Can anyone explain to me the appeal of zombies? Yeah they're scary, but they're fantasy. I think part of the appeal of reading about the "end of the world" is the possibility that it could happen. I just don't see it with happening because of zombies.

I dont get it either.
Everything seems to be zombies these days, Newsweek magazine did a story about it a few weeks ago. There is also a Jane Austen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies.
Apparently its the same story set during Regency England, but with Zombies running around the neighborhood too.

Though I've not read the book, at least in the movie version of "I Am Legend" the "zombies" are not the undead but have been altered due to a genetically altered virus (a little more plausible).
It's been my experience that there isn't much explanation for how these people turn into zombies and start craving human brains (pathetic.
I'm tempted to read "World War Z" but the undead factor is turning me off.

a few years ago Vampires were the sexy villains.....now its those damn zombies. BFD

Dan wrote: "Can anyone explain to me the appeal of zombies? Yeah they're scary, but they're fantasy. I think part of the appeal of reading about the "end of the world" is the possibility that it could happen. ..."

Dan,

All I can say is read World War Z. It's what got me into zombies. The book is amazingly well written. It truly reads like non-fiction.

I will so say though that even though I often mark zombie books as "post-apocalyptic" in terms of shelving on goodreads, I nearly always think of zombies as being in a separate category than apocalyptic fiction.

Manuel wrote: "I dont get it either.
Everything seems to be zombies these days, Newsweek magazine did a story about it a few weeks ago. There is also a Jane Austen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies. ..."

Yes. The zombies don't add much though. Apparently there's going to be Sense & Sensibility and Sea Monsters and I think War of the Worlds was rewritten with a new monster element, too.

Im about to start World War Z, to see what all the fuss is about.

I still dont get the appeal. So if a zombie gets you and eats you, does that mean you yourself become a zombie? Do you need a complete body to become a Zombie?
Or do you need a brain?

In the movie I saw last night, the zombies kept shouting "Brains" every time they say a living human.
My question is, if you eat the brain, does that prevent that dead body from becoming another zombie?

Manuel wrote: "Im about to start World War Z, to see what all the fuss is about.

I hope you like it. I thought you could lift the dialog from the book word for word and make an incredible docudrama.

Manuel wrote: "Im about to start World War Z, to see what all the fuss is about.

I still dont get the appeal. So if a zombie gets you and eats you, does that mean you yourself become a zombie? Do you need a comp..."

Fair warning: The book starts off 'okay', but by thte time you get to world wide contagion, it's just awesome.

Anyway, as the zombies. There are many approaches to zombies, just as there are to vampires. (In Twilight, for instance, they can go into the sun easily.) In zombies, many people take liberties, but Max Brooks sticks to the 'hardcore' definition of zombies, which is such:

Any introduction of a zombie's remaining bodily fluids to a person will result in the person becoming a zombie as well. This is typically biting.

Zombies don't run, they walk, and usually poorly.

Zombies don't talk, but they can moan, and they can hear. And when one zombie hears another, they take that as a signal for "food!"

Zombies don't have super strength, but... Imagine someone hitting a door with all of their might; the absolute most strength they can put into a punch. Now, imagine them able to do that, 24/7, nonstop. That's the advantage a zombie has.

All this takes into account a functioning body and brain for the zombie. Zombies can function as well as permitted without any given body part, except for the brain. They must have this, and damaging it will kill a zombie immediately.

Examples:

If you have a paraplegic who can't walk, and they become a zombie, then you'll have a zombie who can't walk.

If you have a mute person turned into a zombie, then you'll have a mute zombie.

And if you a person get their lower jaw ripped off during a zombie attack, that person will become a ridiculous looking zombie.


Now, I don't believe WWZ touches this, but in case you're curious: In some 'hardcore' media, people not killed by a zombie will still become a zombie upon death (it's an airborne virus that turns everyone into zombies, the zombie bite just kills people near-instantly.) In other 'hardcore' stories, the bite both kills and turns the bitten into a zombie.

Oh, and for the appeal of zombies at all (sorry, I didn't see this thread earlier, I'd like to quote Shaun of the Dead writer and star Simon Pegg (writing to criticize a then-recent UK zombie TV show:)

Simon Pegg wrote: "As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.

However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles."

In the classic movie "Night of the Living Dead" there is apparanetly some sort of virus that is making dead people annimated and walking the earth.

My problem with this scenario was that all the bodies coming out of the local graveyard appeared to have been freshly buried. In other words, they didnt show much evidence of decomposition. Granted if this was a big cemetary near a large city, it would be logical to have a large number of living dead. Unfortunately in the movie, it looks like a country cemetary far removed from any large cities; logic says there should'nt be that many zombies looking as if they were just buried yesterday.

so does this zombie sickness only affect human bodies?

Do animals come alive too? Does a zombie need his/her entire body? Will a human head not atached to a body become animated too. I suppose human babies would also come to life and crawl their way out of their graves?

Actually in Night of the Living Dead there was only one zombie in the graveyard, and yes, he was "fresh," but that makes sense. Only fresh bodies would have a brain intact to infect.

And Night of the Living Dead is actually an insane topic unto itself. In Romero's series ("Night of the Living Dead," "Diary of the Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," "Day of the Dead," and "Land of the Dead,") any person that dies with an intact brain turns into a zombie due to an airborne virus. (Sidenote, in some of Romero's films, they move just fine, they just have a period of 'rigor mortis' that lasts a few days, and then can move quicker again.) Conversely, there is a set of films with the title "Night of the Living Dead," "Return of the Living Dead," "Night... 2," "Night... 3," etc., in which the rules change with every film. Basically, they're the cheapened 'Hollywood' zombies, just like Twilight is cheap Hollywood vampires. Sometimes they even talk, like in the film you saw, (likely Return or Night 2/3.)

Also, in the course of the book WWZ, a scientist or two is interviewed, and a 'vastly slowed decomposition' is talked about. I think it said something about a normal zombie "living" 7 or 8 years? This is pretty common.


/edit:
Manuel wrote: "so does this zombie sickness only affect human bodies? Do animals come alive too?"

That changes from writer to writer, much like the issue of fast/slow movement or auto-infection.

Manuel also wrote: "Does a zombie need his/her entire body? Will a human head not atached to a body become animated too. I suppose human babies would also come to life and crawl their way out of their graves?"

Only a head is needed, so you'll often see just heads trying to nibble on people's ankles, or even in a short story I read, a zombie head used as a boobytrap!

And if the infant was fresh enough to to have an intact brain, yes, it would definitely become a zombie. Though, crawling out of a buried grave is unlikely for ANY zombie, no doubt an infant's body wouldn't have the strength to do so. :D

You can't apply logic to zombies. They're fantasy, and being such they can behave, look or act in any number of ways. That's my struggle/disappointment with them.

That's true Dan, there are no hard/fast rules that encompass ALL zombie fiction. Like other popular monsters, they're very open to interpretation, and rely on a good author to explain what's needed for you to under stand his story (which I think Max Brooks probably over does a bit in his story, but, I still very much enjoyed the book.)

I think Dan just said it best. That is why I have never understood the attraction to them as a horror theme.

Jeff thank you for filling in my gaps about these creatures. You make me look forward to starting the book.

And yes, in the classic movie, we see just one corpse (logically) at the start of the film. During the night we now see an army of them around the farm house. While I suppose some of these are new zombies, recently killed by older zombies; most of these people look like they have been dead a while, hence their burial clothes.....( I dont believe there should be that many recently dead out in the country)
What about the house? Isnt there a dead body upstairs belonging to the occupant who was partially devoured by zombies? I dont remember this body ever getting animated...perhaps the hero deposed of it (I dont remember what if anything they did with it)

Well, we also need to accept that it was made in 1968. ;)

And honestly I can't recall their attire, so I can't account for that.

But the one in the house was dead, and while I'm not positive, I 'thought' he was later in the film, but I can't be certain of that either. I do recall that they moved his body outside during the film.

But again, I urge you to wait until the worldwide outbreak hits before deciding if you like it or not. That's when the book is at its best. But, maybe my thinking he built it up too much will be perfect for someone largely uninitiated!

I do remember being struck by the burial clothes; most people are buried in formal clothing or a favorite outfit while alive, hence most of the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead" are wearing funeral clothes, suggesting they were recent corpses.
I do remember someone in a bridal dress and someone else just wearing a hospital gown. ( I love these little details)

I'll probably end up reading WWZ but I don't see it having the same chilling effect as something like "The Road". It is not apocalyptic, there is an absolute 0% chance of it becoming a reality.
That is the horror and fear of apocalyptic books. In that there is a chance, even if slight, that that fiction could become a reality.

Manuel wrote: "so does this zombie sickness only affect human bodies?

Do animals come alive too? "

Depends on the author or movie. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no. Often dogs are mentioned as vectors, sometimes birds.

Dan wrote: "I'll probably end up reading WWZ but I don't see it having the same chilling effect as something like "The Road". It is not apocalyptic, there is an absolute 0% chance of it becoming a reality.
Tha..."

Have you read Patient Zero? (sort of zombie)

You might also like One Second After if you like plausibility. I finished it last night and I should have a review up today or tomorrow. Apt to be spoilery though so I'll just say I think it is plausible and well written.

I read another book The Great and Terrible, Volume 6 Clear As the Moon that use EMP attacks over the US to completely cripple the country and throw us back in the dark ages of technology.

It may be more fact than fiction and a very easy terrorist attack. Read the article from the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12156470...

sounds very much like the terrible book I read last year...."Dies the Fire"

some sort of cosmic event has taken place in March 1996. Suddenly all technology and firearms are useless.
In a matter of days, people are dying due to starvation and killing each other.

I really couldnt stand this book. It takes too many liberties on human nature within the space of less than a year.

A new feudal society emerges within days. Apparently all those renaissance geeks and nerds take over the world because they are the only ones with working weapons.

Yes I can see a situation where technology doesnt work anymore, but first give me a credible reason why everything stops.....not this cosmic event crap.

Manuel wrote: "sounds very much like the terrible book I read last year...."Dies the Fire""

It was the excess Paganism that got to me with that series. I'm not a fan of any religion in excess.

I do, however, think that SCAdians would be better positioned than most in terms of knowing old skills.

The randomness of the apocalyptic event in Dies the Fire got to me, too. However, an EMP event (which would affect most modern cars but not guns) is a factual possibility.

I do believe an EMP event is a credible possibility. During the cold war, the soviets were way ahead of us in trying to protect their technology.

In the movie, "The Day After" 1983. I remember there is a seen where Jason Robards is driving his car on the freeway going towards Kansas City. Suddenly there is a huge bright light in the atmosphere, his car and all the cars on the freeway stall, a few seconds later, his character must have guessed what was happening, because he suddenly takes cover under the dash, and we the audience then see a huge mushroom cloud emerge from the ruins of Kansas City in the far distance.
In the college town of Lawrence, everyone is alive in their shelters, but everyone is wondering why their machines dont work anymore?


In "Dies the Fire" the renaissance fair nerds and the loveable wiccans suddenly emerge as the two main forces of good and evil. My biggest problem with that silly book is how fast everyone embraces the two new systems. In less than a year, an agricultural community starts to thrive and everyone seems to automatically see the errors of the old religions and they become wiccans. At the same time, the renaissance fair nerds suddenly are running herd over the helpless surviving population.

STUPID/SILLY waste of time for a book

Manuel wrote: "...the renaissance fair nerds and the loveable wiccans suddenly emerge as the two main forces of good and evil..."

What about the Civil War reenactors and the Revolutionary War reenactors and the War of 1812 reenactors etc? What with the firearms and all they'd kick the %^&%$ out of us Ren Fest types LOL!

Doesn't the second book in the "Dies the Fire" series explain this cosmic event that caused the change?
How do you make a gun not work? That's just lame?

Like I've said before I like my apocalypses believable.

Supposedly there is a parallel series of books that will eventually explain what happens. I have no interest in reading any more of these stupid books.
The one I read was too full of those, oh so convenient, happy coincidences.

In the other series of books, modern day Nantucket is transferred back in time to the bronze age, except that the people of Nantucket got to keep their modern working technology.

Regarding Michel's statement:
In the book's scenario, firearms dont work, because gunpowder no longer works. Someone even tries to reinvent a steam engine, but the laws of physics dont seem to work anymore. LAME LAME LAME

Dan wrote: "Doesn't the second book in the "Dies the Fire" series explain this cosmic event that caused the change?
How do you make a gun not work? That's just lame?

Like I've said before I like my apocalypse..."

Combustion no longer works, or at least, works so slowly at such a low level as to be useless.

I don't get the facination with Zombies either. Nothing appealing about them, you don't want to run into one, and you don't aspire to be one either (Like some might a vampire or werewolf).
They have zero intellegence, zero ability (save the bizarre ones in "I Am Legend" that could scale building walls for some reason)and they are damn ugly.

Just started "World War Z" last night in bed.
Wow!!!!

So far very engaging. The book presents the condition more as a biological/scientific occurance and not something supernatural.

Im still at the first chapter, but so far it looks like a condition that is passed on only through direct person to person contact and not something you catch by touching an infected surface or breathing from the air. But of course, this is only the first chapter and the key words are (so far)

I cant wait to go home and start reading some more.

Referring back to my message #3, I can get into the idea of a biological event that turns people in savages/animal-like cannibals, but undead coming back to life? I don't think so.

I agree completely Dan.

So far in the book,(SO FAR)
people become infected while they are alive and well.
They become infected through direct person to person contact through biting. However it seems to me, that something like this transmission could easily be stopped. The Ebola virus is extremely deadly, but fortunately for us, it is so deadly, the host dies soon after receiving it and since it can only be transmitted through direct human contact, the spread should be very limited. If there are no people to catch the infection, the spread stops in its tracks.

What I like about the book is how it has taken the supernatural element away and presents the "infection" in a scientific process like any other deadly pandemic, such as the 1918 Spanish Influenza which killed 600,000 people in the United States.

So I'm contimplating reading Cell by Stephen King which I thought was based on the idea that a pulse in cell phones fried the high level brain functions turning people into mindless animals (like I am Legend, the movie). But in reading some reviews it sounds like these "zombies" get supernatural powers. Any truth to it?
I'm kind of getting turned off to reading it.
Any thoughts?

The only 'power' they have is that the bodies are, in fact, dead.

But even that, as Manuel mentions, is treated scientifically. Max Brooks has more or less created a disease that kills its host, and uses the host body much like a parasite. (Think those parasites that make grasshoppers commit suicide, or make snails offer themselves as food to birds. Youtube "zombies snails" or "grasshopper parasite".) I honestly can't recall if I read this is WWZ or his other book "Zombie Survival Guide," but let me explain.

He explains it as a disease that not only takes over its human host's most basic functions (movement, basic senses,) but is also detected and avoided by nearly all other virii, bacteria, and animals. As cuh, almost all would-be aids to decomposition avoid an infected host, so decomposition is slowed drastically, and the corpse takes years for the brain to deteriorate. (It's kept in a solution created by the virus, I forget what he calls it.)

So, yeah, I think his 'science' is mostly in the other book, but I recall him doing a "too detailed" explanation for my tastes (as someone who doesn't have a huge impediment to the concept.)

All this talk of zombies
reminds me of a horrible movie from the mid 80's called "Life Force".

It was one of those movies that combined too many elements into a movie going in all directions.
If memory serves.........a joint British/American team on the space shuttle are approaching a rendez vous with Halley;s Comet. As they get closet to the comet, they discover that it is a giant space ship.
Something happens to the crew and the only survivor to make it back to Earth is the good looking American astronaut.
Somehow the story picks up in London!!!!

The handsome American starts to remember a beautiful nude woman who removes his clothes and makes love to him (lots of nudity in this one) on the giant space ship.

The nude woman is some sort of space alien. She and her crew are harvesting the life force/Souls of human beings. The handsome American astronaut is a tool of the aliens. He starts harvesting the souls of innocent Brits.

The humans without souls appear quite normal, they function and communicate as always........however after a few hours, they need someone else's soul to stay alive. If they dont get a fresh soul, they turn into zombies.
In the climax of the movie, all of central London is in ruins and there are millions of zombies chasing the few healthy humans still alive. In the distance we see the dome of St Paul's cathedral. From the top of the dome we see millions of little lights rising in a stream into the night sky. Apparently those lights are the millions of British souls being harvested by the space aliens.

The giant space ship now full, then starts on its way into deep space.

Dan said I can get into the idea of a biological event that turns people in savages/animal-like cannibals,

Then you might be interested in Patient Zero, which I thought not only did the zombie thing well but did a fantastic job with the psychological repercussions of having to kill them. The author is also a goodreads author.

Dan,

As for Cell, it's been a long time since I've read it, but I think the only "supernatural powers" they get are some form of telepathic communication with other insanely angry individuals.

Anyone into the zombie thing might get a kick out of this paper, in which a: "A Canadian infectious-diseases boffin has published an authoritative mathematical model of zombie plagues. He concludes that the only scenario in which our civilisation could survive a zombie outbreak is one in which normal humans react immediately using extreme violence against the undead, without any attempt to cure or quarantine them."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/18/...

Im on my second day of reading World War Z. Yes I really like this book. Last night I was up until 3:00AM, I could'nt put the book down. Needless to say, I had a nightmare.

This will be my last comment on this book until I finish it.

This morning I was driving to work, it occured to me that even if one is not affected by the Zombie virus by getting bit; they must also be carrying many other deadly diseases....Cholera, Typhus, Malaria etc,etc,... they are made of decomposing flesh, just ripe for breeding all sorts of other nasty bacteria.

I really dont think there will ever be a disease that will reanimate the dead, but I believe the "zombieism" of the book serves as a metaphor for what might happen with other deadly diseases in the future.......smallpox, anthrax,swine-flu,Ebola, etc etc.

The frightening thing to remember, is that it has already happened. In 1918 this country was devasted by Spanish Influenza, it killed over 600,000 Americans. There were so many dead, there were not enough casket's to bury the dead. Fortunately or unfortunately, the influenza occured during WWI; heavy government censorship prevented wide spread panic; consequently, censorship also prevented many people from taking necessary cautionary measures that could have saved many lives.

Just something to think about.

Mark wrote: "Anyone into the zombie thing might get a kick out of this paper, in which a: "A Canadian infectious-diseases boffin has published an authoritative mathematical model of zombie plagues. He concludes..."

You've got to be kidding me. Is this an April's fools joke? Do they not have enough to do up there at those Canadian universities?
I highly agree with Mr. Page's assessment of Professor Smith's theories on "getting rid of zombies", basically non-thinking slow moving creatures aren't much of a match for modern warfare.
The fact the Professor Smith's paper is "based on popular zombie movies" shows right there that this educator should quit academics and start writing fiction.

Manuel wrote: "The frightening thing to remember, is that it has already happened. In 1918 this country was devasted by Spanish Influenza, it killed over 600,000 Americans. There were so many dead, there were not enough casket's to bury the dead. Fortunately or unfortunately, the influenza occured during WWI; heavy government censorship prevented wide spread panic; consequently, censorship also prevented many people from taking necessary cautionary measures that could have saved many lives. "

Actually, there's good evidence to suggest that WWI helped spread the disease because of large troop movements. There's also some evidence that the "Spanish Flu" started in the US (in the Midwest, I think).

They actually did try to restrict gatherings, closed schools, etc. There are some really interesting books about it.

One theory about why it's called the "Spanish Flu" is that Spain didn't censor as heavily and they actually acknowledged the problem in the papers.

We have yet to see a disease that can spread fast enough and easy enough to wipe out whole populations. (Though I'm sure there is some government scientist working on it some where.) The infected die off before they can infect everyone. There are some philosophies that say this thinning out of populations is needed. See Thomas Malthus.

I think that is what makes the whole zombie idea scary, they don't die off so they eventually can infect everyone.

Manuel, I don't know if your theory about zombies carrying other disease works. According to Jeff, our resident zombie expert,(message 35) the zombie virus/parasite repels other diseases. But since it's all make believe we can say whatever we want about zombies. I could say that zombies procreate and have huge litters of zombie babies that grow 3 times as fast and that is where the real zombie population comes from.

Dan wrote: "We have yet to see a disease that can spread fast enough and easy enough to wipe out whole populations. (Though I'm sure there is some government scientist working on it some where.) The infected d..."

LOL. There's actually a free online game which I think is called Pandemic II. The goal is to wipe out the entire human population and I can tell you from experience it's damn hard. I've managed to kill off entire continents but not the whole world.

Schnaucle is correct about the 1918 influenza starting in the midwest, and yes the name Spanish Flu is a misnomer due to the fact that Spain was neutral during the war and they didnt have to censor their news. Hence, they could report about the heavy loss of life happening away from the battlefields.

WWI is the closest we have ever come to a police state in this country. Once the war started, anything considered critical or distracting to the war effort was considered sedition and unpatriotic. Press censorship prevented any mention of flu pandemic or opposing views to the war or our allies.

It is believed much of the influenza was spread by having large concentrations of troops at assembly points and training bases. They were sitting ducks for the rapid mass infection in the barracks and ships. Once across the ocean, they helped spread the disease in Europe.

Once the flu started to spread in the US, several government health officials saw the danger and tried to alert the public against large concentrations of people. These warnings were ignored. In Philadelphia a large parade to promote war bonds should have been cancelled due to the danger, but the parade went ahead as scheduled, consequently Philadelphia's govt almost ceased to exist due to the many casualties.

Surprisingly, San Francisco managed to ride out the epidemic better than most cities. The city was relatively new due to the rebuilding efforts after the 1906 earthquake and consequently the city population was used to civic mobilization efforts. once the influenza started, city fathers became proactive in preventing the spread.

Just finished "World War Z".

Yes I greatly enjoyed reading this book.
I can understand the fuss about zombies a little better than a few weeks ago. Yet I still dont see why they are so popular as a genre.

I was reading a little about the author Max Brooks.
He said, there are people out there who not only loved his books, but they are getting ready and looking forward to the Zombie menace coming true. He said they are like the fans of the 1984 movie "Red Dawn"; after they watched the movie, they looked forward to the Soviet invaision of America.
These people could only see the adrenaline rush of the fighting, but had'nt really thought our the consequences if these nightmares came true.

Dan wrote: "We have yet to see a disease that can spread fast enough and easy enough to wipe out whole populations. (Though I'm sure there is some government scientist working on it some where.) The infected d..."

Yes, but smallpox in the New World came pretty damn close.

Despite my enjoyment of the book.
I kept asking myself if a zombie infestation would really get as out of hand as the one in the book?

It seems to me that there are other diseases that would be much more dangerous to human kind than the walking dead.

In the book, you can only become a zombie if you are bitten by one. The victim will eventually begin to suffer from severe chills and eventually go into a coma and die, then become reanimated as one of the walking dead. Supposedly the process will take a few days, unless the victim dies faster due to vast bleeding and other injuries. The book says that severl victims were consumed by the zombies; I take it for granted that if their brain is still intact and they still have a body, they will also become zombies.

Nevertheless, there is no mistaking a zombie for a living person. Zombies give out a groun when they see a potential victim and supposedly they dont blink their eyes when you shine a light on their face. They also dont move very fast, their greatest strength probably is their ability to mass and overwhelm potential victims into becoming more zombies.

My point is that I dont think this would ever be more than a localized emergency. I dont think this would ever become a world wide infestation like the great plague of 1918 or the more recent swine flu.

I would imagine that if I became infected with zombieism, I WOULD KNOW IT. The last thing I would want, would be to possibly infect my family or other people. Its not like influenza where a carrier has it for a while, and is unknowingly infecting everyone by breathing near them on them or contaminating a door knob or public phone.

In other words, the zombie threat seems pretty easy to avoid and contain. You can easily outrun them, or if you choose to confront them, they wouldnt put up much of a fight when you crush their skull. Yes I might see a town or two getting overwhelmed, but I still think it would be a localized event.

The "what ifs" are fun to speculate.

Supposedly there is a movie in the works.

So I've been reading Cell and really enjoying it. I like his version of "zombies" since they are not the undead, just the mostly brain dead.

Manuel wrote: "Despite my enjoyment of the book.
I kept asking myself if a zombie infestation would really get as out of hand as the one in the book?

A Univ. of Ottawa professor who specializes in mathematical modeling of diseases like flu and plagues recently wrote a paper analyzing the spread and potential deadliness of a zombie event. There's a summary here or you can read the full paper here.

If you believe the math, it would be pretty much a doomsday scenario!!