Customer Reviews

The Vampire Survival Guide: How to Fight, and Win, Against the Undead (Zen of Zombie Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Vampire Survival Guide is brought to you by the same company that put out The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead and even has the same attractive look to it with the semi-pliable white cover. In this 'humor' text you are supposed to learn how to deal with the inevitable vampire uprising, how to defend yourself, find shelter, form hunting parties, and kill vampires; taking for granted vampires exist. Unfortunately, the vampires aren't the only things that suck about this book. There's far too much double talk and redundancy of material. Also, for a book found in the Humor section of your bookstore (and it says HUMOR right on the cover) the attempts at comedy are few and far between and just not funny. There was a lot of potential for this book to be quite amusing but basically movie knowledge of vampires are totally swept away. Sidebars throughout the book consist of unfunny Random Questions and the interesting Vampire Facts blurbs about historical references to vampires (which raises the rating to two stars). I wanted to like this book but just couldn't and found it rather boring to read. Zen of the Zombie was far better and this vampire survival guide would have benefitted more if it had been more light hearted like Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.

Overall, great looking book with little meat inside. However, since this seems to be a genre series from this company, expect one about werewolves soon.

If anyone wants to take this book seriously, they need to talk to someone and reflect on the very idea that there might be a virus that causes vampirism. If you enjoy amusing books written in a serious fashion about the mythical monsters we love to scare yourselves with, then this is a great book.

This is not from the same publisher of other "survival guides" that I have given to my partner but he returned the favor by giving me this. The book is on task and on topic from the beginning through to the end. Tackling questions of survival focusing on being against not with the vampires though there are some warnings about hooking up or wanting to join their ranks.

Written with a thought to economics, fighting, disease spread, and cultural changes, it imagines a world overturned for several months by a vampire uprising. However, that idea that such an uprising would occur and why is the weakest part of the book, threatening to undermine it so I deducted a star from my rating. If you can buy the premise, just go with it, then you can have fun reading this book.

A really great book that is interesting and funny. It makes a great partner for a more serious study of Gothic fiction since you can analyze it while still being amused and entertained.

If vampires truly existed, then wouldn't it make sense that someone would write a guide to assist in the war against these undead? That's the premise behind "The Vampire Survival Guide" by Scott Bowen, published by Skyhorse Publishing, the company also behind "The Zen of Zombie."

As a pure survival guide, this book covers everything necessary -- how to detect the undead, how to arm and defend yourself, and how to ensure you don't become infected and join their ranks (think of it as collected methodologies in part gleaned from various vampire books and movies). That's only a sampling of what you'll find inside, and such useful knowledge comes with a price. At 260 pages, some content does seem like filler; it could have been a much more enjoyable read at a slimmer 200 pages. It's a light-hearted attempt at a survival guide -- with vampires -- but much of the intended humor falls flat, especially within the sidebars answering practical questions about vampires and vampirism. Still, the additional "vampire fact" sidebars sprinkled throughout, all based on either traditional folklore or "real" vampires of history, help to spice up some of the less interesting chapters.

Written in easily-digestible sections with numerous illustrations, "The Vampire Survival Guide" isn't necessarily a page-turner, but still holds enough interest to start, put down, and then revisit on occasion to read a little more. Perfectly suited as a coffee-table book, or alongside holy water and wooden stakes as part of your vampire hunter's kit. -- Brad Middleton, vampyres.com

This book is funny because it treats the whole thing as seriously. They get a lot of their information about vampires right out of the legends and history, not from the movies. In other words they get most of it right, like when they point out that before the novel Dracula vampires had no problems with crosses and relics. The chapters are full of useful and fun information, like how to tell when somebody is becoming a vampire, what equipment to use, basic tactics for fighting vampires, how to make vampire traps and what supplies to collect.
Add some paranoid theories about the government and the Ronald Reagan robot, a few simple jokes here and there, and it is a must for anybody. Buy it and enjoy!

God! I've never read such an uninformative book in my life! To put it in layman's terms, THIS BOOK SUCKS (pun intended)! I could write a better book than this. Max Brooks would be ashamed at what his legacy has become since he wrote The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. This book has no value whatsoever other than as a coffee table curiousity, nothing more. Vampires aren't going to take over the world, and none of this stuff is rooted in folklore at all. This is really a compilation of movie materials (a shotgun wouldn't even kill a Vampire unless loaded with silver or blessed buckshot). With very few exceptions, it isn't even funny. Don't waste your money.

Im not sure about this only a few people reviewing this book, yet if they really didnt like it i say, why waste time writing a review for a book you disliked and move on with your life. However these few induviduals took time to respond....Is this because they want their opion heard or ARE THEY REALLY VAMPIRES IN DISGUISE!They dont want you to buy this book because they want you to stay unaware, and unsuspecting to their undying thirst for BLOOD, this way your easy to pick off,easy to enjoy..... Dont be tricked.