The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead [Paperback]

A very comprehensive book which manages to fit in all the relevant information you may require (when, not if, zombies rise up and plague the land) without being too lengthy or tedious.

I easily became engrossed in the subject of the book, as it was written in a very digestable manner and found myself thinking about remote locations I could flee to and defend when the inevitable happens. My wife has asked why I have suddenly sharpened all the gardening tools and have a cupboard full of corned beef tins. They were cheap dear, and you never know.

I keep meaning to independantly research all the outbreaks he has chronologically detailed towards the end of the book as a way of staying in touch with reality. Then again, I might be disappointed to find out that they never happened and are just a product of the author's fertile imagination. Perhaps I'll never know, and should keep one eye on the slate roofed sheep hut I know of far from any paths in the Lake District.

Well worth a read for any Zombie fans, and I would also recommend it as an interesting twist on the apocolyptal-survivalist theme.

Beautifully blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction, this book is an absolute must. I say this because I could barely bring myself to put it down for the entire time I was reading it.

Reinventing the zombie origins, Brooks ascribes the cause of the 'undead plague' to a virulent virus named Solanum, which attacks the brain and allows it to keep functioning even after the organs have shut down and the body begins to decompose. Feeling no pain, and having no awareness of the world around them except for the food on offer, Brooks' zombies are a modern evolution of the zombies on display in Romero's 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead.

Brooks breaks down all the elements that you'll need to survive should a zombie outbreak occur near you. Covering how to stock your house in case of attack, defending it should it become your besieged fortress, going on the run if it all goes wrong, to going on the offensive to take out the undead, he's incredibly thorough about everything from weapons to transport, locations and worse-case scenarios. He even includes a section on how you can survive in the face of a full-scale Zombie Apocalypse. Ray Mears would be proud.

At the end of the book, Brooks points to apparent 'historical' occurrences of zombie outbreaks as a way of showing how the growing threat is being covered up or mishandled. It's testament to his skill as a writer that you can almost believe that they're completely true.

It's an unlikely premise but at least having read this book, you can feel confident that you'll know what to do if the dead ever begin to rise. After all, as the good books says - use your head, and cut off theirs.

This book starts off amusing. I bought this book because a friend mentioned it once. I had no idea what to expect.

After reading the first few pages, I was amused. I thought it was funny how the author was taking it so seriously - after all, it's zombies!

Then I read a bit more, and I thought hmm this is kind of a bit boring now, because it's obviously not written (directly) as a humorous book. I read a few more pages and put it down, but within an hour I was back reading it again. Eventually I simply couldn't put it down.

As soon as you mentally make the jump from realising this isn't a (directly) humorous book, to this is a very insightful and fascinating book, both chilling and at the same time exciting, you'll find compared to normal fiction it offers a unique feeling of intrigue, awe and fear. Sure, zombies are slow and easy to kill, but one nibble and you're a gonna.

Once I had finished the book, I (regrettably) gave it to a friend, after animatedly telling them some of the fascinating and unprecidented facts about defense against the living dead. I couldn't stop talking about it!

I am tempted to buy this book again because it's a great book to go back to and re-read sections of. I also bought world war Z after this, which is almost equally good reading (I'd say this book is slightly more interesting though).

This book is not a horror book. It is a practical and logical step by step guide to survival. If you like to think and analyse dangerous situations, this book is for you. If you like to be surprised and intrigued by some of the ingenious methods of survival, this book is for you. If you like zombies, this book is for you. If the thought of 'what if zombies were real, what would we do?' sounds even vaguely interesting, this book is for you.

Buy it. It's not expensive. It will provide you with plenty of entertainment.

To address the issues of some other reviewers:

I didn't find the author to repeat himself any more than was necessary. Each chapter was clearly defined and I didn't find myself skimming through later chapters to skip things that had already been mentioned.

The fact that the stories at the end of the book were believable is testament to the author's ability as a writer to predict human behaviour to the point of making his writings completely belivable. This is also apparently in World War Z, which develops the stories further.

I wouldn't say this book is a waste of money. It entertained me for many hours, and what I took away from it entertained me for many more. Afterwards I read it I often found myself thinking about it, as well as mentioning it to friends. Rare for any fiction book.

The back part of the book is apparently the best. While I have no comment about whether it's true or not, I read that peoples sheer enjoyment of that section is apparently what spawned the other book, world war Z.

I agree that this book could have been taken with irony. I was expecting it and as I wrote above, when I found it slightly boring when it didn't appear. As soon as you take the book for what it is, you can quickly begin enjoying it again.