ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Brains)

Zombies are so commonplace in horror fiction as to have become almost passé (right alongside vampires and werewolves, with ghosts, demons, angels, and fae maneuvering to follow).  Especially in the movies, you can expect a new zombie flick every year or three, lurching forward to eat the brains (and increasing ticket cost) of the living.

What makes zombies different than the rest of those unnatural types, though, is that they are (usually) non-characters, not fiercely evil villains or intriguing and angsty heroes.  They are more a force of nature — lions and tigers and bears, only with a bit of rot and Cousin Maud’s face.

Though a lot of zombie tales (especially movies) are Man Against (Un)Nature stories, the better ones tend to be more Man Against Himself.  The Walking Dead, for example, is not about zombies per se — it’s about people weighing their humanity vs. their survival. Feed isn’t about zombie attacks, either, but about how the War on Terror the Zombie Rising changes society in ways they aren’t even aware of.

But amidst the Suspense and Horror and Thriller categories of tales featuring zombies, we now have a new category: Just Plain Fun Entertainment tales.  In other words, something you enjoy, chortle over, and read on a dark and stormy night without losing any sleep. Well, not much sleep. But mostly because you keep reading it when you really should turn off the light now, honey, tomorrow’s a work day / sorry dear, let me just get finished with this part …

DeAnna Knippling and Dante Savelli have come up with a real zombie page-turner — literally, because Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse! is a “choose your own path” style adventure — read through a few pages, make a decision, and get told where to flip to in the book to discover what the results were.

Doom Press, the publishers, call it a “Choose Your Doom!” book instead — an accurate reframing, as there are “no happy endings” with unicorns and puppies and rainbows (unless “and they munched on the dead flesh of their fellow zombies forever” qualifies).  The fascinating tale of Tobe, the protagonist (you, the reader), repeatedly spirals, lurches, and/or runs up against an undead end in various gruesome, infectious, consumptive, deadly, but often chuckle-worthy, fashions.  In other words, you die.  Over and over. Horrifically. Amusingly. Unexpectedly (yet Inevitably). Ironically. And usually (but not always) Zombifiededly.

And that’s not always the end of the story, either.

But you don’t mind, because it was fun, and you can always go back and try something else. Who needs sleep, when eternal reanimation awaits?

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Choose your own path books hang on three elements:

1. Are the story bits good?
2. Are the decision points fair?
3. Do the resulting tales work?

Both of these element are important. The many-pathed tale has to actually read well (well enough that, if you give up trying to explore the branches and just read through it, it’s still fun), and when you get to each branching point, you can’t be furiously shouting that your obvious choice isn’t even listed — “I’m not going to run down the corridor, or hit them with the shovel — I still have the shotgun I picked up three flips ago! Plus, what about that ladder I just passed?”  Or, worse, “No, no way I’m going on there, I’m not that stupid, I’ll just wait for my friends to catch up and — wait, I can either go in carrying the gun or the shovel?  Those are my only choices?  What the –?”

(Doyce has, not surprisingly, more on the (literary) horror of the choose-your-own-path books of his misspent youth.)

Zombie Apocalypse! hits all three of these elements well.  The writing is clean and witty but carries the story along, too. The story itself is more than a simple “Zombies!” survival tale — the various settings, characters, and hints at the explanation for the zombie rising keep things moving along at a brisk and interesting pace.  Until, of course, something eats your face, or infects and turns you … at which point you furiously flip back a decision point or two, and try again.

The decision points are reasonable, and it’s amazing how quickly you can go wrong doing the “right” thing when your very survival is on the line (I fear I will not last long during the Zombie Rising — I have a tendency to run over and help people).  I never felt particularly railroaded by the choices, and while the Doom I Chose was sometimes out-of-the-blue unexpected, it never came across as arbitrary or silly or “Gosh, I couldn’t think of anything else to write, so it just turned out to all be a dream THE END.”

In addition to the story, the book is full of amusing illustrations by Ana Bruno.  The pictures have the advantage of giving you a visual cue as you try to go back to where you came from.  She also did the cover, which gives you a good idea of the gooshy horror and humor blend.

Zombie Apocalypse! is not War and Peace (although a Choose Your Doom! book about the Napoleonic invasion of Russia would be a hoot*), but it’s a fine volume that can keep you occupied for several hours and multiple branching readings.  I solidly recommend it. It’s available for Amazon pre-order, and comes out “live” in a week or two.

* Alas, the next announced title is Choose Your Doom: 2012! rather than Choose Your Doom: 1812!

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OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I’m a friend of De Knippling, and so would probably recommend you go out and buy the book even if it weren’t triffic fun.  But it is, so you should buy it anyway. I have (and not just so I can point it out to her when next she visits).  Heck, maybe it will show up as some folks Christmas gifts …

Tomorrow … AN INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF THE AUTHORS!! (Guess which one!)  Woo-hoo! Insider exclusive! Wherein I pick an author’s brains! Brains! BRAAAAIIINNNNS!