Customer Reviews

Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead

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

 

 

So you love zombies? NO, I mean you really LOVE zombies? You spend time in chat rooms debating over the best methods to survive a zombie outbreak or zombie apocalypse. You argue with non-believers about how likely a zombie plague actually is. You love the mechanics of the various zombie incarnations and how society and more specifically the police, the military, and the every day Joe would actually react? You have dug so deep that you actually can vividly imagine the whole process of the zombie invasion would take place, including the discovery of "Patient Zero", the initial victim, and the expansion of the plague or whatever process would take place that caused the initial infection and where it goes from there.
This book is for you.

Jonathan Maberry has done exhaustive research, conducting interviews with over 200 experts in various fields who have as much of a fascination with zombies as he does. This book serves as a research tome for not only the zombie fan but those who might direct a zombie flick or write a zombie story. No stone was left unturned in the process of going through a theoretical zombie apocalypse...well, a lot of it argues the validity of the idea of an apocalypse actually occuring if we are talking about a plausible scientific explaination for zombies rather than a supernatural process. Slow vs. fast, spiritual vs. plague infected, it is discussed here and far beyond that.
My favorite parts of this book had to be the smaller insertions, including the ongoing debate of fast vs. slow zombies as discussed by numerous authors, directors, and other experts in the field. There is also a great deal of zombie art in this book with the artists comments on what they were conceiving and thinking about when they created a particular piece.

I have always felt that in many zombie movies the police and military are treated with limited respect-they are made to be less than competent so a zombie apocalypse is that much more likely. This book presents a fair and balanced view of how the police, SWAT, and the military might actually respond. Good stuff for a real zombie zealot but the author still acknowledges the excitment that goes along with the fantasy that is zombies. Perhaps this book peels back too many layers of this onion in exposing what is realistic and possible but the author says more than once in the book, as a reminder to the reader, that we are talking about zombies here, the modern variation concocted by George Romero in Night of the Living Dead, not something we have ever really seen or that has ever actually really existed...as far as we know.

This is the book for the zombie fanatic. Perhaps a little too dense and complex for the casual zombie observer, someone who digs the occasional zombie flick or book. But if you really are fascinated with everything zombie in all its gory incarnations, if you can imagine hunkering down in a bunker cleaning your guns waiting for the undead to break down your reinforced doors, then this book is a great read.

I bought this book due to my love of all things Zombie. What a disappointment. It took forever to get to the point. It looked like the author was copying information from a book on typical police procedure. He would then awkwardly adjust the data to fit in a Zombie reference. Don't waste your money, their are plenty of other good Zombie books out their.

This book covers a variety of zombie related topics and has a lot of varied commentary. It mostly goes into how one specific scenario of an abortive zombie apocolypse might not go down. For the most part, it's kind of a bland, dull read.

The author apparently trains police sometimes in hand to hand skills, which makes him an expert on police and all martial arts, and brings in supporting casts to uphold his claims. Probably in an effort to counteract the usual movie idea of incompetent police, he contends that all police officers (all of them) are heavily armed, highly trained experts in weapons and hand to hand fighting skills who follow detailed procedured without error.
He also oversteps his bounds of knowledge on the topics of martial arts without giving it a second thought. For example, he views the katana as God's own lightsaber, and dismisses European weaponry out of hand with just a couple of unqualified comments. He brings in many "expert" witnesses on asian fighting arts, but the only one he brings on western martial arts is some theatrical fencer, not even close to a martial artist!

For the most part, all the fun reading is in the sparse but regularly included caption commentary.

I'd say get this book if you're big time into police work and zombies, but for anyone else it's a dismissal.

I'm a sucker for fantastic ideas treated realistically, so books like World War Z, which look at zombies and attempt to place them in our world are pure gold to me. This looked like the same sort of thing (though obviously not a narrative, more of a long essay), but from a completely different perspective, and I wasn't disappointed.

The focus here is on law enforcement, and other government and medical authorities. Experts in these fields are interviewed and asked to imagine various zombie scenarios and comment about the response to it, and the final outcome. This is both the greatest strength, and greatest weakness of this book.

The strength is obvious, these people know what they do inside and out, and are far more qualified than most to imagine these scenarios. The SWAT and legal experts, in particular, had some detailed and interesting ideas. That's why I devour books like this, to see what actual experts with real world experience will say.

The weakness comes from the fact that most of these experts seem incensed at the idea of being overtaken by the undead. To take this book's word for it, every cop is expertly trained and always cool under pressure. Most probably are, and they usually do get unfair treatment in zombie stories, but I've met enough cops to know that not all are (one actually told my friends and I that we made him nervous... and I am NOT a scary or aggressive person). I also thin that a bit too much faith is shown in the abilities of the CDC and WHO to react to and contain a fast spreading virus. Not that I doubt their abilities so much as I don't really buy that they could react fast enough to most of the zombie scenarios depicted in movies. There are dissenting opinions present, which is good, but the author is definitely on the side of "the authorities will handle it."

Finally, some points are raised that have been addressed in some works, but those works are not referenced. One specific example is the fact that zombies will eventually rot to the point of not being able to move. In the World War Z world (which is referenced other places), the zombie virus retards the decomposition process by making the flesh of the undead inedible to bacteria. Maybe not a likely scenario, but it would have been nice for that to be mentioned, rather than holding up eventual decomp as a likely way we would win.

I don't mean this to sound as negative as it does, I loved this book start to finish. The ideas and perspectives presented are fascinating, and the artwork scattered throughout is mostly of very high quality. It gets you thinking in new ways about old scenarios, and that's worth the price of admission right there.

PS: One last, minor quibble: The author mentioned the old "science can't explain how bees fly" notion to suggest that while science is exact, is it incomplete. The sentiment is right on, but the example is all wrong. We can explain exactly how bees fly, there is no mystery there (their wings create a tiny vortex above then that essentially sucks them up), we just couldn't explain it back when linear aerodynamics (which can explain how birds fly) were all that was known. Foolish ideas like this, and the idea that we only use 10% of our brains, just refuse to die.

Might be a good read if you're just getting into the zombie genre and are not too familiar with police procedures and forensics. I liked all the artwork provided from different artists, and it gives a great start to those who have yet to read any "zombie" books or watch monster movies. But I kind of felt like I was reading someone's research paper on zombie pop culture.
If you've already amassed a library of the great "zombie" books and are already into horror movies you might get bored by page 26 like I did. My 13-year-old son got bored with the book and he's read Brooks, Wellington, Recht, Bourne, Kirkland, and McBride - not even getting to Keene and others yet. My husband got bored too and he's read less than my son has. I was really disappointed because I was really looking forward to reading this.

Being a big fan of CSI, I picked this up to see what Grissom and his friends might make of a zombie attack in Las Vegas! It's a totally deadpan treatment, and takes the whole question of zombi-ism quite seriously, with thorough discussion of not only the medical aspects, but also the legal and theological issues (do zombies have souls? Hmm..) Due attention is paid to journalism (how would this story be covered) and ballistics (what kinds of weapon would be most effective). A lot of these topics are covered rather superficially, and there are a few obvious errors, but in general it's an entertaining read and a good way to spend a couple of evenings (better than watching zombie flicks, anyhow). Mr. Maberry seems to believe that zombies, or something similar are at least possible, though I am less scared than he is. There IS one very scary thing in the book, on p. 322. The author correctly points out that the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, but he is under the impression that this amendment was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1966! I fear for our educational system.

I was really psyched to get this book. I figured it would be a bit different from your survivor run and gun type of zombie book. Well it was different but for me not in a good way. First of all let me say it is extremely well written. The problem is that its more of a text book for police procedure and not a book of fiction. I thought it would be about a CSU unit investigating zombie attacks. It isn't. However it does have interesting lists of zombie lore and pop culture references. If you want to read a serious non fiction type of how police procedures would relate to a zombie attack then this is for you. I wish I hadn't bought it.

I dunno...

On the one hand, I've always wanted to read a book on "WHAT IF A ZOMBIE PLAGUE REALLY HIT" - but on the other, this book, while satisfying the desire reads as though the author is using the "zombe" thing as filler.

The author has done painstaking research into forensics, police proceedure and so on - almost to much - but the whole zombie question seems added in as an afterthought.

On top of that, the author, while claiming to be a Zom enthusiest, seems to go out of his way to bland down the zombies - not to mention shows a dangerous HICS (Head In Cement Syndrom) regarding how real people would act and react to real zombies.

It is a good read if you want to learn about crime scene proceedure, but only the most ardent zombie fans will get as much from it.

I have read this book twice and I still found it boring. The first time I read it, I was pretty sick so I thought that maybe I wasn't focused on the story. I read it again after I got better and it was just as boring. The mock situation of finding a zombie in the real world and the facts about how it would be found was full of data that drag on and on before a simple answer is reached. The art by various artist looked like crap you find on deviantArt and pointless top ten lists make this book twice as dull. I love zombies and anything else horror related, but this book is a waste of time.

not a lot of originality.

not a lot of creativity.

it's kind of like the martial arts books,

it leaves me wishing I could get my money back.

When the world comes to an end and you need to start a fire "use this book"