Books

[dsrtao]

_The Zombie Survival Guide_, Max Brooks

The title of this book is a lie! It's not about how zombies can survive at all!

I think Max Brooks has spent too much time thinking about zombies.

I don't like his 'Solanum' explanation. If it's a natural infectious entity, then I can believe brain damage and voracious hunger and unrelenting violence and insensitivity to pain... but I can't buy the "actually dead" part. And if they're dead shambling horrors, then a supernatural explanation is called for.

Comments

[evilnicola.livejournal.com]

Have you read World War Z? It is fabulous.

[dsrtao]

I did read it; I thought it was reasonably enjoyable.

That which we call a corpse

[metageek.livejournal.com]

but I can't buy the "actually dead" part

Define "dead".

If someone dies, and then their flesh is eaten by a lion, and becomes part of the lion's living body, they're still dead, right? So, if someone dies, and then their corpse is animated by some sort of infection that takes control of their organs, then they're still dead. Either way, the original personality is gone, and the original creature will never reproduce.

Now, you might make the argument that this means the zombie is a living creature. But it can't grow, it can't reproduce, and (in most stories) it can't even prevent its own flesh from rotting. To me, this says that the infection is a living creature; the zombie it controls is more like a puppet.

Re: That which we call a corpse

[dsrtao]

Specifically, Brooks says that Solanum-infected corpses have reorganized brains (with no frontal lobes) and exhibit the following characteristics:

- no digestive processes at all except ingestion and rotting -- no processing, no excretion
- no growth or cellular regeneration
- no requirement for oxygen
- no homeostatic control of body temperature - when the zombie freezes, it stops moving, and when it defrosts, it starts moving again

Basically, there's no energy input to this equation. Where does the energy for motion come from? Dead muscle cells can't expand and contract (except galvanically, and if so, where does the energy for that come from?).

Zombies are perpetual motion machines. Put them on treadmills connected to generators and Bob's your rotting ex-uncle.

Re: That which we call a corpse

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Where does the energy for motion come from?

From the rotting. After all, "rot" is just another word for "be digested". The zombie infection introduces its own decay bacteria, which digest the flesh of the corpse to power it. Oh, and oxygen isn't necessary; they use anaerobic respiration.