? Come now...Brooks is quick to point out what an awful idea that realistically is. In fact, in his words, it is "a practically indefensible structure". Not to mention it's probably in an urban area...those should be avoided at all costs!
But by far, the best part of this book is the last section...the "Recorded Attacks" part of the book. Arranged chronologically, Brooks details a large number of zombie attacks, sieges, infestations, and even possible zombie-related incidents throughout the history of the world. Were these attacks real? Were they covered up by governments? Why did the news media not cover this incident, and what happened to the rescuers who never returned? It's over 50 pages of a conspiracy-theorist's bliss, on par with the best the X-Files had to offer.
Of course, humor disguised as straight-faced seriousness isn't everyone's cup of brains, a fact that may lead some to put this book down after two pages. Never does the book let on that it's a joke...even the "About the Author" page mentions Brooks' willingness to "move to a more remote and defensible location at a moment's notice".
And then, of course, there are bound to be those who read it and offer such arguments as "what if the zombies come and they aren't like this book says? what if they act the way they do in such-and-such movie?"
But let's face it, those people deserve to be eaten.
The rest of us will have The Zombie Survival Guide and our wits to keep us alive.
The Zombie Survival Guide is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now. Fully illustrated and exhaustively c...More at HotBookSale
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