Book 1 of my Zombie-a-thon!

Well that was a thoroughly entertaining short field study! I'm not going to put it under the microscope because it isn't trying to be anything other than a light-hearted piece of zombie literature. I don't know what it says about me that I laughed my head off at the ending though....

Additional Note: Listen to the audiobook first, then follow up with the book as it has sketches etc. ( )

This book is all about the art. Fantastic art. The words add story to the art, but it wouldn't be worth reading only for the sake of reading. ( )

Dr. Robert Twombly is a biologist who attempts to deal with the sudden zombie apocalypse by keeping a record of his experiences, in the hope that it might help others. The audiobook is set up like it's his field recording (we're told that he has several boxes of batteries - somehow he manages to lug these around with him wherever he goes). Although Twombly's account is the primary focus, he occasionally finds traveling companions whose stories he also records. This came across more like an audio drama, with occasional background sounds, than an audiobook (based on its Goodreads page, the print version may be a graphic novel?).

We're told at the beginning that the plague did eventually end after a year, but based on Twombly's recordings, whatever was left of humanity probably had a rough time of it. Things got pretty bleak at times.

That said, some of the things I feared would happen didn't. Due to the way the story was being told, there wasn't much "on-page" gore (although there definitely was some). Named characters died, but I never got attached enough to any of them to get all that upset, and all the named characters were adults. Child zombies made a brief appearance, but none had to be killed that I can recall. And I don't recall any pet dogs being killed, although one did have to be abandoned when it refused to leave the area. There were no zombie animals.

The revelations about what caused the zombie apocalypse were somewhat annoying and basically boiled down to "processed food is bad." And as far as I could tell, no efforts were made to take into account international differences in food additive regulation.

Dr. Twombly encountered a lot of different people during his journey, but even the ones he interviewed were pretty bland. This wasn't a bad audiobook, and the acting was generally pretty good, but it's not one I'll want to listen to again.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

My favourite illustration, of Jeri's grief.

A readable, clinical and superficial journal with illustrations and diagrams from Dr. Robert Twombly covering the period Jan 5 - Mar 28 2012. On the whole, this doesn't contribute anything new to the world of zombies. Hypothetically, the cause of the outbreak is said to be from a food additive. As it builds up in your system, most reach a fatal level and display flu-like symptoms, die after developing breathing difficulties, then snap back to life. These slow-moving (and sometimes self-cannibalistic) zombies decay at normal rates and tend to attract carrion birds who aren't put off by movement. Water doesn't deter them, they just walk under water Pirates of the Caribbean-style.

There's no plot, little character development or depth, though we do get to hear a number of briefly described stories of the survivors Twombly encounters. It's typically 'what you see is what you get,' prioritising the physical over the mental concerns. Emotion, although portrayed, never moved me. Since Twombly spends so much time alone I expected suicidal thoughts, erratic or delusional behaviour, something to tell me that the world falling apart had taken an emotional toll. Instead we witness a stadium full of people of all ages, appearing to have committed mass suicide via something they all drank, which we derive from the cups they each had. No one else appears to suffer any ill effects of their situation until towards the end where nightmares and a sense of constant fear are experienced.

This was just an okay read for me. Only the illustrations make it unique by bringing home the excessively gruesome reality of a zombie apocalypse.

I'll close with another illustration I'm also fond of, for obvious reasons:


Presumably Gus in the office of Gus's Guns & Ammo. ( )

Okay, so I actually had never heard of this before and picked it up at random, because, hey, I love zombie stories. Anyway, turns out that this is actually an audiobook of a graphic novel. If your first reaction to that is "lol whut" then we're totally on the same page. I really never would have thought that a graphic novel would convert so well to a picture-less format, but they did a wonderful job with this, considering that I didn't figure that out until later.

There is so much zombie stuff out there, it's true. While I don't know that there's anything especially original about Zombies, at least in the audio version, I did very much enjoy it. If you like to read zombie tales, there's really no excuse to not read this, since even on audio it takes less than two hours. Oh, short audiobook, I finished you in a day and I feel so accomplished.

I'm really not going to go into the plot much, because it's the pretty basic zombie outbreak business, following one guy in his efforts to survive. What I want to talk about specifically is why I loved the audio. Stephen R. Thorne, the narrator, sounds exactly like Chris Traeger, Rob Lowe's character on the show Parks and Recreation. Seriously, even his intonation and the way he pronounces certain words are Chris all the way. So, naturally, I pictured Robert Twombly as Chris Traeger. Here are some gifs to illustrate what this would be like.

Zombies attack:


Reaction to the zombie apocalypse:



Excuse my silliness, but, seriously, I had a lot of fun with Zombies. I'd actually really love to check out the graphic novel version too, because I love graphic novels and it could be rather different. ( )