Zombies, Zombies Everywhere ...

... and not a brain in sight!

I've never been a real zombie fan. Too much blood and guts everywhere (literally). However, these two examples are too good to pass up.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Shaun and his best friend are a couple of slackers. A good evening is one that ends at the pub and every evening ends at the pub. Shaun's girlfriend is less than pleased with this lack of initiative, especially after celebrating their third anniversary ... at the pub. She breaks up with Shaun who is so distraught that he doesn't notice all there is a zombie epidemic all around them. This leads to some hilarious scenes, such as when Shaun and his friend first encounter zombies and think they are drunks. Shaun takes the lead in rescuing his mum and ex-girlfriend to take them to the safest place he can think of ... the pub. I was anxious to see this from the first moment I heard the premise, yet put it off for fear of the "R" rating (for zombie violence ... yes, that's actually what it says). There is plenty of warning for any such scenes and much of it is so fake that it doesn't matter. The directors are really good at combining our awareness that this is a zombie movie with Shaun's general cluelessness to provide many very funny jump scenes as well. HC rating: nine thumbs up!

WORLD WAR Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

It goes by many names: “The Crisis,” “The Dark Years,” “The WalkingPlague,” as well as newer and more “hip” titles such as “World War Z” or “Z War One.” I personally dislike this last moniker as it implies an inevitable “Z War Two.” For me, it will always be “The Zombie War,” and while many may protest the scientific accuracy of the word zombie, they will be hard-pressed to discover a more globally accepted term for the creatures that almost caused our extinction. Zombie remains a devastating word, unrivaled in its power to conjure up so many memories or emotions, and it is these memories, and emotions, that are the subject of this book.

This record of the greatest conflict in human history owes its genesis to a much smaller, much more personal conflict between me and the chairperson of the United Nation’s Postwar Commission Report. My initialwork for the Commission could be described as nothing short of a labor of love. My travel stipend, my security access, my battery of translators, both human and electronic, as well as my small, but nearly priceless voice-activated transcription “pal” (the greatest gift the world’s slowest typist could ask for), all spoke to the respect and value my work was afforded on this project. So, needless to say, it came as a shock when I found almost half of that work deleted from the report’s final edition. ...

World War Z (WWZ) is the book that began the zombie invasion of publishing. You may thank or curse Max Brooks, depending on your feeling about the genre. Actually, WWZ is the follow-up to Brooks' 2003 book, The Zombie Survival Guide. Where that book was a twist on more practical manuals, however, WWZ is a much more serious novel than one might expect.

In this "future history" a reporter travels the world to interview key individuals who fought in the zombie wars after a virus surfaces that sweeps over populations in an epidemic, leaving huge numbers of zombies roaming the earth. The clever premise provides much food for thought about how individuals and governments respond to unexpected emergencies ... or fail to respond. Brooks uses this vehicle not only to tell an excellent story but to skewer both governmental policies and lambast the powerful who take advantage of any situation for their own gain. This is a real page turner that resulted in many late nights as I watched civilization collapse and wondered what was found that allowed victory over the zombie hordes.