Zombies have made a tremendous surge into the popular culture in the last few years, and along with that surge has come a large amount of written material being published in the zombie genre. A lot of the new fiction is covering new ground, while some of it is staying with the tried and true methods of zombies of the past. What we hope to do here at Best Zombie Books is provide reviews and commentary to help select the good new zombie books from the not so good (and talk about some classics in the process as well).
One of the hot trends in the zombie fiction market is to rewrite a classic novel with a zombie twist and inject the undead into an otherwise mundane and often told tale. Some reviewers attribute this repopularization and accompanying book sales as part of reinvigorating the publishing house’s willingness to offer extensive zombie book lineups.
Along with this surge have been a lot of short story collections and anthologies as well. Oftentimes containing some of the most original and thought provoking works, these snippets of stories imagine numerous alternate worlds in which the zombie apocalypse was not something that happened on TV or in the movies. Some of the best of the fiction in the zombie genre can be found in these collections and some of the imaginings of a world after zombies are utterly fascinating.
As always, zombies and their impact on society have been a focus in books as they are in the movies, but along with those mentioned above, another popular method of writing a zombie novel is to find a unique setting and suddenly engulf that setting with the additional drama of being set upon by a zombie infestation. Talk about a plot device. These stories can be hit or miss, but do recall some of the originators of the genre, as what was Night of the Living Dead other than a microcosm of the zombie apocalypse in one small place?
Finally, let’s not forget the zombie graphic novel. Not always thought of in the same vein as other zombie fiction, the zombie graphic novel deserves some attention here as well. It was a graphic novel that had a lot to do with getting the hit AMC series “The Walking Dead” greenlighted and finally getting us zombie fans a show we could call our own on TV. This has been an important area of artistic expansion in the zombie genre.
Wrapping it all up for this introduction post, we hope to bring the best of commentary, reviews, and insight into the best zombie books available on the market today to help the discerning zombie lover make choices for their reading material.