• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Zombie & Post Apocalyptic Fiction

Gwenar said:
I don't know if you're into audio books, but...

Check out "We're Alive". It's a serialized radio show (podcast, actually). I like it much better than The Walking Dead, although it's a similar premise. There's more action and an overall mystery.

We listen through iTunes on Roku, but you can download shows, or listen, right from the website.

You'll want to start with episode 1 - they're all free to stream or download

http://www.zombiepodcast.com/listen/
Click to expand...

If you look at the "Cast & Crew" photo, you can see Phillipa K Dick in the back right hand side of the picture :)
 
Some older apocalyptic books:

The Death of Grass
Riddley Walker
The Sheep Look Up
Lucifer's Hammer
 
dreeness said:
Some older apocalyptic books:

The Death of Grass
Riddley Walker
The Sheep Look Up
Lucifer's Hammer
Click to expand...

Haven'r read Ridley Walker but the others are well worth checking out.

The Death of Grass was filmed as No Blade of Grass. Some dated attitudes in it but a pretty good film. It certainly influenced Mad Max.
 
dreeness said:
The Sheep Look Up
Click to expand...

This one has the distinction of being a riveting read and massively depressing at the same time. And also for some covers putting the author's name after the title so it unfortunately reads "The Sheep Look Up John Brunner".
 
Beowulf is probably "zombie fiction", at least according to some modern interpretations.

From this link:

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ghosts.shtml


Part V: Parallels between the Scandinavian draugr and Beowulf's Grendel

(All Old English is from Frederick Klaeber's edition of Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. 3rd ed. Lexington MA; D.C. Heath & Co., 1950. All translations to modern English and any mistakes therein are my own.)

Parallels can be drawn between Beowulf and Grettirs Saga based on the similarities between Beowulf's encounter with Grendel in Heorot and Grettir's struggle with Glamr at Thorhallsstadir. These two tales have more in common than just their plots, however, for there are many similarities between their monstrous adversaries: "The important thing is that Grendel is related to the corpse demon (aptrgangr) Glamr..." (Nicholas K. Kiessling, "Grendel: A New Aspect," Modern Philology, 65 (1968), p. 201). In many respects, Grendel himself seems to exhibit the characteristics of the walking dead.

Chadwick, in her analysis of words used in Beowulf to describe Grendel, points out that Anglo-Saxon glossaries relate these descriptions to Latin words "associated with the underworld, with necromancy and the harmful influence of the spirits of the dead" (Chadwick, "The Monsters and Beowulf," p. 175). Like the draugr, "swollen to the size of an ox," Grendel is "mara thonne aenig man odther" (l. 1353, "greater in size than any other man") and possesses strength proportional to his size which enables him to carry fifteen men away to his lair:

Þ;onne he Hroðgares heorð-geneatas
sloh on sweofote slaepende fræt
folces Denigea fyftyne men,
and oðer swylc ut offerede
laðlicu lac.
(ll. 1580-1584a)

(Then Hrothgar's hearth companions
he slew in their beds, ate them sleeping,
of the Danish people fifteen men,
another fifteen likewise he carried off-
a hateful gift.)
Click to expand...
 
dreeness said:
Some older apocalyptic books:

The Death of Grass
Riddley Walker
The Sheep Look Up
Lucifer's Hammer
Click to expand...

Thanks, have read 3 of these but not Riddley Walker. Will look it up.
 
;)

While looking around, I found this review of a "soon to be classic" of the genre.

From this link:

link

Review Excerpt:
The characters in the book are well developed enough that I felt a personal interest in what they were going through. Most of the situations presented were realistic, which presented the author to share real world survival tips with the reader. Of note is all of the solid information on trapping and setting snares. There were a few scenarios that required suspension of belief though. Cannibal Roman soldiers was a bit of a leap, but as the author points out in the notes, not completely impossible. The biggest issue with realism is the overarching antagonist group present in all of the story lines. I can’t really see a highly organized, nationwide gang of environmentalist vegetarians forming armies with artillery support to sweep the country to kill people that eat meat.
Click to expand...

:roll:
 
dreeness said:
"World War Z" was odious crap.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with this. I liked the Zombie Survival Guide and bought WWZ expecting the same. I was horribly disappointed. The book should have been entitled 'Ethnic and Social Class Stereotypes Versus Zombies'. Basically if you knew someone's nationality and job you knew exactly what their reaction and personality was going to be. It was tedious, predictable, and surprise surprise at the end America saves the day. Yawn.

Only good bit was that part about North Korea.
 
My favorite book by Stephen King is The Stand, dealing with a deadly pandemic and the aftermath. The next one contains no supernatural stuff, but (and pardon me for a bit of shameless self-promotion here) there is my own The Pale Horse, which also deals with a deadly world-wide pandemic.
 
Probably the best Zombie book out there, (apart from Max Brooks),

Zone One by Pulitzer prize winner Colson Whitehead. Listening to it on Audible. It's the sort of thing Fear the Walking Dead should have been. It makes you realize just what a dull and wasted opportunity Fear and later the Walking Dead are.

It's intelligent account of the immediate firestorm of a zombie plague is brilliant. The novel moves between the memories of the first days of the plague to the later times of the clean up teams as the country attempts to get back on it's feet.

It's nicely hauntological as the survivors move through a landscape so familiar but so changed.

8.5 out of 10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_One
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top