Book 12: The Zombie Survival Guide

TITLE: The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
AUTHOR: Max Brooks
STARTED: May 6, 2010
FINISHED: May 26, 2010
PAGES: 270
GENRE: Fiction


FIRST SENTENCE: The dead walk among us.

SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com] In this outrageous parody of a survival guide, Saturday Night Live staff writer Brooks prepares humanity for its eventual battle with zombies. One would expect the son of Mel Brooks to have a genetic predisposition to humor, and indeed, he does, and he exhibits it relentlessly here: he outlines virtually every possible zombie-human encounter, drafts detailed plans for defense and attack and outlines past recorded attacks dating from 60,000 B.C. to 2002. In planning for that catastrophic day when "the dead rise," Brooks urges readers to get to know themselves, their bodies, their weaponry, their surroundings and, just in case, their escape routes. Some of the book's more amusing aspects are the laughable analyses Brooks proposes on all aspects of zombiehood, and the specificity with which he enumerates the necessary actions for survival-i.e., a member of an anti-zombie team must be sure to have with him at all times two emergency flares, a signaling mirror, daily rations, a personal mess kit and two pairs of socks. Comic, though unnecessarily exhaustive, this is a good bet for Halloween gag gifts and fans of Bored of the Rings-esque humor.

THOUGHTS: If the dead were to rise and walk the earth, this would be a vital item to have around. Brooks spends far too much time contemplating the zombie apocalypse. He goes into so much depth that this book actually borders on textbook style - including the boredom. After adoring World War Z, I wanted to love this book but the text was so detailed that it felt like overkill.

If you want a true summary of this book, just read the table of contents. It will show you the extensiveness and detail of the text. Brooks leaves nothing out; he covers everything from what a zombie is, to escape routes, survival compounds, and weapons. Plus, much much (much!) more. 

While most of this book is a basic how-to-survive manual, the last third of the text is a detailing of recorded zombie encounters. Those pages were the best part of the book for me because it most resembled the narrative brilliance of World War Z. Additionally, Brooks manages to make several historical events sound as if they were actually zombie encounters. I gotta hand it to the guy, he sure knows how to make the undead feel real.

Finally, I will never look at crowbars the same way again.

RATING:7/10 [Very Good]