Any good Zombie books out there?

[caleb72]

Hey - if you want to try something quite different you could read De Bello Lemures by Thomas Brookside.

If you want to gain an impression of the book you can check out the review I wrote on it: here

It's a very short read and I rank it quite highly. But although the zombies are pretty familiar, the way of getting the story out there is probably not.

[RainingLemur]

I snagged "The Wanderers" off of Permuted Press, recently, and found it to be pretty enjoyable.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by Stormchild

The Vampire craze seemed to drift off into romance. I was half expecting Mills and Boon to start releasing Vampire and Werewolf love stories. Somehow I do not see Zombies and Romance going together all though it has been tried.

I rather enjoyed Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies recently, which is very much zombie romance (zombie/living person romance). I suppose we'll see if it starts a zombie romance craze or not!

[RainingLemur]

I went ahead and pre-ordered "Survivors" the 3rd (and I assume to be final, considering the author has passed) installment to the Morningstar Strain saga.

The first 2 were some of my favorite zombie books, happily blending 28 Days/Weeks Olympic sprinting zombies and the baffled by doorknobs/molasses-slow zombies we usually think of.

[the-golden-ones]

Just picked up a hardback copy of Autumn: purification for £3.99! Might give that a go next. Not really read much zombie fiction, even though i'm a massive zombie fan. But i did read a really cool short story on a website a while back. It was told through the zombie's eyes and was really amusing. Wish I could remember what it was so I could recommend it!

[jess1ca]

I'm currently reading Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry and loving it so far!

[ZombieEatsYou]

Originally Posted by jess1ca

I'm currently reading Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry and loving it so far!

Maberry rarely disappoints.

[ZombieEatsYou]

picked up Zombiestan. No comment yet, just started it.

[ZombieEatsYou]

Thought it was time for an update on what I've been listening/reading lately. Finished up The Remaining and The Remaining: Aftermath by D.J. Molles; blurb=

"Nothing has gone according to plan. To Captain Lee Harden, Project Hometown feels like a distant dream and the completion of his mission seems unattainable. Wounded and weaponless, he has stumbled upon a group of survivors that seems willing to help. But a tragedy in the group causes a deep rift to come to light and forces him into action. In the chaos of the world outside, Lee is pursued by a new threat: someone who will stop at nothing to get what he has." Not a Zombie book, per se. This is an infection that eats away the frontal lobe of the brain leaving nothing behind but instinct. Trouble is, they are learning...

Maberry's The Assassin Code came out on audible narrated by the brilliant Ray Porter. Not zombies, but Vampires - real ones. Can not recommend Maberry's Joe Ledger books enough, especially audio versions. Porter creates a seperate voice for every single character. I lost count at nineteen at one point.

Night of the Living Trekkies was a very fine tale of a ZA at a trek convention. Sounds like it could have been corny but turned out to be a fun mash-up of pop-culture and zombie mayhem.

Listening to Craig DiLouie's The Killing Floor right now. This sequel to The Infection is a bit slower than the first novel; intertwining five different character's stories. I know they have to merge at some point but Peter Ganim's narration is not the most engaging. He just doesn't have the versitility of Porter.

Till next time, save a brain for me.

[ZombieEatsYou]

Ok. So I've postponed finishing The Killing Floor. Just a tad too slow building up with too many characters with too many agendas; it just dilutes the story.

Picked up and read Jack Hamlyn's Necrophobia 1 and 2.

"An ordinary summer's day. The grass is green, the flowers are blooming. All is right with the world. Then the dead start rising. From cemetery and mortuary, funeral home and morgue, they flood into the streets until every town and city is infested with walking corpses, blank-eyed eating machines that exist to take down the living. The world is a graveyard. And when you have a family to protect, it's more than survival. It's war."

"Necrophobia Book 2 Nightmare, New York. From Manhattan to the Bronx, Queens to Brooklyn, a hellzone of the walking dead, crazed survivalists, and deranged cults. One man will stand against them. One man will fight them street to street. He'll do anything to find his friends and his son. There's no pit he won't crawl through. No enemy he will not face. And God help anyone who gets in his way."

Very gory and action-oriented tale. Hamlyn either has military experience or has done his homework on military equipment as his descriptions of weapons and their effects seem accurate. Story-wise, our protagonist, Steve Niles, fights to protect his son and wife with the help of his sister-in-law and next door neighbor and find some where safe to hold up. They succeed in making it to a compound set up by a prescient Vietnam vet who Steve had befriended. They seem safe until they draw the destructive notice of both a rogue U.S. military unit and a lawless militia group. Forced from their compound and on the run, Steve is separated from the group and is drafted into one of the rogue military. Now he must not only survive the zombies, but also the insane leaders of his unit and try to escape to rejoin his family.

Necrophobia is VERY gory - well beyond the typical blood and guts of the genre. The action is well developed, and mostly believable (except for Steve's almost preternatural luck). Don't grow attached to any of the characters you meet for Hamlyn is likely to kill them off in the most violent way. My only real complaint is that many of the scenes seem to be written for their own sake; meaning that they don't advance the protagonist's main objective. Indeed, up through the second half of book 2, there really isn't a "life or death" (aside from the zombies of course) issue driving Niles. This changes once he is separated from his family, however I wonder what will happen when (if) he finds them. As one of my "how to write" books stated, are things just happening to your hero, or is your story telling how your hero reacts to the events in chasing his objective?

Till next time I just want to leave you with....HEY LOOK, a brain....

[RynoMc]

I know, I know - this is a BOOK forum. But I really, really, really wanted to pass along a recommendation - I really did. This looks to be a highly sophisticated and scholarly audience which has an appreciation for severed body parts, corpse reanimation, and overall mindless consumption of flesh and heroic brain bashing-ness, I'm hoping it's on the bubble enough to be nearly-appropriate for this post.

To be clear, this forum's title caught my eye in my results when my search query hit on the word "cloud" in an earlier review. I wasn't looking for zombie book reco's, but was pleasantly surprised to find them. I will definitely be augmenting my "To Read" list after some reviews I've read.

My recommendation is actually a Podcast, entitled "We're Alive." by Wayland Productions. http://www.zombiepodcast.com/
Here is a brief synopsis of the beginning, from the producers:

A small riot in LA has spread past its containment. Three reserve soldiers are called to their deserted duty station. Believed to be the last remaining armed servicemen in the area, Michael, Angel, and Saul witness the true cause of the riot; people are starting to change and attack each other

Sure, barely enough to whet your whistle. But if you can be compelled to listen to the first episode (about 20 minutes) you will not be disappointed, and will likely be hooked! I just discovered this series in Feb 2012, though it's been around since 2009. And I'm not afraid to say that I lost a good deal of sleep catching up on the prior episodes, not being able to walk away.

The story begins as one of apocalyptic survival - establishing security and rescuing survivors, to planning for sustinence, to fighting for resources with other groups of survivors - some of whom are nasty, nasty folks.

"Because all the passive ones are dead." - Michael in response to Pegs asking why everyone they meet are aggresive assholes.

And don't forget the Zombies! You have your standard hoarding Romero types, but additionally there are other kinds that show up later, with specialized abilities or features (behemoths, runners, jumpers, etc.) as well as a sinister leader of sorts with what seems to be means to command the hordes along with superhuman physical abilities.
After the plan of establishing a secure location with the basics of survival falls through, the group seeks out help where they think it might be found. The story breaks into several as the main characters are separated, and it evolves into a story about post-apocalyptic survival and the flaws of humanity when selfish survival instincts overwhelm social norms like compassion and humility.

http://chime.in/user/Morgan/chime/156158625521545216

We're Alive began in 2009 and is now in it's third season. Each episode is split into three parts, and each part is released on a Monday, so you have to wait an agonizing week (or sometimes two) for a new part. I didn't think this would be my thing- I'm not very into zombies and I don't like scary thing- but once I started I couldn't stop. The story is addicting. I highly recommend it- you can listen for on the website, or you can download the podcast for free on iTunes.

This isn't an audiobook being read for the listener. This is a full-fledged radio drama like the old-time radio shows, with actors, sound effects, and music. I'm thoroughly impressed with the quality and I frequently found myself getting excited during battle scenes, or checking over my shoulder during the creepy parts. Like I said, I had a really hard time "putting it down," if you will. I downloaded the MP3 files and listened on my Blackberry. Again, the quality was outstanding. Podcasts can be found on iTunes and other formats, or downloaded as MP3 files as well as listening to streaming audio on the website. http://www.zombiepodcast.com/

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by RynoMc

My recommendation is actually a Podcast, entitled "We're Alive." by Wayland Productions. http://www.zombiepodcast.com/

I'd second that recommendation, I've been listening to it for a couple of years now. If you haven't heard it yet you're in for a treat. It's also free, but there is a short advert at the beginning of each episode.

Feed location for Juice users:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/itpc/www...Podcast/rssxml

[LucyLu]

Originally Posted by RynoMc

This is a full-fledged radio drama like the old-time radio shows, with actors, sound effects, and music.

If someone is interested in zombie audiodrama productions there are other noteworthy podcasts:

1. One Eighteen: Migration (Post apocalyptic podcast adventure of zombies and madness) with 2 complete seasons so far http://oneeighteenmigration.blogspot.it/

2. Age of the Zombies : http://ageofthezombies.necropolisstu....com/aotz.html

3. Autumn (Darker Projects in association with Infected Books presents David Moody's vision of apocalyptic horror) http://darkerprojects.com/autumn.php

4. Alive Inside http://darkerprojects.com/aliveinside.php

5. HG World http://goodmorningsurvivors.com/

[ZombieEatsYou]

Hey. A podcast is just an audiobook in my...er...book. ;-)
Thanks for keeping the thread alive, I was getting lonely.

[Echo75]

Jack Wallen writes a great protagonist in journo Jacob Plummer in the I Zombie I series http://www.amazon.com/I-Zombie-ebook...pr_product_top