So, in honor of the undead becoming so interesting to this crazy world of ours – I want to dedicate a post to interesting and fun books/music/movies/podcasts/etc that have to do with zombies.

First of all, zombies truely terrify me. So much so that I actually couldn’t read the book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, even though I’ve read little bits and pieces and found it riveting. It gave me nightmares for days, so I had to stop. But, a friend of mine who is very picky about books, loved it, so I’m recommending the book here. It’s a post-apocalyptic look at what the world would look like after zombies re-animated. It is a reflection on the past by war heroes and survivalists alike who experienced first-hand a full-out zombie war. Creepy, creepy stuff.

There is a fan site dedicated to the zombie apocolypse world as inspired by world war z called Tales of World War Z. There are some brilliant and terrifying stories in there. Check them out.

Next we have a less serious look at the walking dead issue – The Takeover, a podiobook/podcast presented by Mur Lafferty. This is a hilarious look at what it would be like to have your company taken over by Zombinc – a company run by zombies which provides low wage zombie labor to other companies. The only way to be promoted in the ranks of Zombinc is to, well, become a zombie.

When I listened to The Takeover, I was entranced by the amazing zombie theme songs Mur put on there – specifically a song called Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton. Check it out, pretty darn hilarious.

Last but not least, zombie movies. These really doll out the nightmares for me – yes, even the funny ones like Shaun of the Dead. The only one that didn’t give me nightmares was Zombieland . I’m not sure why. Maybe (and this IS a spoiler folks, so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to be spoiled) it’s because of the zombie clown. I’ve always wanted to see one. A friend of mine and I had a joke that a zombie clown would be the ultimate worst nightmare scenario. Also, the number (or lack thereof) of zombies made the movie slightly more comforting.

The two movies above are funny, but the following are not funny, but extremely scary movies. I’m going to categorize them by speed of zombie:

- Dawn of the Dead – Super fast zombies with no explanation of how they came to be. The dead started rising one day. Freaky.

- Resident Evil- all three movies feature fast zombies, but the last two feature fast, mutant and possibly intelligent zombies. There is, however, a reason for the undead-ness. The t-virus which has spread to so many people continuously re-animates the dead body.

- 28 Days Later- fast and ferocious zombies. The movie is about a particularly horrible strain of rabies, called “Rage” getting loose in England. It’s extremely scary.  I couldn’t watch the whole movie in the middle of a bright, SoCal afternoon.

One more movie which is funny because it’s so cheesy is The Return of the Living Dead. Extremely campy and awesome. Also, it was released the year I was born, so it’s gotta be good, right?

Finally, I will give you some authors with non-infectious zombies – zombies which may turn against you, but they mostly just fight or stand there and moulder:

- Terry Pratchett’s Making Money , along with several other of his Discworld Novels.  His zombies have personality and character.

- Piers Anthony’s Xanth Series.  These are fighting zombies, reanimated corpses and such.

- Laurell K. Hamilton in Strange Candy. This is the traditional zombie, raised by a spell and not really so friendly.

I’m sure there are others, but those are the main ones I can come up with. Do you have any recommendations for zombie books/movies/podiobooks/podcasts?

As usual, please remember that I don’t get paid unless you click on an Amazon link in my site, then buy something. The recommendations to other sites I give you because I love them – not because they pay me. So, if you want to get something at Amazon, click on my links and buy from there. I get a small commission, you get a good deal on cool stuff. Win Win, yeah?

Book: Strange Candy

Genre: Horror/Fantasy/Sci Fi

Julia Rating: 10

Comments: I really bit off more than I could chew here.  When choosing books, I thought, “Hey, it’s a book of short stories – let’s shake things up”.  I had never read Laurell Hamilton before and I didn’t know what a fantastic writer she was. 

Strange Candyreally is, well, strange.  But it really contains candy for the imagination.  I truly loved this book.  There are Anita Blake shorts, a story set in Anita’s world, two stories of Sidra Ironfist, along with a horrific sci fi story and several other gems. 

From this book I’ll be checking out the Anita Blake series.  I’m really excited.

Week 1 – New Books: October 1st – 11th
- Infected: A Novel by Scott Sigler
- Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs
- Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (not a new book – but a new HBO tv show: TrueBlood is based upon this book.
- In the Woods by Tana French

Week 2 – Classics: October 12th – 18th
This is not a book review week, but a discussion of classic horror writers
- Ray Bradbury
- H.G. Wells
- Bram Stoker
- Edgar Allen Poe
- H.P. Lovecraft

Week 3 – Odds & Ends: October 19th – 25th
- The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
- Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
- Acceptable Risk by Robin Cook

Week 4 – Supernatural/Very Creepy: October 26th – 31st
- Duma Key by Stephen King
- Strange Candy by Laurell K. Hamilton
- World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks*
- Deadly Night by Heather Graham (as yet unreleased)

*Just so you know how far I’m going for you, you must know that zombies terrify me. The rest of these novels will give me a little zing – a bit of suspense, maybe a sick feeling in my stomach, World War Z will most likely make me paranoid all month.

**Another “just so you know”, I will put links to the posts in this post as I go, so if someone stumbles upon this mid horror month, they can track.

9/24/08: Revision to book list: I changed from The Shack: Special Edition by William P. Young to Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. This is because as I read The Shack, I find that it’s more theological than anything else.  Sorry about the mix up.

10/31/08: I ran out of time in reading Deadly Night by Heather Graham, so I read and reviewed The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.