If a Jewish Zombie Bites an Agnostic, Does He Become a Jewish Zombie or Just a Zombie?

This question and others are answered in College Humor's latest original short.

Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith

It all started with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Editor Seth Grahame-Smith took the original text by Jane Austen and altered it into a Regency Romance set in the middle of a zombie plague. It was quite fun to read, given the juxtaposition of the tedium and banality of Austen with the seriousness and fast action of a zombie novel.

Now there's sequel to that book, or rather, a prequel, entitled Pride and Prejudice: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. Quirk Books, the publisher, sent me a copy in exchange for a review.

Dawn of the Dreadfuls is set about three years prior to the events of the first book. It centers on the Bennet family, especially on the sisters Elizabeth and Jane. The reader learns that Britain had fought a major war against the undead about a generation prior, but the nation has since become lax in his security. An outbreak occurs in Hertfordshire, and the Bennet sisters acquire a crash course on the martial arts from a young sensei. It's a fairly funny book, as the stuffiness of aristocratic life is feasted upon by Hockensmith. Here's a sample passage about the bloated and overindulged Lord Lumpley:

Then he rang the bell and sat back, wrist aching from the strain of unaccustomed toil, and waited for his man Belgrave.

"My Lord?" Belgrave said blandly when he walked in a moment later. He was a studiously stoic little fellow of forty-and-some years with gray at his temples and a pale gray complexion and a gray, gray soul. If he noticed that his employer was lolling about without a stitch on, he didn't show it. He never seemed to notice anything, which was one of the reasons why Lord Lumpley depended on him so. As a test, the baron had once strutted around an entire morning with half an apple clenched between his naked cheeks, and when at last Belgrave commented upon it, it was only to say, "Pardon me, My Lord, but you seem to have bruised your fruit. Shall I fetch something fresh?"

Now 287 pages of this would start to get dull after a while, but Hockensmith fortunately includes many impressive battle scenes, particularly in the last thirty pages. It's not World War Z quality, but Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a pretty good zombie apocalypse.

Grade: B+

I Can Beat That Price

via TYWKIWDBI

Left 4 Dead Gingerbread Cookies

These cookies by reddit user YellowPoison put the fun back into the zombie apocalypse.

Link via Nerdcore

Zombie Song Lyrics

Zombaritaville is a collection of popular song lyrics, rewritten as zombie-themed. Here's Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind":

How many lobes must a ghoul gulp down
Before he eats the whole brainpan?
How many skulls must a sniper nail
Before her rifle has jammed?
Yes, n' how many bites must I take of this guy
Before I've digested his hand?
The zombies my friend, are rippin' off your skin
The zombies are rippin' off your skin

Yes, n' how many folks must cease to exist
Before it's called a "killing spree"?
Yes, n' how many years in this mall can we subsist
'Til we're forced by bikers to flee?
Yes, n' how many towns must shamblers infest
Before they all turn to debris?
The zombies my friend, are rippin' off your skin
The zombies are rippin' off your skin

Yes, n' how many mines must a man blow up
Before the undead subside?
Yes, n' how many bites must our pilot endure
Before he's no longer alive?
Yes, n' how many hosts will this virus infect
Before the plague's spread worldwide?
The zombies my friend, are rippin' off your skin
The zombies are rippin' off your skin

Other songs featured:
"Jack & Diane" by John Mellencamp
"The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers
"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen
"Nothing Compares 2 U" by Prince

HT: Boing Boing

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

This book is a YA zombie novel. It is written in the first-person perspective by Mary, a teenage girl who lives in a small Iron Age village. For generations, this village has been surrounded by a remnant of industrial technology: a chain-link fence. It is the only thing that protects it from the Unconsecrated -- the undead who crave the flesh of the living. Mary knows, from legends passed down from generation to generation, that once the living ruled the earth and that humanity was not confined in this enclosure inside the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

She and the other villagers are ruled by the Sisterhood, a female Christian-like religious order that organizes the defense and propagation of the human race. But Mary begins to suspect that the Sisterhood has been keeping secrets about what lies beyond the forest.

The only significant failing of the book is that Mary thinks like a modern teenage girl, not like a person whose entire culture has been isolated for hundreds of years. But as this is a YA novel, that is a forgivable error. All in all, it is a good novel, and the final battle scene was thrilling.

A Star Wars Zombie Novel

Beyond awesome. Star Wars and zombies? Mix in Monty Python and I'm in heaven. Gentlemen, I present to you Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber:

When the Imperial prison barge Purge–temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves–breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

HT: Double Plus Undead

My Current Read: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen

I am presently reading the restoration of Jane Austen's classic work. Unfortunately, when Jane Austen tried to publish her first zombie novel in 1813, her publisher refused until she removed every iota of the undead from it. It thus became a stripped and empty novel, boring many a high school and college student because it appeared to be merely a tale of upper class twits spending their idle days gossiping and falling in and out of puppy love.

Until scholar Seth Grahame-Smith restored the text from the original manuscript, this tedious babble would have forever blighted Austen's reputation. Now we have Pride and Prejudice as it was originally intended: a tale of expert warrior women, cutting a path across zombie-infested England while falling in and out of puppy love with upper class twits.

Here's a selection:

As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short, for Elizabeth presently attacked with a series of kicks, forcing him to counter with the drunken washerwoman defense. She spoke as they battled:

"I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other."

One of the kicks found its mark, and Darcy was sent into the mantlepiece with such force as to shatter its edge. Wiping the blood from his mouth, he looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.

"Can you deny that you have done it?" she repeated.

With assumed tranquility he then replied, "I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Toward him I have been kinder than towards myself."

Zombie Haiku

Topless Robot had a contest to celebrate the publication of Zombie Haiku, a compilation of poetry by Ryan Mecum. Some of my favorites from among the winners:

Xbox champion
Killed many zombies in games
Died to first he met

Poetic zombies.
Tortured just as much undead,
As when they still lived.

The zombies can run
Not what Romero promised
Thank God for fat kids

brains brains brains brains brains
brains brains brains brains brains brains brains
brains brains brains brains brains

Truly, poetry is the breath of the human soul.

Zombies and Liberal Politics

Paul Waldman writes in The American Prospect that the emergence of the zombie as a cultural meme is a reflection of progressive/liberal politics:

While one can certainly use zombies to express all kinds of ideas, I would argue that at heart, the genre is a progressive one. It's true that fighting off the zombie horde requires plentiful firearms, no doubt pleasing Second Amendment advocates. And in a zombie movie, government tends to be either ineffectual or completely absent. On the other hand, when the zombie apocalypse comes, capitalism breaks down, too -- people aren't going to be exchanging money for goods and services; they're just going to break into the hardware store and grab what they need (and if you think your private health insurer is going to be paying claims for treatment of zombie bites, you're living in a dream world). But most important, what ensures survival in a zombie story are the progressive ideals of common cause and collective action. A small group of people from varying backgrounds are thrust together and find that they can transcend their differences of age, race, and gender (the typical band of survivors is a veritable United Nations of cultural diversity). They come to understand that if they're going to get out of this with their brains kept securely housed in their skulls and not travelling down some zombie's gullet, they've got to act as though they're all in it together. Surviving the tide of zombies requires community and mutual responsibility. What could be more progressive than that?

It's an interesting notion. But I would add that two central elements in the politics of the Right are the notions that (1) the individual must ultimately fend for him/herself and (2) there are threats that one cannot negotiate with, but must simply kill. These are also features of most zombie narratives that I have encountered.

HT: Hit & Run

Jonathan Coulton's Re: Your Brains Performed in Zombie Sign Language

[Video Link]

I'm pleased that ASL has a sign for 'zombie'.

A Nursery Rhyme That I Have Modified for My Daughter

Five little zombies
I once knew
Big ones, small ones, skinny ones, too
But the one little zombie

That was missing an arm
He led the others with his
"Rhrarr, Rharr, Rhrarr!"

Down to the village
They would go
A-stagger, stagger,
Stagger, stagger
To and fro

But the one little zombie
That was missing an arm
He led the others with his
"Rhrarr, Rharr, Rhrarr!"

My thanks to my mother-in-law, an elementary school music teacher, for introducing me to this song.

In other undead news: the Boston Police Department used its official twitter feed to confirm that it would warn the public if officers suspected that a zombie outbreak had occurred. (HT: DPUD)

Zombie Jamboree

A cute Caribbean song performed by the Kingston Trio.


[Video Link] HT: Instapundit

In other news: Zombie Ants! We are utterly screwed now. (HT: Ben)

A Catchy Song about the Zombie on Your Lawn

It's stuck in my head.

[Video Link] HT: Topless Robot

President Evil

President Evil is a new comic book from Antarctic Press about Barack Obama leading the fight against the armies of the undead. Similar to Planet Terror, the zombies are the results of experiments performed on soldiers to enhance their combat abilities.

Jim Henson's Resident Evil 5

[Video Link] HT: Ghost of a Flea

Zoo of the Dead

[Video Link] A short zombie film by Alex Poutianinen. What's remarkable about Poutianinen's work is that he tells good stories with the cheapest of materials. I think that what makes his films work is his precise camera movement and careful audio work, in much the same way that a storyteller can create a mental scene with little to no visual aids.

HT: Popped Culture

Zombie Outbreak in New Orleans

The Times-Picayune:

A Metairie resident is recovering after a stranger bit a chunk of flesh out of his arm and swallowed it Saturday afternoon.

Joseph Lancellotti, 67, told authorities he did not know the suspect, later identified as Mario Vargas, 48, or why he was attacked in his front yard.

Hospitalizing Lancellotti isn't going to help him, and only places more people in danger. Part of being able to survive a zombie attack is a cold-blooded willingness to face reality, as the titular hero in Shaun of the Dead did when his own mother turned.

HT: DoublePlusUndead

Jesus Hates Zombies: A Comic Book Series

Has anyone read this series? I've never seen it, but it sounds interesting. I've heard that it's about Jesus finding himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Apparently there's also a companion comic called Lincoln Hates Werewolves.

Civil Defense in the Land of the Undead

Public-spirited citizens in Austin, Texas hacked into roadside signs and warned travelers in the area of the zombie sightings. Some of the signs read "Zombies Ahead" and "Run for Cold Climes". Sadly, the Texas Department of Transportation is responding with anger, not gratitude.

I've met a lot of people who don't prepare for zombie attacks because they think that they can count on governments to rescue them during disasters. Two words, folks: Hurricane Katrina.

The response of the Texas Department of Transportation should remind us of something: governments aren't primarily interested in making you safe. Governments are interested in controlling you.

So you'd better look out for yourself.

Hat tip to Gary's PC Help, Jeff the Baptist, Dan Trabue, Jeremy Durocher, Jody Leavell, Brett Royal, Kurt Boemler.