by Jay Wilburn
As the title says, I’m a sucker for zombie guide books. There is something about this approach to exploring the zombie apocalypse which captures my imagination. There are a lot of these types of books out there. Probably more than you might think. A lot of them are probably not worth your time, but a few might strike your interest as they did with me.
The first such book I picked up was The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. I’m kind of surprised that that guy didn’t churn out a whole slew of zombie books. That’s what I would have done. That’s what most of us would have done. That’s what most of us did do and that’s why we’re here on this tour. Right?!
There was something about this book. It was more than just Max Brooks as a writer. That was part of it. I think it takes a different sort of mind and mindset to write a “guide” anyway. Brooks had it and other zombie writers do too. Not all of them though. I think I might lose something in quality if I tried to mimic this style of book even with my experience writing zombies and my somewhat organized way of thinking. I think it takes a different sort of writer to do this really well. They have to be able to create a universe and rules like any other such author, but they also have to be able to delineate their thoughts and analyze a divergent accumulation of information while still being able to organize it and to present it in an interesting way.
The metacognitive nature of a zombie guide book appeals to my imagination and my thought process on the apocalypse. After I read The Stand by Stephen King, it changed the way I thought. It set me on a path that led to my own writing career. From that book, I endlessly ran various scenarios in my head about surviving the apocalypse. The Romero “of the Dead” films did the same thing for me. I ran the possibilities through my head day and night for years. This is what it is like to find “your thing.,” I believe. Because of this mental play, I think the zombie guide books feed right into that way of thinking. They get my wheels spinning like these other properties did before. It is easier for me to picture myself in the world being created because the book is written directly to me as the reader for that exact purpose.
Like I said, some of these types of books are pretty good and some are not. One that has caught my attention recently and I believe is well worth mentioning is Holy Crap! It’s Zombies! by Kenny Van Dyke Jr. One quick hook into the book for me was the way it was written as a bathroom book. This market of book was a popular niche in the late 20th century especially. In a way, it kind of filled the role that blogs and Smartphones do today with the quick snaps of information which are ultimately as much or more distraction than any other purpose. They appeal to a particular part of our brain and attention span, I think. This book is doubly good for that reason because it has the metacognitive appeal which other zombie guides do and it also has that self-aware metacognitive fun of realizing the type of book it is and the type of fun it is supposed to be to read. Van Dyke nailed it with this book both in tone and in the interplay with the reading who might be mentally preparing to survive the coming zombie apocalypse.
Van Dyke’s guide of zombie tips is well written and well thought out. You can see the time, attention, thought, and detail which went into them. You can also read his personality, mindset, and love for the genre on these pages. It is almost like he was always meant to create this book and we were always meant to read it. It plays out some of the key kernels of ideas which many zombie fans play with. He takes them out to a clearer level and extent than many of our aimless musings might. It is a good book for firing up my imagination and I’m sure it will for others who love the genre the way I do.
If you know of any other zombie guides or other interesting pieces in the genre, I’m always looking as both a fan and as the host of these zombie tours. There is a lot of great work out there in all sorts of styles and I believe it is worth finding and reading. No telling which one might change the way we all think.
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