On the topic of zombies.
You know how when you get really into a book or movie, your experience can be so vivid that even when you've put it down, you go through your day half expecting elements of it to saturate the real world?
Lately, I've been reading World War Z, which is a startlingly detailed account of a fictional worldwide zombie war. It has a gritty realism to it-- the author, Max Brooks, is fantastic at giving layered, complex character sketches in two or three pages. The story is told vignette-style-- interviews with dozens of people from varied cultures about individual experiences and how their countries dealt with hordes upon hordes of living dead. Not to give anything away, but I can say that the way the countries react to brutal mass calamity is freakishly spot-on... exactly how I would expect they would.
You know, I've always been the type of person who wonders about how they'd deal were a zombie apocalypse actually imminent. I have zombie nightmares about twice a month-- at first, they were the same dream over and over. After awhile, I was able to make different choices and vary the outcome. Then I started having more varied dreams altogether. I own a few zombie survival handbooks. I have a rough idea of what kind of structure, supplies, arms, and fortifications I'd need to survive, or at least how to turn non-ideal situations into something defensible and surviveable. I've actually even had deep thoughts about why I would choose a machete or even a baseball bat over a gun as my weapon of choice. That sort of thing. This book, however, has elevated amusing daydreams to kind of a startling level.
As I was coming off the Metro this morning, the weather was bleak. Foggy, gray, damp. I heard an air horn sound.
My first thought?
"The dead are coming. Get indoors!"
Lately, I've been reading World War Z, which is a startlingly detailed account of a fictional worldwide zombie war. It has a gritty realism to it-- the author, Max Brooks, is fantastic at giving layered, complex character sketches in two or three pages. The story is told vignette-style-- interviews with dozens of people from varied cultures about individual experiences and how their countries dealt with hordes upon hordes of living dead. Not to give anything away, but I can say that the way the countries react to brutal mass calamity is freakishly spot-on... exactly how I would expect they would.
You know, I've always been the type of person who wonders about how they'd deal were a zombie apocalypse actually imminent. I have zombie nightmares about twice a month-- at first, they were the same dream over and over. After awhile, I was able to make different choices and vary the outcome. Then I started having more varied dreams altogether. I own a few zombie survival handbooks. I have a rough idea of what kind of structure, supplies, arms, and fortifications I'd need to survive, or at least how to turn non-ideal situations into something defensible and surviveable. I've actually even had deep thoughts about why I would choose a machete or even a baseball bat over a gun as my weapon of choice. That sort of thing. This book, however, has elevated amusing daydreams to kind of a startling level.
As I was coming off the Metro this morning, the weather was bleak. Foggy, gray, damp. I heard an air horn sound.
My first thought?
"The dead are coming. Get indoors!"