Zombies: More Recent Dead

Return of the Preshamble Paula Guran

A little over four years ago, I started compiling Zombies: The Recent Dead. Published in October 2010, I hoped it was a zombie anthology that not only included outstanding stories, but could serve as an entertaining guide (of sorts) and “historical documentation” to zombie fiction written in the first decade of what had already turned into the Zombie Century.

I was very fortunate to be able to republish an updated version of David J. Schow’s introduction and afterword from his collection Zombie Jam (Subterranean Press, 2003). Schow wrote of the impact of George A. Romero’s films on him personally as well as the rest of us culturally. He also explained how the modern archetype of the living dead is derived from cinematic rather than literary roots.

I added two other short introductory essays. The first, “Preshamble,” dealt with the earlier “traditional” zombie mythos (and its one-time popularity). The other, “Deaditorial Note,” briefly covered the rise of the living dead in twenty-first century popular culture, including its literature, and the themes most often explored. (You can find them online here: paulaguran.com/zombies-the-recent-dead-intro).

At the time, I wondered if the demand for all things zombie had peaked, if Zombies: The Recent Dead was a last chance at doing an anthology of great fiction about the living dead.

I shouldn’t have worried.

The Walking Dead premiered on 31 October 2010 on AMC.

The series’ popularity either kept the living dead alive or proved they were even more embedded in our pop cultural brains than ever.

By 2013, The Walking Dead averaged 5.6 million viewers per episode: the highest audience ratings in the United States for any television show, broadcast or cable. It was also the most popular TV show with advertiser-preferred viewers between the ages of eighteen and forty-nine. Its fifth season will air this fall.

The summer of 2013 brought the movie World War Z: big budget ($190 million for production), big star (Brad Pitt), biggest hordes of zombies ever seen, and at this writing, more than $540 million worldwide gross. Biggest z-movie ever and Brad Pitt’s biggest grosser.

The Max Brooks novel the film was loosely based on—Brooks freely admitted the only thing his novel and the movie had in common is the title—had been one of two books that truly set off twenty-first century zombiemania: The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (2003), a parody of a survival guide, and World War Z (2006), a serious novel documenting a worldwide zombie pandemic. Both by Brooks, these books brought zombies out of the horror genre and into the mainstream.

How far into the mainstream?

The Walking Dead is not the only hit television series about the living dead. BBC Three’s mini-series In the Flesh began airing in the UK on 17 March 2013 with three hour-long episodes. (It won the BAFTA Award as best mini-series of 2014 and its leading actor, Luke Newberry, was also honored in his category.) A second season of six hour-long episodes began on 4 May 2014 in the UK and on 10 May 2014 in the U.S. (carried by BBC America). Rather than focusing on humans making violently sure the living dead are dead dead, In The Flesh offers a more compassionate view emphasizing the difficulties of “living” as one of the dead.

Eight episodes of a French series, The Returned (Les Revenants), based on the 2004 film They Came Back (also titled, in French, Les Revenants) aired in 2012 on Canal+. It became the pay-TV broadcaster’s most popular original series ever and won an International Emmy for Best Drama Series. A second season followed. It was aired in the UK in 2013. In the U.S., Sundance Channel aired the first season of Les Revenants as The Returned. Now, A&E has fast-tracked a ten-episode version, also titled The Returned, to air fall 2014. Like In the Flesh, the undead are humanized in the series while investigating the effect on the living when those from the not-always-resolved past abruptly show up.

The dead return to life in the French series, but it is closer to ABC’s 2013 unrelated series Resurrection (based on the novel The Returned by Jason Mott) than typical zombie fare. In Resurrection, the dead mysteriously appear, look and act as they did while among the living, and have no apparent memory of their deaths or what has passed since then. Perhaps these aren’t zombies? Don’t be so sure. By the end of Resurrection’s first season earlier this year, the undead were at least becoming a major problem that was going to have to be dealt with by the living. ABC has renewed Resurrection for a second season.

The BBC has commissioned a zombie “reality” game show, I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse. BBC Three—set to go online-only in late 2015—will air the show. The premise: eight contestants are trapped in a shopping mall surrounded by the (supposedly) walking dead. Contestants must use urban survival tactics and their wits to avoid being bitten by the “zombies.” Dark humor seems to be intrinsic to the show as a network news release promises that once bitten, contestants “will leave the show in grisly style.” An executive producer is quoted as saying, “It’s nice to finally have a game show where if you get a challenge wrong, you get your arms ripped off and your brains eaten out.”

As for The Walking Dead, AMC has announced an as-yet untitled “companion series.” Originally (in late 2013) slated to launch in 2015, the network has not offered any details lately on when it will premiere.

Syfy recently announced a thirteen-episode series, Z Nation, which “will follow the struggle for humans to survive post-zombie apocalypse.” It will premiere fall 2014.

World War Z? Paramount has announced a sequel with Pitt starring, Juan Antonio Bayona directing, and Steven Knight as screenwriter. No date is set, but release in 2016 is expected.

Picture books for children featuring zombies (usually light-heartedly) had proliferated by the time ParaNorman, a 2012 zombie movie for kids, received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film. So had chapter books for older children and young adult novels. All continue to do so.

In the colorful kids’ game Plants vs. Zombies, according to the description, a “mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and your only defense is an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants . . . Each zombie has its own special skills, so be careful how you use your limited supply of greens and seeds . . . as you battle the fun-dead . . . ” There’s a large line of toys to match—including plush toys for infants—and a comic book series.

Or, you can try the more generic “Glow in the Dark Flesh Eating Zombies Play Set.” (Nine three-inch-tall vinyl glow-in-the-dark flesh-eating zombies. “Turn off the light to see their eerie glow!”) Nerf makes a “Zombie Crossfire Bow Toy,” and, instead of little plastic army figures, you can now buy a bag of zombies (neon green) and zombie hunters (bright blue, includes Swat/Hazmat units).

When it comes to the undead devouring our kids, I could go on . . .

Oh, hold on to your decaying flesh, I won’t.

There are also plenty of zombie comic books, graphic novels, and (yes) manga intended for those a bit older. According to Diamond Comic Distributors, the top-selling comic book of 2013 (not surprisingly) was The Walking Dead No. 115 and Walking Dead volumes accounted for five of the Top Ten graphic novels. But the TV-related franchise isn’t the only comic series, published (or, in some cases, were published until recently.) Along with various graphic versions of z-movies old and new and some novels, there are series like The New Deadwardians, iZombie, Fanboys vs. Zombies, Revival, and Afterlife with Archie (yes, that Archie). Even George Romero returned to the zombie genre this year with comic Empire of the Dead, illustrated by Alex Maleev and published by Marvel.

Despite the plethora of already-existing zombie videogames, many gamers found The Last of Us—with its realistic post-apocalyptic storyline and uncomfortable moral choices—to be one of the best titles of 2013. Also recently popular is DayZ, a multiplayer open world survival game test-released in December 2013 for Windows, and still in alpha-testing stage. Noted for its particularly horrific scenarios, the DayZ player is a survivor of a zombie virus who must forage for basic needs while killing or avoiding zombies, as well as killing, co-opting, or avoiding other players.

Among z-games to come: Dead Island 2 is scheduled for a spring 2015 release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Dying Light, another action game with zombies will also launch for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, and PC sometime in 2015. Zombie survival game H1Z1 (the name of yet another zombie-making virus) has a tentative release date of the end of 2014 for PC.

For those inclined to at least shamble rather than remain rotting on the couch, there are zombie walks. A combination of flash-mob/cosplay, these events have been around since 2003 and are now documented in more than twenty countries. The largest gathering, so far, according to Guinness World Records, is 8,027 at Midway Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, on 13 October 2012. (A pub crawl following the zombie event involved more than thirty thousand more-or-less zombified participants.)

The living imitating the undead have also raised money for various charities.

Live roleplaying games, most notably Humans vs. Zombies, have proliferated on college campuses and elsewhere. HvZ humans defend themselves against a growing zombie horde with Nerf or other soft-dart guns and rolled-up socks. It is played on six continents and locations including Australia, Denmark, Namibia, and Spain.

Zombie-only versions of “haunted attractions” are beginning to appear as well. Locations are turned into zombie lairs full of the hungry undead and visitors try to survive the flesh-eaters.

The undead are even helping the United States government. In 2012, about a thousand military, law enforcement, and medical personnel participated in a first-responder seminar subsidized by the United States Department of Homeland Security that included a rampaging horde of zombies as part of their emergency response training. It was only a small, tongue-in-cheek part of the training, but using a zombie virus outbreak scenario to train participants for a global pandemic—in which they would need to deal with violent, crazed, and fearful people—proved to be a valuable teaching tool.

That same year, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began a whimsical emergency preparedness campaign blog—Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse—which turned into a very effective platform (so many people accessed the once-bland website, it crashed) to reach and engage a wide variety of audiences on hazard preparedness in general. CDC Director Dr. Ali Khan has noted, “If you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack.”

There’s more evidence, of course, of our cultural love for these fictional creatures, but to get back to the written word—which is, after all, what we are concerned with here . . .

Other than Quirk Books’ 2009 Jane Austen/zombie mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, “coauthored” by Seth Grahame-Smith, no novel since World War Z has had anywhere near its impact. (And although Pride and Prejudice and Zombies launched a mostly unfortunate subgenre, it now appears to be short-lived and unlikely to crawl forth from its tomb.)

This is not to say there have not been some excellent and/or popular novels since 2006 (I already mentioned some in Zombies: The Recent Dead.) Here is a 2009-2014—admittedly incomplete—selection (alphabetically by author’s last name; U.S. publisher listed unless published significantly earlier elsewhere):

Amelia Beamer: The Loving Dead (Night Shade, 2010)

Alden Bell: The Reapers Are the Angels (Holt, 2010) and Exit Kingdom (Holt, 2012)

Mira Grant: Newsfeed trilogy (Feed, 2010; Deadline, 2011; Blackout, 2012—all from Orbit)

Daryl Gregory: Raising Stony Mayhall (Del Rey, 2011)

John Ajvide Lindqvist: Handling the Undead (as Hanteringen av odöda in Sweden in 2005; English translation: Quercus, UK, 2009; Thomas Dunne, U.S., 2010)

Jonathan Maberry: Joe Ledger series (Patient Zero, 2009; The Dragon Factory, 2010; The King of Plagues, 2011; Assassins Code, 2012; Extinction Machine, 2013; Code Zero, 2014; with two more forthcoming in 2015 and 2016, all from St. Martin’s Griffin)

Jonathan Maberry (also from St. Martin’s Griffin): Dead of Night, (2011) and Fall of Night (2014)

Colson Whitehead: Zone One (Doubleday, 2011)

And, just a few of many, for Young Adult readers:

Sean Beaudoin: The Infects (2012, Candlewick)

Charlie Higson: Enemy Series: [The Enemy (Puffin, 2009), The Dead (Hyperion, 2010), The Fear (Disney-Hyperion, 2011); The Sacrifice (2012), The Fallen (2013), The Hunted (Puffin, UK, 2014, no U.S. edition as yet)]

Jonathan Maberry: Benny Imura series (Rot & Ruin, 2010; Dust & Decay, 2011; Flesh & Bone, 2012; Fire & Ash, 2013: from Simon & Schuster for Young Readers)

Carrie Ryan: The Forest of Hands and Teeth series (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, 2009; The Dead-Tossed Waves, 2010; The Dark and Hollow Places, 2011: all Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers)

Darren Shan: Zom-B series: Zom-B, 2012; Zom-B Underground, 2013; Zom-B City, 2013; Zom-B Angels, 2013; Zom-B Baby, 2013; Zom-B Gladiator, 2014; Zom-B Mission, 2014: all Simon & Schuster. Zom-B Clans, 2014: Simon & Schuster UK)

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, zombie fiction became even more of a force to contend with in the short form than previously. Now, in the last few years, creative short stories seem to be appearing more frequently in periodicals both online and off, and the walking dead continue to fill anthologies. There don’t seem to be as many compilations these days from the very small presses and fewer of the “intended-to-gross-out” variety, but among those from trade publishers (alphabetically by editor):

Steve Berman: Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages (Prime, 2013; mix of reprinted and original stories)

Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier: Zombies vs. Unicorns (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010; half zombie, intended for YA)

John Joseph Adams: The Living Dead 2 (Night Shade, 2010, mostly reprints)

Christopher Golden: The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010)

Christopher Golden: 21st Century Dead: A Zombie Anthology (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012)

Paula Guran: Extreme Zombies (Prime Books, 2012; reprints and only for fans of the extreme)

Stephen Jones: Zombie Apocalypse! (Running Press, 2010)

Stephen Jones: Zombie Apocalypse! Fightback (Running Press, 2012)

Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction [Exile Editions (Canada, but distributed in US), 2013]

Otto Penzler: Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (Vintage, 2011; aka as Zombies: A Compendium of the Living Dead; historical overview; reprints)

Check the acknowledgments at the back of this volume, and you’ll discover a broad range of sources of zombie stories from the past few years. You might also note that all but seven of the thirty-six entries collected here were published in 2010 or after. Of those seven: two are poems (which I did not consider for the 2010 volume), one has been published only in Australia, two were not then available for reprint, and the other two I was simply unaware of.

One thing I noticed as I discovered (or rediscovered) these very recent zombie stories: in our fictional worlds, we seem to accept that zombies exist or will exist far more readily than we did a decade ago. They are almost considered inevitable. Their fictional popularity is even sometimes referenced. This, perhaps, allows the writer to venture further from the generic trope and deal more with dead that live in different ways rather than adhere to the more common ideations—including the more fantastic. It may also allow the authors to be either more compassionate with the undead or even less understanding of the once-human monsters. We’ve known all along the living dead are really us, but authors seem to be using the metaphor of the zombie in ever more creative ways.

Usually, of course, the stories are more about living humans than the living dead—if and how they remain human after the world is utterly, irrevocably, (but not always horribly) changed. Our reaction to zombies is far more telling than the existence of the dead that walk and prey on the living—if they pose a threat to the living at all.

I won’t name titles, so as not to spoil any plots, but among these thirty-six stories you will find both the humorous and the achingly serious. Naturally, using tales of the living dead to comment on culture as a whole, religion, and politics are still fair game, and—

Zombies, along with other apocalyptic events, are used purely as a metaphor for personal pain . . .

The affliction is not immediate onset, you gradually get “sicker” until you are an “end-stager” . . . or the infection comes on in a hour—there is time to record your turning from a thinking person to a brain-eater . . .

Instead of a mass event, returning from the dead can be individual happenstance: a spouse comes back from the grave, a guy at the office shows up after he’s dead, through strange science one explores the liminal spaces that separate life from death . . .

The living dead are part of history, and the world has put itself back together one way or another. Zombies, like disease, are just another truism or merely something else that messes your life up . . .

The dead are raised for convenience, through inadvertent or intentional science or even necromancy. Society has contrived ways to deal with them . . .

Zombies are revived in various alternate histories: a pre-Roman Britain . . . First Nation legends . . . ancient Babylon . . . among nineteenth-century pox-ridden cadavers . . . during World War Two . . .

The dead return to life and nothing has changed for them or anyone else . . .

A few zombis, with roots in a mixture of Afro-Caribbean lore and the religion of voudou, appear . . . as well as other dead things commanded by more fantastic magic . . .

There is an outbreak of zombism in a posthuman far-future (complete with all the trappings of hard science fiction) on a spaceship traveling to distant stars . . .

Of course there are a variety of gritty futures where civilization has turned into an environment worse than any primitive jungle and one must fight the dead to live . . . and much more.

Are these all truly zombie stories? To me, they are: all deal with the dead coming back to some semblance of physical life. At the very least, they are worthy of your perusal and debate. The zombie subgenre, as I mentioned four years ago, is a hardy virus and continues to mutate and thus thrive.

So, once again, dear readers—BONE appetit!