The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
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- Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, paperback
The last thing you want when a zombie attack hits is to be unprepared or ill-prepared. Well, why would you want to put in the line your most valuable asset – life? In this odd yet fun parody of standard survival guides, SNL staff writer Max Brooks compiles the dos, the don’ts, and the tips for surviving an eventual battle with the undead.
The Zombie Survival Guide is just what it sounds like – a handbook to survival against the hordes of zombies who may already be lurking around without your knowledge. The book provides in-depth coverage of everything you ought to know to fend off the undead. It talks about how to understand the behavior of zombies in all kinds of terrains and territories, whether they’re in a rural, urban, suburban, or industrial setting.
Max Brooks’s The Zombie Survival Guide offers comprehensive protection against the undead through tried-and-true tips and hacks for protecting you and your family from them. It might be a lifesaver, a handy survival guide for when the living dead threatens yourself and your loved ones.
According to this guide, the top ten survival tactics include developing strategies on how to organize yourself and those around you before zombies rise against us. The next most important tip is to not fear as zombies are fearless – why should you?
Wouldn’t you know it, cutting off zombies’ heads is one of the best strategies for getting rid of them, but don’t forget to use yours? After all, blades only need to be sharpened and they don’t have to be reloaded with ammunition like rifles, short-guns, and other weapons. Funny enough, you can fight off the living dead more efficiently and with minimal repercussions to you when you wear tight clothes and cut your hair short.
Max Brooks has more survival tips up his sleeve, though. For instance, when you are followed by zombies into a multi-story building, your best bet is to use the stairs and destroy the staircase while you are still ahead. At the same time, you wouldn’t want to travel in a car; instead, you should get onto a sturdy, well-made bike. In this way, you can easily cut off their heads and maneuver narrow pathways.
How do you stay ahead of the zombies? According to Max Brooks, you must keep alert, keep quiet, keep low, and always keep moving! But don’t forget that no place is safe; it’s only safer, so always seek safer ground. And once the zombies have seemingly been defeated, it pays to remember that the threat may still be around.
As a child of funnyman Mel Brooks, you’d expect Max to be a master of humor and parody. And indeed he is. The comedy writer reminds people to get to know their escape routes, their surroundings, their arsenal, their bodies, and themselves when faced with a zombie attack. You can easily see the humor in that, but some of the novel’s funniest moments include when Max lists the essential actions you need to undertake to protect yourself.
In particular, Max Brooks urges any member of the anti-zombie crew to have two pairs of clean socks, a personal mess kit, a mirror for signaling, and a pair of emergency flares. It is as if he’s listing what you should include in your Halloween gag kit. But don’t let that fool you; The Zombie Survival Guide is right up there with some of the best science fiction novels.
Brooks writes in a logical, sensible, and straightforward manner, yet in a way that makes his survival guide easily believable. You may start reading just for fun but stop on page 45 to go buy a sword just in case a zombie attack ensues. Despite its somehow formal title, The Zombie Survival Guide is a very disturbing novel, which makes it a no-brainer addition to your post-apocalyptic fiction reading list.
In conclusion, Max Brooks’s The Zombie Survival Guide is thoroughly convincing, lugubriously funny, and brilliantly written. It’s so well-researched, strait-laced, and meticulous that it is scarier than it’s funny. Parody side, this book is one of the best reads you can indulge in today.
