"Zombie Novels...where to after World War Z?" Topic

I powered through Max Brooks' (actually a friend of my wife!) WWZ and Zombie survival guides. I also enjoyed "Zombie Haiku", by Ryan Mecum.

From there I went to "Day by Day Armageddon", by J.L. Bourne. While I'm waiting for the WWZ movie and the sequal to Day by Day, what should I read next?

(PS. I'm not big on the whole comic book line of pulp zed, I prefer novels).

Thanks.

Try this one out- link
The publishers do a few zombie books, a couple are 'historical' to be different…
Mick

At the risk of being completely self-serving. . .

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Check out MONSTER ISLAND, a serialized novel by David Wellington, you can read it, and the two other books in the series, monster nation and monster world, on line and free. brokentype.com/monster is the url. awesome story, with some cool twists.

Monster Island series is so-so, I bought all 3 for Christmas. Ok, but with some twists yuo wouldn't associate with a zombie novel per se, and one you'd associate (well, I did) with something akin to that of a very well known sci-fi film.
Words of their roaring is pretty good – better than I Zombie. Best ones I have read recently are the first two books of the Morningstar Strain series – excellent read.

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Not sure when the third one is due out but I am eagerly awaiting it.

Max Brooks has a new Zombie book out this spring, The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks.

Plague of the Dead and Thunder & Ashes (the first two in the Morningstar Strain series) are good reads, but make sure you unplug the realism portion of your brain. (I know, I know, it's a zombie apocalypse book, but come on, you know what I mean.)

I leant them to a friend of mine and after reading them he said, "It's almost as if this guy wrote a story chronicling his RPG campaign and what the guys did in character in the campaign." He's right. There is definitely some stuff in there that is right out of a BAD "B" movie or RPG campaign.

Maybe I am asking too much, but I wish he had done more research on the military, its equipment, how it operates, tactics, etc. The author (Z.A. Recht) had a great story line, a fantastic take on Zombies and the outbreak, but knows nothing of the military or even much about viruses.

He also had some serious issues with continuity and reality. Serious issues. I don't mean stuff that goes wrong for the plot's sake, I mean stuff that just didn't make sense.

I won't ruin it for you in this thread, since you should make your own opinion. I did enjoy reading it and will buy and read the next installment, but like I said, you have to unplug that part of your brain that compares reality to fiction.

Not a traditional Novel… however

The comic book series The Walking Dead has some great material in it, and you can pick them up in grapic novels.

I can't recommend Walking Dead comic strongly enough!

Definately THE best Zombie comic out there (I also did like the first few Zombieworld collections that Arrow/Caliber put out in the 80's).

Walking dead is perhaps even the best HORROR comic…

I just finished reading "Day by Day Armageddon", it's a diary of a US Navy officer who keeps a journal while the Zombie Plague rises. I burned through it in a couple of days – it was a fun light read.

I'm about halfway through "The Rage Plague"… it's OK, not great, a tale about a 28 Days type zombie plague.

Stephen King's "Cell" is pretty good, too.

Eden's "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" collections of zombie short stories are hit and miss, but the good stories in them are pretty darn good.

Yeah I liked the AFMBE compilations too, the ones I read anyway. the problem with compilations is all the goofy stories in them, like the fetish story where the guy wanted to have sex with a zombie. The problem with a lot of these stories is that you don't know they suck until you have already devoted time to reading them. I wish they had a summary or something so you would know going in.

Another very strong recommendation for The Walking Dead. Much more character-driven than most other zombie books, movies, or comics.

On the Homepage of the Dead site, they have a rather large fiction section. About 50% of the stories are crap. But there's a few gems in that pile of rubble.

The "Walking Dead"series of graphic novels is head-and-shoulders above all the other zombie comics and graphic novels. Well worth a read. 9 books so far.

You must read Eden by Tommy Arlin/Tony Manchinski.LOTS of cool ideas for games.

Forget the Morningstar saga. Read Brian Keane's 'The Rising,' 'City of the Dead' and 'Dead Sea.' I also recommend Joe McKinney's 'Dead City.'

I'm currently reading 'The Walking Dead,' an anthology of zombie short stories by various authors. So far so good.

Brian Keane's stuff, while good, don't strike me as zombies, per say. More….evil dead style deadites? They use guns, drive cars, curse……. Also they are DARK, bleak, depressing.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Keane, either, for the same reasons. YMMV.

Joe R Lansdale did a fantastic short story (novella really) 'On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks'. Its in my Mammoth Book of Zombies link
The problem with most of the zombie stories I've tried to read is that many authors seem to think that they know better than George A Romero. They don't. Stick to your basic zombies and you can't go wrong. World War Z, The Walking Dead and Mr Lansdale all knew this and are excellent examples of zombie fiction.

Joe R. Lansdale can do no wrong, in my book. One of my favorite authors of all time.

Cherie Priest's "Boneshaker" was excellent for me. Loved the concept of a 200 foot high wall surrounding 1880's Seattle.

I enjoyed the Zomblog series by TW Brown.
Zomblog
Zomblog II
Zomblog: The Final Entry
Zomblog: Snoe

He also has a series called Dead that I haven't started yet.

Try "Feed" by ,cant remember the author, hard sci fi, took me a while to get into it but well worth it. A very different take on the zombie post apocalypse