A while ago I lamented the decline of the literary vampire. I perchance read the first Anita Blake book, Guilty Pleasures, but it didn’t really tickle my literary itch for a good, scary, vampire novel. It is almost futile to browse the horror section at Galaxy Bookshop as almost all the books seem to the be some variant of a Barbara Cartland novel with the addition of bloody fangs.
However my last visit to Galaxy met with success but not in the literary vampire stakes but in the unexpected genre of the literary zombie.
Now the zombies in question are your classic George Romero living dead types. The shuffling, inevitable ones feasting on human flesh. Not the other variants that can be found various in sci-fi/horror books. This type of zombie is the most horrific. Singly, a lone zombie is not much of a threat. They are slow and their single mindedness make them predictable. However massed zombies, as shown in the classic Romero movies, are an inescapable doom.
And it is no wonder the zombie genre is a little sparse. Obviously there is not much in telling a tale from a zombie’s point of view. Also, it takes a little imagination to get away from a story that is more than run, hide, kill zombie, rinse hands and repeat. Also, there is visceral, visual impact from seeing hordes of zombies on the shamble that is hard to portray in the written word. But Max Brooks (son of Mel) has put together a remarkable, scary and intriguing addition to the zombie canon called World War Z.
The premise of World War Z is that via a virus, a large portion of the human population is killed and becomes the living dead with a ravenous appetite for human flesh. Most of the world is overrun by zombies but unlike the bleak apocalyptic visions of Romero, humanity survives and defeats the zombie plague. World War Z is constructed as a series of interview with survivors outlining the various stages of the war.
Brooks does a great job using the interviews to sketch out how the virus spread, the various government and military responses as well as the changes politically and socially during and after the war. Some of the stories are very chilling and not just in regards to the coming of the zombies. While there is a message of hope for humanity in overcoming the zombie plague, hearts of darkness are frequently glimpsed and are just disturbing as the tales of horror and death at the hands of the living dead.
Brooks’ take on the zombies is traditional (destruction of their brain is the only way to stop them) and he does riff on some zombie traits only hinted at in the movies. For example, given zombies do not need oxygen, the aftermath of the war involves the problem of how to deal with the multitudes of zombies that wander the ocean floors interfering with repairing undersea cables etc.
There has been a bit of a resurgence of zombies in popular culture over the past couple of years. In the original Romero movies, the zombie threat was used question the nuclear family and rampant consumerism. Yet this doesn’t explain the fascination that the zombie genre holds for people.
Romero himself said:
It’s the neighbors, man. That’s the scariest thing in life, the neighbors. Who am I going to move in next to? I don’t think metaphysically about this. It’s not about death or an afterlife or anything like that. This is a new situation, it’s a change. A new species that just happens to be related to us
Extending the neighbour metaphor, zombie literature and movies currently reflect the fears of terrorism. That there is now no way to stop them and Islamic militancy is inevitable. It is a fear that passes through the ages. Romero’s movies were made during the Cold War and the fear of global domination by communism.
World War Z is a scarific read. Brooks does a great job on imagining how such a scenario would develop and the horrors it would entail. It is hard to say if this will lead to more attempts at filling out the zombie literary genre. At least the limitations of zombies will preclude any attempts for say, stories about a female zombie hunter falling in love with one of her prey.
Kevin Rudd is descending on the future fund like Count Krolock on Sharon Tate. This is bad tactically and strategically.
a) Bad tactics is where you leave yrself wide open to be gazumped. This Howard mobs been working so far back through the ALP agenda they’ve even reached the Whitlamesque. Take the AWB funny money from Iraq, green sunglasses men scandal and take the ‘ Buy me a river’, nationalize everything scandal.
They could easily steal this policy like they have a million others and make it their own. This is why ‘ small target’ policy about policies came in in the first place!
It was a sensible immune reaction to an ideologically bankrupt conservative movement. Small is beautiful properly handled. Less IS more. Good things come in small target strategies but the vampire Rudd has blown all that out of the water. Don’t get me started on his blood sucking wife either.
b) Bad bad bad. two words – ‘ picking winners’
Nuff said.
Very sad.
Pardon me Mr Rudd but your teeth are in my neck. The remains of the day are paltry small and everythings getting cold and dark. Did you never hold off on a high tech item and wait for the inevitable precipitous price drop?
Did you ever think about skipping over a technical phase like they do in real democracies like India?
Did you ever think about actually reducing the overall size and power of the state?
Did you ever get bored of being an undead crashing bore, a liar, a thief, a bully and bloodsucking parasite?
On your mothers grave Kevin look into a mirror.
Case against Tin Tin: liar.
All politicians are liars. Not a legitimate charge in this jurisdiction.
Thief.
What did he steal? Policy? Small change? Sandwiches? Bicycle? Any evidence?
Bully.
Yes, guilty as charged but with extenuating circumstances. Bully as public servant in Queensland – part of that job. Any evidence he’s a bully in the current one? Minor charge.
Bloodsucking parasite.
Guilty. See liar, above.
Additional charges not included in prosecution’s brief: maudlin, self-pitying whinger, unprincipled, betrayer of friendships and agreements for self-aggrandisement.
Evidence: Mark Latham’s book: “a snake”, “a traitor” and “a terrible piece of work”, plus Mark’s claim that he used his mother’s death, sobbing as he did so, as an argument to be given the treasury spokesman portfolio.
Defence: ML is a hater of KR and will say anything to damage him; maudlin self-pity, narcissism, self-serving traitorous behaviour may be yucky and tacky but do they disqualify an individual from becoming a successful prime minister? Answer: Bob Hawke.
Listen Prof, I’m prepared to countenance anybody, even Wayne Swan, to see the ordure that is the current federal cabinet flushed down the bowl of political history.
I think you boys have the wrong thread entirely.
I’m a casual SF/Fantasy consumer compared to many but Galaxy is always good for a browse.
At least the limitations of zombies will preclude any attempts for say, stories about a female zombie hunter falling in love with one of her prey.
I bet it has been done though!
Zombies are like my daddy, when he drinks from cans.
Interesting post Shaun.
The zombie/ living dead trope has a number of symbolic resonances into our little world.
Phil ‘Amnesty International’ Ruddock, and Brendan ‘Studs’ Nelson seem condemned to walk the earth for all eternity. It’s odd that their particular Faustian Pacts have resulted in such zombified public personae. Is this the price of administering portfolios like Immigration and Defence?
“I went down to the Crossroads” Swinging Phil Ruddock, apparently strides the piano like Fats Waller. Why keep your special gifts to private soirees Swinging Phil? Why the long face? Take a leaf out of Mandy V’s songbook.
I’d love to hear Swinging Phil honky tonk his way through ‘Aint Misbehavin’, Dolly high kickin, Friar Muck and the Bouncing Bishops as the coloured girls doo-woping. Studs with the metal back in his ear lobe, metal on the soles of his shoes, tap dancing.
Zombies crave human flesh. They are utterly unaware of their physical annihilation. They have no hope because they have no self-consciousness.
Mosquitoes have tiny brains. But they know they must dodge a swat if they hope to feast on human blood.
Suicide bombers have powerful and complex motives. They understand fully the nature and consequences of self-detonation. They are driven by hope.
I know which of these scares me most.
I dunno, Amanda: zombies and the Australian Labor Party. Seems pretty obvious to me.
It could explain Bill Heffernan walking into a press conference on Broadband expansion to declare that he has never sent an email in his life.
For literary vampire lovers and indeed for lovers of literary vampire lovers, I recommend Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The translation from the Swedish is just out and should be stacked up at a bookstore near you.
Yes, a Swedish vampire love story. You heard it here.
Dont make me link POLIGOTHS again, or i’ll feel guilty for not updating it……
I’ve actually had a few letters back from some of the poligoths i’ve featured. (Suspect i’ll be waiting some time for Saddams note of appreciation) I could tell you what they say but then i’d have to…well, you know.
Thanks PC. I did read a review of the book the other day and though “Must remember that one” and then promptly forgot. Author and title noted for next book shopping expedition.
Was in Borders today to pick up my copy of the New York Review of Books, Dr Cat, and saw it there – but only in trade paperback so far.
I think Shaun has taken the “best post title of the year” award out already.
If zombies didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent them.
Terrorists exist, our loss, is their over-invention.
Another fun read is Brooks’s prequel to World War Z, “The Zombie Survival Guide,” which goes into zombie physiology in rather interesting detail, and also instructs how to withstand a calamity like the one in World War Z. Forewarned is forearmed.
Really, though, folks, all you need to get by is a good communications system with your neighbors, some proper tools and semi-automatic weapons, a good vegetable garden, a well and a cistern, some small, re-stockable domestic animals like chickens, a decent root cellar and canning operation, a good stock of canned food, a wine cellar and library to avoid insanity, basic medical supplies, a bunch of machetes, a cross-bow, an individual electricity generator and/or solar-panel system, and a well-constructed perimeter. My suggestion would be something like the one I’ve got, which is not so hard to do: two far-distance concentric rings of well-sunk and braced 8-foot concrete posts linked by a mesh of piano and razor wire (mine are tastefully masked by hedges), plus an inner fall-back perimeter which naturally encloses both the swimming pool and the music/pottery shed (wouldn’t want to lose those to zombies), consisting of an 8-foot wrought-iron-and-cinderblock wall, complemented by properly placed 20-foot guard towers that provide a good sniping and pick-off range, and which communicate through a system of lines and pulleys with my neighbors, who have a similar set-up. Really, it’s not that hard to get up and running. And if you do it right, the zombies will never even really know you’re there, which of course is half the battle.
See you after the end of the world. Or drop by for a drink during it.
You might like this.
Rioting grannies!
Vampire fiction may well be on the wane, but the suburban gothic in me reads the chillingly real (and complex) bug chasing / HIV conversion party phenomenon as a disturbing manifestation of The Hunger.
An unbeliever? See the Australian case before court last week.
( i’m not putting in links – but a google search on bug chasing conversion parties will do the trick, esp ‘the gift’ documentary).
Only – and I realise this is controversial – if it is sung in falsetto.
David, I’m noticing that it’s quite hard to sing “Grrrh! Arggh!” in falsetto, it’s definitely amusing my office mate though.
The idea of your amused office mate is amusing me, too
Are you trying to explain why you are doing it?
“Well, you know what a blog is, right…?”
Hehe.