The Zombie Survival Guide
Max Brooks
(Three Rivers Press)
254 pages

Max Brooksā€™ po-faced book (which complements the recent widespread revival of interest in zombies in movies and popular culture) takes the zombie threat very seriously indeed, beginning by describing the living dead phenonema and pin-pointing the cause as a virus called solanum (rather than voodoo or other supernatural forces), before meticulously examining the best weapons to use against the undead. The book then follows a detailed analysis of various strategies for either fighting or fleeing zombie outbreaks of various levels of severity, with frequent references to ā€?real lifeā€™ examples.

The title may conjure up expectations of hilarity, but Brooks plays it all perfectly straight and joke-free, with the laughs coming from the straight-faced nature of the parody, and to be honest the going gets a bit tedious after a while ā€“ although the earnest style occasionally makes the nightmarish scenarios seem all too convincing.

As with the best zombie material, however, there are some pointed comments on our own modern society.

Owen Heitmann