Updated 1/21/13
Read only if you love zombies.
I enjoy zombies. Love the good movies especially the Romero 4. Have kinda enjoyed the Marvel series. Love Kirkman's Walking Dead comic. And whatever quality Zombie materials I can get my hands on. About 3 years ago I discovered Zombie fiction. I walked into the genre cold. No one pointed out the good and the bad I just read alot and enjoyed some and waisted time on the bad. If you like Zombies and have had little exposure to the literary undead. Here's a list of what I've read from best to worse. These are just a fan's opinion.
1)
DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON - by J. L. Bourne - Really the best of zombie stories I've read. Part Matheson's I AM LEGEND and part survivalist's journal. A smart guy's take on how he survives a zombie takeover of the planet. Scary but lot's of "yup, that's the way to do it" passages.
*Sequel on the way but the writer's on active duty in the Navy.
2)
Day By Day Armageddon Ghost Run by J.L. Bourne. Even though it's the 4th in the series, Ghost Run bumps #s 2 & 3 down a peg. Knuckle biting from beginning to end.
3)
Day By Day Armageddon, Beyond Exile, by J.L. Bourne - Picking up minutes after the 1st book ends, Bourne delivers in spades with this sequel. Still a smart guy's take on what to do after a zombie uprising, this time out our hero is forced to walk some 300+ miles back to his safe house after a helecopter crashes in TX. His awaking, while still strapped in to the crashed copter, along w/ 3 comrads, would be such an amazing scene in a film. Bourne took almost 5 years between books and his writing skills have improved dramatically. This story flows a little more and there's more character development although none of it gets in the way. The zombie action is horific. The radiation and zombie reaction to it is fleshed-out a little more (some are traditional zoms, while others can almost lope and follow relentlessly. The hero is military and that plays a bigger part in this one but in such a great way you'll enjoy it. Perfect sequel set-up.
4)
Day By Day Armageddon, Shattered Hourglass, by J.L. Bourne - The final book(?) in Bourne's fantastic zombie trilogy, this 3rd installment is huge in scope. Armageddon's hero, Kil, is actually in this book a lot less than he was in in the 1st 2. Many new players are in the picture and Kil, at times, takes a 2nd seat to others & their goings-on during the 7 billion+ zombie takeover of the planet. Writer, Bournes real-life job as an active duty, Naval Officer comes into play tremendously as it's a military take of a zombie apok. that we're fed this time. I loved it because Bourne humanizes these armed-forces stories so very well & incorporates tech., situations, solutions, & discriptions in military manners, yet lets the reader get easily involved. There are some situations in this book so terrifying & cynamatic in scope that I relaly feel we'll see this trilogy as film before too long. Finally, & w/ no spoilers, there's an element introduced in this one that will really make you smile in it's use; an old often discussed, conspiracy theory is intellengently introduced into the story, that had me smiling ear-to-ear. Great finale .... but hopefully, not the last book in the series.
5)
WORLD WAR Z - by Max Brooks - A journalistic approach to a zombie war told years after by survivors. Interesting take. Lots of different "short films" one of which involves a all out military exchange if you've ever wondered. Have read that there gonna film this one.
6) DYING TO LIVE a novel of live among the undead - by Kim Paffenroth - Quick, violent and pretty fresh, this novel starts long after the zombie infestation has begun. The hero is pretty numb when we meet him and when thrown in w/ a group of fortified survivors, we're worried about him. Trust on both sides builds, foraging trips into the city provide intense zombie action. Finally, it's another group of survivors that provide the larger threat. Some pretty sick zom violence goes down. Nice curve ball thrown in that I found extremely fresh. Kid zombies which I found pretty cool for a nice undead change o' pace.
*Just read that a sequel's out there. Will update when I read it.
7,8,9)
THE AUTUMN SERIES - by David Moody (Autumn, Autumn: The City, Autumn: Purification) They all take place in Britain and have a dark mood to them that is almost depressing (much like England itself haha just kidding). The series starts off slowly with a beginning that'll have you remembering to kiss your kids goodnight and wife goodbye as you leave in the morning. It's just awful and the books really deal with the guilt of survival. When the dead start to rise it reads very realisticly, you'll feel nautious. Out of all my zombie books this one feels the most real. The intensity builds with each book although they do take their time. You'll be thinking "Jesus...this would be horrible if it happened". Also being adapted for film. Save these for winter.
10)
Tooth and Nail by Craig Dilouie - Dilouie really up's the anti on pure writing skill with this entry as the writing is superb and polished. This, like Bourne's Day by Day books, is a soldier's take on a zombie uprising. All "foreign stationed" US armed forces are recalled at the outbreak of a worldwide epidemic. Unlike traditional zoms, the flesh-rippers in this book are more highly infected, feral animals then walking dead, but that seems to be where the trend is going. We follow Prv. Mooney and a female scientist with their take on the horror. Everything goes down in NYC with hundreds of thousands of rabid infected thundering down canyons in hordes. Way too many characters to follow clearly, we spend a few days with grunt-soldier 20 somethings as their ranks are whittled down to single digits. Realistic, interesting from a military standpoint, but not scary which is a sorepoint for me.
11)
THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE - by Max Brooks - Just what it sounds like. Tongue n cheek guide on how to deal with a zombie uprising. Reads like it could happen. Very fun.
12, 13)
REIGN OF THE DEAD & R.O.T.D APOCALYPSE END - by Len Barnhart - The most 'Romeroesque" of the zombie books I've read. All take place around Wash. D.C. and the Shenendoah near where I live so I had the "cool, I've been there" glasses on when I read them. They're scary and read rather quickly. The covers are the most horrifying in my collection. Solid zombie books that provide the reader with plenty of gore and pitch-black super-markets. Has a huge prison thing going on..long before Kirkman ever wrote Walking Dead.
14)
THE CELL - by Steven King - Killer King kick-off which has a fun comic-book industry tie-in. Not a traditional Zombie book in the sence that the dead rise, this novel's zombies more transmute into violent, flesh eaters from regular Joes and Janes who are just unfortunate enough to be blabbin' on their cell phones when some sort on technological pulse transmits, gooing their brains and turning them into ravenous zombies. Like other great King novels, The Cell is a road novel, the hero has a life and death destination in mind and we're along for the trip. Tried and true Zombie situations, survivor nuttiness but then...a huge pill to swallow kill this book about 2/3 of the way through. If your a huge King fan, read it. If not, wait for the flick.
15)
TWILIGHT OF THE DEAD - by Travis Adkins - Kind of an after school special zombie book. Weird but readable. Female hero for a nice change of pace. Book slips into hokey sci-fi for the final third. Unfulfilling ending.
16)
MONSTER ISLAND - by David Wellington - Ys, I know he wrote 13 Bullets but this aint 13 bullets. This reads like a ultra-liberal Zombie story. David reminds us of the political and social injustices leading up to the plague of zombies. I don't want the horrors of African, tribal female mutilation or or a tirade on the Glass Ceiling served up with my roaming NYC zombie gangs. I'll read the NY Times after for that. Very disapointing. Like a New York University Graduate Student's Zombie Novel final project.
17, 18) -
THE RISING and
CITY OF THE DEAD - by Brian Keene - 2 book story which deals with a Father's quest to get to and save his son after a the entire planet is taken over by zombies. I tell you, the 1st couple chapters of this series really rocked. Hero, Jim Thurmond, trapped in his celler, ready to kill himself when his cell rings and it's his little boy calling to tell him he's in his attic, states away, with his zombified mom and stepdad trying to get up and munch. Jim vows to save him. But then... the books go South fast with literally every dead thing from flies to horses to cats to people going Zombie. The undead are intellegent in these books and are possessed by the spirits of demons. Stinkaroo of an ending after a 700 + page investment. Keene didn't cut it for me.
19)
DOWN THE ROAD - by Bowie Ibarra - Throw every Zombie cliche' you can come up with in a book and here it is. A Frat Boy's zombie novel complete w/ beer chuggin', smokin' hot dumb babes, lost love and teen angst. Like someone 16 wrote it.
I've purchased most on Amazon.
This is a horror sub-genre that's an awful lot of fun. If you've yet to explore, I highly recommend it.