''The Zombie Survival Guide'' is the first book written by American author Max Brooks, published in 2003. It is a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

survival manual Survival skills are techniques that a person may use in order to sustain life in any type of natural environment or built environment. These techniques are meant to provide basic necessities for human life which include water, food, and shelte ...

about

zombies A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...

, containing information about zombie physiology and behavior, defense strategies and tactics, and includes case studies of possible zombie outbreaks throughout history. Despite its fictional subject matter, the book also includes practical information on disaster preparedness, generally. Brooks' second book, '' World War Z'' (2006), is a follow-up to ''The Zombie Survival Guide'', describing the events of a zombie apocalypse possibly set in the same

fictional universe A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes may ...

The book is divided into seven sections and an appendix. The first section contains information on the nature of "Solanum", a virus that causes zombification, as well as the physical attributes of zombies and a classification system for the severity of hypothetical zombie outbreaks. The next five sections cover practical survival skills and advice for coping with a zombie outbreak, including combat, defense preparations, methods of transportation and adapting to a world overrun with zombies. The final section lists recorded zombie attacks throughout history. The appendix is an "outbreak journal" for the reader to record incidents of possible zombie activity or outbreaks, including dates, locations, distance, specifics, and actions taken in response. It contains an example entry describing a suspicious news report about a family that had been murdered and partially eaten, and the preparedness steps taken by the entry's author as a result.

Background

In an 2013 interview with the ''New York Times'', Brooks said he felt his literary agent had marketed the book as a parody, saying "How I think my agent pitched them was like, Mel Brooks' son, who has just won an Emmy for 'S.N.L.,' wrote this unbelievable parody, tongue in cheek, he never breaks character. He's totally making fun of a zombie plague." However, he considered the book to be in the

self-help Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement''APA Dictionary of Physicology'', 1st ed., Gary R. VandenBos, ed., Washington: American Psychological Association, 2007.—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a subst ...

genre, rather than humor, saying "I can't think of anything less funny than dying in a zombie attack." Brooks' second book, '' World War Z'', is a follow-up to ''The Zombie Survival Guide''. Brooks has stated that the zombies in ''World War Z'' obey the same laws described in ''The Zombie Survival Guide'', and suggested that they may exist in the same fictional universe.

Reception

The book was generally well received as both informative and entertaining. However, some critics struggled to classify the book as either a satirical parody or a sincere exploration of the zombie genre. Recommending the book for zombie enthusiasts, Jake Halpern of NPR wrote "Most people assume that Brooks wrote this book as a joke, and perhaps he did — but I'm not laughing," and that "only a moron or an absolutely shameless zombie dork like myself would read these books and take every word at face value. But that's pretty much exactly what I do."

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

called the book an "outrageous parody of a survival guide" which was amusing but "unnecessarily exhaustive".

Pyramid Magazine ''Pyramid'' was a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 iss ...

described the book as akin to a "roleplaying game sourcebook", saying Brooks "uses a particular blend of dark humor and horror" and "treats the subject with such an earnest and serious tone".

Adaptations

Comic book

A promotional

tie-in A tie-in work is a work of fiction or other product based on a media property such as a film, video game, television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property. Tie-ins are authorized by the owners of the original prope ...

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

, ''The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks'', was released on October 6, 2008. It was written by Brooks and illustrated by Brazilian artist Ibraim Roberson.Langley, Nick. (November, 2008)
Max Brooks, Mao Tse Tung, and the Mystery of the Missing Snapple
Retrieved March 15, 2009 from Rocket Llama World Headquarters

Film adaptation

A film adaptation based on Brooks' follow-up novel ''World War Z'', directed by

Marc Forster Marc Forster (born 30 November 1969) is a Swiss filmmaker. He is best known for directing the feature films '' Monster's Ball'', '' Finding Neverland'', '' Stranger than Fiction'', ''The Kite Runner'', ''Quantum of Solace'', ''World War Z'', and ...

and starring

Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...

, was released in 2013.

References

External links

*
Washington Post interview with Max Brooks
in ''

The Future Fire ''The Future Fire'' is a small press, online science fiction magazine (), run by a joint British- US team of editors. The magazine was launched in January 2005 and releases issues four times a year, with stories, articles, and reviews in both HTM ...

'' 2
Daniel Robert Epstein of SuicideGirls interviews Max BrooksZombie Survival Guide InspiredArs Technica - Weekend Ar(t)s: The state of zombie preparedness
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zombie Survival Guide, The 2003 books Books about survival skills Books by Max Brooks Satirical books World War Z (franchise) Zombies and revenants in popular culture Zombie novels

Contents