REVIEW: The Zombie Combat Manual by Roger Ma
Recently you may remember that we had a guest post by Roger Ma, Surviving The Dead – A Hardware Store Survival Guide which is a great quick guide with some advice on everyday supplies to pickup at a hardware store to really get the most bang for your buck on fighting the undead. What you may not know though is that Roger Ma, creator of the Zombie Combat Club has also had a book which was published entitled The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to Fighting the Living Dead. I’m sure the name is pretty straight forward on the point of the guide itself. When he told me that it would be coming in the mail to review I was both excited for the prospect to read more of his work and a bit weary as I knew I wouldn’t be able to have the review up right when it was due to be released.
It’s unfortunate that this novel will probably be consistently compared to the Zombie Survival Guide with how it seemed to create a small sub genre of survival guide books when it comes to the undead. The reason why it is unfortunate is because it’s like comparing apples to oranges in how they are formatted and the type of survival being targeted. While the Zombie Survival Guide did cover some aspects of fighting and tactics for living in a world overrun with hordes of zombies in The Zombie Combat Manual we are primarily focusing on ways to fight the undead, examples of what works with what doesn’t, and ways to stay prepared for when we do have to fight them.
We open with the story of a man with a baseball bat who should be physically capable of annihilating any zombie in one on one combat. Strong, has a weapon, confident, and walking towards a zombie for a one on one encounter. The man dies. What we are to learn over the course of the rest of the novel is why he died, what he could have done to have prevent it, and what we need to know to not make the same mistakes.
After this we move from information on the undead that is relevant to our ability to fight them (speed, strengths, weaknesses, etc.) From here we are shown what we need to be in shape wise as well as various ways to defend ourselves when engaging the undead. There is even a child protection section that shows how to take care of our children when the outbreak occurs. It’s written in a serious tone though throughout the book there is an incredible dry sense of humor that is obvious and subtle depending on the section and each time you pick up another piece of it you can’t help but laugh at where it’s inserted.
On a side note quite often if I open a book and it is leaning more towards the visual style it’s a pretty safe bet that the book is going to suffer content wise. I’m bringing this up at the end so you can clearly know by now that I enjoyed the content immensely. The Zombie Combat Manual is a highly stylish looking novel from typography to layout to hand drawn depictions of the events as they are unfolding. Honestly when I did initially open the book I was sure it would be the first time Roger had let me down. I’m sure it’s obvious but if not let me say I am happy to say that I was wrong on my initial opinion. The book is both well written AND a treat to the eyes. It’s, in my opinion, a must have to any zombie enthusiast’s book collection.
