Zompoc Fiction

[DanaC]

Some of you may have picked up on the fact that, for the last few years I've been very into zombie apocalypse stories - some might even suggest I'm a tad obsessed with them. They may not be wholly incorrect in that assessment.

So - I'm wondering if anybody else likes reading zompoc fiction? I'm thinking mainly of novels, rather than graphic novels, because my kindle doesn't get along welll with the comic book format, but by all means if it's the graphic novels that float your boat, I'd like to hear about them too.

What prompted me to start this thread is that I have recently had a run of really awesome zompoc novels, standalone and series.I just finished book four in an excellent series called The Zombie Rules. , just before that I read the first two books in The Zombie Theories series, and before that I read the first four books of Surviving the Evacuation . Somewhere in the middle of this I read a standalone novel, the name of which currently escapes me, but I'll post about later.

What I liked about all of these stories is that they are very character driven, with intriguing plots, and all very different from each other. Each of them works in its own right as a story, regardless of whether you're particularly into zombies - a lot of zompoc fiction is really quite bad, and only worth reading if you are specifically looking for a zombie fix.

I'll write a bit more in here when I get a minute - but yeah - anybody else read anything good in the zompoc genre?

[Gravdigr]

I think the only zombie stuff I've read was "World War Z" by Max Brooks (Mel Brooks' & Anne Bancroft's son, btw).

It took me about a third of the book to get used to the format, which is 'random interview notes'. It was a good story, and better than the movie, which was pretty good itself.

[Gravdigr]

I'm waiting for the zompoc non-fiction.

You know it's coming.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I'm waiting for the zompoc non-fiction.

You know it's coming.

Yup and when it does I am toast!

[DanaC]

I can highly recommend Zombie Rules as a good entry to the genre. Iavoided it fora while because it sounded like it was going to do a lot of the stuff that pisses me off in a lot of zompoc fiction - in particular the hero's convenient hook-up with a kickass survivalist, but it was actually brilliant and a really great story. The lead character and main narrator (we get occasional changes of pov, but it mainly follows him) is just 16 when the whole thing starts and he's having a pretty shitty time of things - he's been dumped by his sweetheart, had the shit kicked out of him by some older lads, and his only family, his gran dies of a heart attack. He goes to stay with his boss at the farm where he works part-time - a cranky, asocial, alcoholic vietnam vet who is into ham radio and survivalist stuff.

It's well written and we see the boy grow up. he's a borderline genius with a photographic memory and, frankly, he does pretty well in the apocalypse. Much of the story is about his attempts to recreate a community, the relationships he builds, and his learning how to survive. It's clearly been thoroughly researched.

There are a bunch of interesting and colourful characters, and the attempts to restart a community are beset with problems, most of which are from other humans, rather than zombies - but - the zombies are changing and become more dangerous as time goes on.

It's not often I get drawn so deep into these stories that I feel choked up when a character dies, or when something terrible happens to the group but this one got right under my skin.

[Happy Monkey]

I guess Game of Thrones is Zompoc-adjacent. Though they aren't really Romero-style zombies; they're an undead army of wights under direct control.

[monster]

Sounds like a tampon brand aimed at cheerleaders.