Okay, i know i'm know for my uneccesarily long and pessimistic rants, but bear with me 
Many (prolly all) of you at least know of or have read the max brooks zombie survival guide.
It's contents are touted by some of you even, as canon, indispenseable and irrefutable wisdom on zombie preparedness.
Beware! The entire books is seriously misleading, and (if i didn't think he was joking) utterly nuts.
Now, the book *is* in the humor section. and max *was* a writer for SNL. So do i think he's just kidding? Almost surely.
Here's the thing that concerns me- the entire book is based on an entirely false premise- that zombies already exist, have already attacked innumerable times, and that the "govenment" has conducted roswell-esque "scientific experiments" on them, and determined almost percisely their mechanisms. (I am assuming, for the purposes of sanity, that none of you are also UFO nutjobs, and take it as given that roswell "alien conspiracy" theories are utterly bogus)
The simple truth is: zombies do not (yet?) exist. If they do, they have never attacked in any major way, and as such cannot be assumed to exist by the general public. Please, feel free to use his advice, but take it all with a grain of salt- all his ideas are based on the premise that zombies have a very defined set of attributes, among which are many very convinient "absolutes" that he claims are "irrefutably proven by science" that allow him to avoid a number of zombie possibilities.
All i'm saying is, try not to believe everything you hear- the attributes of the undead described by max are a good starting point for ideas, but are IN NO WAY an "agreed upon" or "proven" charictaristics, and should not be taken as fact.
[/rant]
"just don't let them turn into skeletons; the last thing we need to deal with is a resitance to slashing weapons" |
Let me preface my comment by saying that I have indeed read the ZSG and found not only entertaining, but insprational. Having read this book I (and a couple of buddies) have been on a zombie kick for the past several months that has been a blast. And I bet a lot of people wouldn't be in this forum if they hadn't read it. I sure wouldn't - I am a long time fan of zombie flicks, but the ZSG really clicked with me.
That said, of course it doesn't cover all possibilities. I personally think it offers a pretty decent explanation of zombies of the old school Romero style, and since that's the type of zombie I imagine running into anyway, that's fine. His absolutist writing style is meant to be a parody of survival books in general, so that doesn't bug me either. But yeah, the 28 Days Later style "Rage" psychos, or the Return of the living dead style brain munchers offer unique problems not covered in the book. Still, a lot of the survival info offered in the ZSG applies to a wide variety of post-apocalyptic scenarios, so let's not harsh on it too much.
The battle rages but they fight in vain
When all is done it must begin again
-"Freya", the Sword
One of these days I imagine someone is going to download every thread in this site and make a (extremely lenghthy) zombie book. We can't really assume that he didn't do his research, but would that ZPI Guide to Zombie Survival be accepted by you? Or would there still be that air of disbelief? You'll notice that in Define Zombies we come to many conclusions that rule out a lot of zombie varieties, maybe he did the same? We then go on to use those same conclusions in the other forums, considering them fact.
I think that everyone has their opinion, and we shouldn't consider it bogus without looking deeply into both it and our own opinions.
In short: I haven't read the book, but I don't think we should refute his claims quite so quickly.
Bury deep, pile on the stones
Yet I will, dig up the bones
Now, is Max Brooks like us, and wrote that book seriously? Because even though it's "humor", I read it and it seems like he took it pretty seriously...
It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence and solitude.
he takes too many concrete assumptions on abstract and theoretic things.
example we know for sure zombies bite...
but claiming theyre afraid of fire is stupid
war's my game
destruction by no other name
Interview with Max Brooks -- decide for yourself:
http://suicidegirls.com/words/Max+Brooks/
All that needs to be said is this: FIRE = BAD
Based on that - definitely one of us.
The battle rages but they fight in vain
When all is done it must begin again
-"Freya", the Sword
I read another one with Max where someone talks about the zombie thing, and here's what it invariably how it goes:
-- Question is asked about whether his book is serious --
-- Max smiles, and says: "I will say what I've told everyone else, if ever there is a zombie invasion, I will be prepared."
I think it is done VERY similarly to what we are doing indeed.
All that needs to be said is this: FIRE = BAD
Looks like a great read indeed!
Preview the first chapter Here
I have read the book and although Brooks has made up a lot of the content on zombie anatomy and history, a lot of it actually makes sense, especially the weapons considerations and tactical advice he suggests. However, some of it is kind of ridiculous as well and may not be good to use in practice. But as always, we as thinking human beings should use our own rationality and common sense to judge for ourselves what would really work best in each specific situation.
Courage is grace under pressure.
Speaking of Max Brooks, in the NYT there was an article about the resurgence of the zombie genre in popular culture, found here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/fashion/sundaystyles/26ZOMBIES.html?pagewanted=all
It indicates that Brooks will come out with another book this summer, entitled "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War"
I am SO getting that!
The battle rages but they fight in vain
When all is done it must begin again
-"Freya", the Sword