The Zombie Survival Guide
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| Author | Max Brooks |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Max Werner |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Zombies |
| Genre | Humor,Horror, Informative |
| Publisher | Three Rivers Press |
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Publication date
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September 16, 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback), Ebook |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 51251720 |
| Followed by | World War Z |
The Zombie Survival Guide, written by American author Max Brooks and published in 2003, is a survival manual dealing with the fictional potentiality of a zombie attack. It contains detailed plans for the average citizen to survive zombie uprisings of varying intensity and reach, and describes "cases" of zombie outbreaks in history, including an interpretation of Roanoke Colony. The Zombie Survival Guide was also featured on The New York Times Best Seller's list. Brooks' inspiration for The Zombie Survival Guide was his childhood interest in zombies, sparked by the first zombie movie he ever saw, circa age 10: Revenge of the Zombies (1943).
The book is divided into six separate chapters, followed by a list of fictional attacks throughout history and an appendix. The first chapter, "The Undead: Myths and Realities", outlines Solanum, a fictional and incurable virus that creates a zombie, along with details on how it is spread (such as through an open wound, or contact with infected blood or saliva), and treatment of the infected (such as suicide or amputation of the injured limb, though the latter rarely works). The middle of this chapter explains the abilities and behavioral patterns of the undead, and the differences between "voodoo" zombies, movie zombies, and zombies created by Solanum.
In subsequent chapters, the book describes weapons and combat techniques, places of safety, and how to survive a zombie-infested world. In the section describing weapons, Brooks writes about the human body: "If cared for and trained properly, is the greatest weapon on earth". The guide concludes with a fictional list of documented zombie encounters throughout history. The oldest entry is 60,000 BC, in Katanda, Central Africa, although the author expresses doubt about its validity. Instead, he presents evidence from 3,000 B.C. in Ancient Egypt as the first verifiable instance of a zombie outbreak. The most recent entry is 2002, in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Some of these encounters make reference to historical events, such as Roanoke Island.
This is a sample "outbreak journal": the author notes covered-up zombie outbreaks seen on the local news as well as the preparations he recommends in the event that the outbreak worsens. The following pages are blank entries, for the reader to use as a basis for his or her own notes on surviving zombies.
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