REVIEW: So Now You’re A Zombie: A Handbook For The Newly Undead by: John Austin
Official Blurb
There is more to undeath than shambling around in search of brains to eat, but not much more, according to this short but detailed look at the new zombie, or zed, Â lifestyle. Filled with deadpan tips on how to succeed in the coming zombie apocalypse, it covers the basics of caring for decomposing flesh ( If you experience an extreme freeze… your extremities should continue to function until they fall off Â), practical suggestions for overcoming obstacles, and instructions for attacking the living ( The only thing more lethal than you is you on fire! Â). The blood-splattered pages contain copious diagrams, such as a zombie food pyramid, pie charts of infection methods, and instructions for operating doorknobs. The illustrations are as grossly explicit as the text is employee-handbook underplayed, making this an excellent choice for the zombie completist.
Review
From The Zombie Survival Guide: How To Live Like A King After The Outbreak to The Zombie Combat Manual there are a lot of guides to the undead depending on your point of view of how to deal with the zombie apocalypse. However you may also have noticed a recent trend in zombie novels that are being released – intelligent zombies. So with that being said John Austin has written a new type of guidebook for when the zombie apocalypse occurs. A guidebook for zombies.
Yes if you’ve recently woken up dead there is a good chance you’ll end up with a copy of this handbook shortly after. Apparently they’ve been being printed in one form or another for YEARS! (Originally in blood on the flesh of their victims, kind of like the Necronomicon!) From how to hunt and how to keep your rotting corpse from quickly decomposing it’s the ultimate hands on guide on how to live after you return from the dead craving nothing more than that wonderfully squishy gray matter. Yes that’s right – brains.
Now the thing is adapting to a new body after reanimating can be a bit difficult. Your old fading memories and instincts will want to make you believe you can run, climb ladders, and all sorts of things! Fortunately practicality (or a copy of this guide) will quickly show you that all of these things are long in the past and you have to rely on your new and improved senses and strength to track down and kill dinner.
It seems that those pesky living humans just don’t want to sit down and let you eat them and with their quicker mobility it takes a bit of extra effort to track them down, even when you have a horde of fellow brain eaters following you! In fact while it shows you how a horde can be useful to have at your back you do have to remember having that horde will leave less food for you to chew on so figuring out how to hunt alone is a very important train to pick up. On the other hand while you don’t want to have any of your food wasted and taken by others you do want to keep the zombie horde growing strong and this shows the best examples of some of the living you may only want to wound, and why. Spreading the zombie virus can be an offensive weapon as well if you can injure someone and have them run back to their friends for help. It’s only a matter of time while you shamble after them before they become one of your friends and cause enough of a distraction for you to follow them into their secure location for a nice snack.
While this is truly more comedy then horror there is a nice little horror styled ‘twist’ at the end that all fans of the genre should fully appreciate! I know I got a kick out of it.
Available on Amazon
