What Zombie books have you read?

[whynotvap]

I've read the basics so far: ZSG, WWZ, and a few collections of short stories like The New Dead etc. While ZSG is probably my favorite, I recently read Feed by Mira Grant and thought it was pretty darn good. It's not a typical survival run though, the story is set decades after the 'Rising' where the undead and how the infection is contained are controlled by govt agencies, the press have to pass physicals and weapons training to leave secure areas and a blood test is required before you can enter your own home... Oh did I mention that everyone and everything over 40lbs contains at least a trace amount of the virus?

Anyway, thought I'd pass on a good, if different, zombie book. There IS some comp/tech references (Feed like RSS feed along Braiiiiinsss feeding) but they're not intrusive enough that a non-techie couldn't figure it out well enough to follow along.

So what sparkling little gems has everyone else found?

 

[CaptJay]

World WarZ and a couple of 'horror' books that had zombies in them (not bought because of subject though) is about it. I never found a really GOOD zombie book; even one of my fave authors, Stephen King, I thought made a bit of a hash with Pet Sematary (sic). WWZ was very good though I thought.
Zombie movies are either great or terrible (a bit like sci-fi movies but books are usually better standard) imo.
Feed sounds interesting though I might give that one a look.

 

[VictoryNotVengence]

"Cell" By stephen king is a great zombie book. Reading it makes you feel like your in a zombie movie.

The premise is everyone in the world who is on a cell phone at 3pm on that day get a signal put in their head to become zombies.

"The Signal" was a movie that came out around the time the book did and has a very similar story. It was the best movie that came out that year I think.

Check em both out.

 

[whynotvap]

"Cell" By stephen king is a great zombie book. Reading it makes you feel like your in a zombie movie.

The premise is everyone in the world who is on a cell phone at 3pm on that day get a signal put in their head to become zombies.

"The Signal" was a movie that came out around the time the book did and has a very similar story. It was the best movie that came out that year I think.

Check em both out.

Is Cell really that good? I started boycotting SK after he weak-sauced the ending of the Gunslinger series. I mean weak as in I poured lemon juice on the pages looking for invisible ink that would give me the REAL ending weak. Weak like the end of the St. Elsewhere show, Dallas 'dream season', and Blaire Witch rolled into one!
On the other hand, The Signal was a pretty good movie Give me a good chainsaw scene and I'm happy.

For a good collection of short stories from any genre, check out anything edited by Gardner Dozois. Excellent compilations of sci-fi every year along with 2 'new space opera's', wizards, dragons, and now warriors. I can't wait for a zombie collection edited by him, I seem to have very similar tastes to him but not exactly enough to like every single story in each volume. You will however find some names you probably never heard of before and can't understand why!

Anyone read the Morningstar strain books by Z A Recht yet? I'd like a review before buying them since there seems to be a ton of Z fiction right now.

I'm looking for a couple new books to tide me over until Bite Me: A love story, shows up from Amazon (yes I'm cheap and saved 50% vs 10% at my local B&N). I've been a Christopher Moore fan since reading The Gospel According to Biff (Christ's childhood pal). I have to respect any author that can make me involuntarily laugh out loud, emphasis on the loud.

 

[CES]

Is Cell really that good? I started boycotting SK after he weak-sauced the ending of the Gunslinger series. I mean weak as in I poured lemon juice on the pages looking for invisible ink that would give me the REAL ending weak.

I like SK, but he cannot end a story to save his life. I read all of his books anyway. Cell was OK. I forget that it was essentially a zombie book.

For a good collection of short stories from any genre, check out anything edited by Gardner Dozois. Excellent compilations of sci-fi every year along with 2 'new space opera's', wizards, dragons, and now warriors. I can't wait for a zombie collection edited by him, I seem to have very similar tastes to him but not exactly enough to like every single story in each volume. You will however find some names you probably never heard of before and can't understand why!

It would be great if Gardner Dozois would edit a zombie SF compilation. I like SF fantasy reading too. Worst case it's mind candy.

Anyone read the Morningstar strain books by Z A Recht yet? I'd like a review before buying them since there seems to be a ton of Z fiction right now.

nope- sorry

I'm looking for a couple new books to tide me over until Bite Me: A love story, shows up from Amazon (yes I'm cheap and saved 50% vs 10% at my local B&N). I've been a Christopher Moore fan since reading The Gospel According to Biff (Christ's childhood pal). I have to respect any author that can make me involuntarily laugh out loud, emphasis on the loud.

LOVE Christopher Moore. Stupidist Angel was funny as s***. 'Bite me' is sitting with my stack of library books (yes, I am cheap- I borrow instead of buy).

I am absolutely awful about remembering names of book and authors (otherwise I'd try to recommend something to tide you over)- but 'Stupidist Angel' sticks in my mind, as well as 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'. The zombies make an unreadable classic book readable that much better. I'll look for 'Feed'- it sounds pretty interesting.

 

[whynotvap]

I enjoyed TSA v2.0 (now with more Moore!) but Lamb is still my favorite with Coyote Blue and the Vamp series tied for second place.

 

[CES]

The Gospel according to Biff was probably my favorite Moore book. Haven't read the 2.0 version of TSA (yet)

 

[CaptJay]

Ah yes I had forgotten Cell - I did really like it, I suppose it IS kind of a zombie story - although he still seems a bit spotty on form to me - I prefer his older stuff; maybe my tastes have changed (but I still enjoy books like 'the shining' and think they were written better) sorry to wander off topic slightly lol.
I also love fantasy n scifi as well as a good crime thriller (but it cant just be police proceural ones I hate those) like the Lincoln Ryhme books by Jeffrey Deaver.

 

[VictoryNotVengence]

Is Cell really that good? I started boycotting SK after he weak-sauced the ending of the Gunslinger series. I mean weak as in I poured lemon juice on the pages looking for invisible ink that would give me the REAL ending weak. Weak like the end of the St. Elsewhere show, Dallas 'dream season', and Blaire Witch rolled into one!
On the other hand, The Signal was a pretty good movie Give me a good chainsaw scene and I'm happy.


The dark tower ending? where he goes to the top of the tower and is transported back to the begining but has the horn which if played before he went into the tower would have done somthing different. How the first book was rewritten to show he has the horn. TO the back story in tons of pages of graphic novel from rolands childhood allthe way up to the start of gunslinger.


yeah that ending sucks.

 

[whynotvap]

The dark tower ending? where he goes to the top of the tower and is transported back to the begining but has the horn which if played before he went into the tower would have done somthing different. How the first book was rewritten to show he has the horn. TO the back story in tons of pages of graphic novel from rolands childhood allthe way up to the start of gunslinger.


yeah that ending sucks.

I don't know which version you read but the day of release hardback I had stopped at him picking up the horn. The reason I thought it was a weak ending is because SK DIDN'T end it. He left Roland endlessly cycling through time trying to 'do it right next time'. Now you can take it as: He gets another chance to do things right OR He's doomed forever trying to chase the impossible. SK alludes to the latter as being the more likely scenario since Roland was seeing various alternate time streams already. In my opinion, that's a .... thing to do to a character (and story) about redemption. The story doesn't end and may never end.

As far as the graphic novels, never read them as they would have been made after I was boycotting him

@ CaptJay I agree that SK doesn't write like he used to. I think after he reclaimed the Bachman books as his own (good stuff there) he started going downhill. Once he started trying to pull every novel into one unified world (cough* Insomnia* cough) it really started downhill. The exception is the Regulators/Desperation books, kind of screws with your head to have the bad guy in one be the hero in another.

 

[VictoryNotVengence]

I don't know which version you read but the day of release hardback I had stopped at him picking up the horn. The reason I thought it was a weak ending is because SK DIDN'T end it. He left Roland endlessly cycling through time trying to 'do it right next time'. Now you can take it as: He gets another chance to do things right OR He's doomed forever trying to chase the impossible. SK alludes to the latter as being the more likely scenario since Roland was seeing various alternate time streams already. In my opinion, that's a .... thing to do to a character (and story) about redemption. The story doesn't end and may never end.

As far as the graphic novels, never read them as they would have been made after I was boycotting him

@ CaptJay I agree that SK doesn't write like he used to. I think after he reclaimed the Bachman books as his own (good stuff there) he started going downhill. Once he started trying to pull every novel into one unified world (cough* Insomnia* cough) it really started downhill. The exception is the Regulators/Desperation books, kind of screws with your head to have the bad guy in one be the hero in another.

The slow mutants are a kind of zombie.

add dark tower to the list.

 

[CES]

I hadn't known about the alternate ending to the dark tower series.

I seem to be spending more time here on ECF than reading actual books these days.

 

[geko]

Anyone read the Morningstar strain books by Z A Recht yet? I'd like a review before buying them since there seems to be a ton of Z fiction right now.

I've read the first two and liked them. The zombies are infection based and there are both fast/infected and slow/zombies.
Unfortunately Z A Recht passed away before the third book was released. I've read that he finished the book and his family will publish it though.

Others I liked:
ZSG, WWZ, Day by Day Armageddon (DBDA), The Walking Dead graphic novels.
DBDA2 is coming out this July

I did not like the Monster Island/Nation/Planet books. They were too supernatural based for me. I don't like my zombies to have much in the way of thought processes.

 

[CES]

I just finished reading "Bite Me"......kayso it's a vampire book but it's hilarious

 

[whynotvap]

I just finished reading "Bite Me"......kayso it's a vampire book but it's hilarious

Well, it's a vampire, shaved vampire cat leading a pack of vampire cat book and yes, it's good. Not quite on par with the first two but still good.

 

[Wilvin]

I just got done reading WWZ. I thought it was pretty good though there were a few things in it that I went what the H*LL? Like Zombie traveling across the Ocean floor? Okay is it just me but even if they are dead the pressure at even in a shallow part of the ocean would crush them. Even a sub can only go so far down before it crushes like an egg. Really far down even a zombies body would get turned into a mass of jelly. But otherwise I found it an interesting book. I noticed a book at boarders a few weeks ago that was a comedy(I am guessing) Were John Lennon is a Zombie and wants to form a band so he turns Paul Mccartney into one to help him form the Beatles. The band travels the world doing concerts and eating fans!!! LOL

 

[CES]

so the undead Beatles book has been released? have to look for it.

hey, you mean that zombies can't travel across the ocean floor without getting squished by the pressure? they're not exempt from physics? another illusion in tatters. sigh.

 

[Wilvin]

They had it out around Halloween, it was with the rest of the Halloween horror books. I was at the book store last week but I did not see it. Then again I was not really looking for it. So not sure were Borders is keeping it, I would guess in the Horror section.

 

[whynotvap]

They had to account for the shark eating zombie from Zombie 2 somehow or the fans would have been on him for forgetting a type of zombie. Come to think of it, there's more than a couple zombie movies where they come from the ocean...

I'd forgotten all about this thread. I've been kind of interested in the 'mash up' novels of late but haven't actually read any of them yet. I'll have to check Paul is Undead as I'm a Beatles fan too. Since I started the thread, I've read The Living Dead vol 2 and while it's not 'bad', it's not as good overall as some of the previous omnibus zombie short story collections like The New Dead or The Living Dead Vol 1. Vol 2 does have a couple really good stories in it though so don't pass on it. One of them even takes a different approach to what it is that draws the undead to the living, and how to potentially block it... Yeah, I particularly liked that one

On non Zombie books, I finished Jim Butcher's First Lord's Fury, Dexter is Delicious, Anathema (Neil Stephenson), and what was supposed to be the FINAL Thomas Covenant book but it seems Donaldson wants to turn it into a 10 book series. I also ripped through a few old paperbacks to cleanse my mind between 'big' novels.

 

[CES]

there's another Thomas Covenant?! good deal. I've read a few of the Dexter books- i actually like them better than the series (though the books and the series are two completely different animals and i like both.) I'll look for the zombie anthologies too.