Shiv's Reviews > The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to Fighting the Living Dead

The Zombie Combat Manual by Roger Ma

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1268679
's review
Sep 09, 12

Read from September 01 to 09, 2012

The Zombie Combat Manual (TZCM) is exactly what it says on the cover, a guide to fighting the undead. However it is also a little more than that, with "Combat Reports" interspersed through the book Roger Ma gives glimpses into a post-outbreak world and some of the inhabitants that are adjusting to life within it, including a long distance runner, a child psychologist, and a green beret. These stories break up the instructional material and provide examples of both good and bad applications of zombie combat.
The meat of the book is made up of the instructional material, which is well thought out, thorough, and well presented with excellent illustrations. Starting by laying out exactly what a zombie is (we're talking Walking Dead zombies here, not 28 Days Later infected), Roger Ma then lays the foundation for the rest of the book by discussing the strengths and weaknesses of zombies and the main areas you should target in your attacks. Unlike many other books TZCM focuses on melee combat and does not delve into ranged combat such as firearms, and it benefits greatly from the space and focus this allows it. There are already plenty of books that cover ranged weapons both zombie related and otherwise and the availability of firearms is not as ubiquitous in all countries as many would seem to think (I can't think how many times a friend of mine has said "My zombie weapon would be a Glock" only to look at me dumbly when I asked where they would actually obtain one).
TZCT then covers physical training and conditioning, weapon choice and handling, protective clothing, and finally some actual combat moves appropriate for fighting the undead. There are even two areas covered in TZCM which are often left out of other books - mental health, and protecting children. Roger Ma even coins the acronym PUCT (Post Undead Combat Trauma) to describe the mental damage caused by fighting the undead.
There are only two criticisms I can raise against TZCM. The first is the assumption Roger Ma makes that *any* damage to the white matter of the brain is enough to take out a zombie. Given that humans have survived damage to the white matter it seems unlikely that this would be enough to kill a zombie. A little more detail to the anatomy of a zombie would have helped significantly. The second criticism is possibly more damaging - almost the entire book focuses on combat against a single zombie opponent, with only a small section at the end discussing multiple opponents. Considering the main threat of zombies is how they attack as a horde I had hoped for more on this area.
Those criticisms aside, TZCM is an excellent zombie survival guide that belongs in the bug-out bag of any zombie survivalist. Even if you have memorised everything that is important in the book, you never know when you may encounter another survivor and you'll both stand a much better chance if they are as clued in as you are!

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Reading Progress

09/06/2012 page 160
50.0%

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