Stephanie BolukRecensioni

Generation Zombie is a fun read. Because they are multiple essays they are quick and easy to get through. (Honestly, it made for great bathroom material because you could pick it up and put it down without too much stress or need for continuity.) It was great fun to read and I would recommend it to my friends. Although some of the essays are arguable that is to be expected in a book of this nature.

This is a collection of eighteen scholarly essays, plus a meaty introduction by the editors, that explore the theme of the zombie in books, films, and popular culture. I should clarify at the outset that these essays are not for the literary faint-of-heart: if you are not comfortably steeped in postmodern literary theories, then you might want to reconsider investing in this collection, or at least resign yourself to finding some essays less legible than others.

I found some of the essays to be extremely thought-provoking. “Zombies as Internal Fear or Threat” by the redoubtable Kim Paffenroth was particularly interesting and well put together. Two pieces that explore the early history of the zombie in the American zeitgeist (“White Zombie and the Creole: William Seabrook’s The Magic Island and American Imperialism in Haiti” by Gyllian Phillips and “The Origin of the Zombie in American Radio and Film: B-Horror, U.S. Empire, and the Politics of Disavowal” by Chris Vials) were equally fascinating, but then again I am a historian who studies ideas of empire and imperialism in this particular period in U.S. history. Like most edited collections of essays, some of the essays are a bit more immediately useful or interesting than others. Some of the essays went a bit too far into the deepest depths of literary criticism, even for me. “Rhetoric Goes Boom(er): Agency, Networks, and Zombies at Play” by Scott Reed and “Ztopia: Lessons in Post-Vital Politics in George Romero’s Zombie Films” by Tyson E. Lewis were, I thought, two of the essays that lent themselves least well to ease of comprehension by most readers. Several of the essays were also too loosely connected to the central idea of the zombie to fit neatly into a collection like this. Andrea Austin’s “Cyberpunk and the Living Dead” stretches the definition of “zombie” a bit far for my tastes, and I was surprised to find that two pieces (offered comparisons between the late, great John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids and zombies. I must confess that such a comparison would have never occurred to me, so at least these pieces were thought-provoking, if not entirely convincing.

Recommended for those with a literary or scholarly bent and a strong interest in zombie fiction or zombie-esque themes in literature. If you’re a casual fan of zombie films or horror fiction, you’ll find these essays mostly too jargon-laden or tendentious (which isn’t to say that they’re at all uninteresting, just that I don’t assess they will be of interest to typical lay readers).

Review copyright 2012 J. Andrew Byers

This book of essays is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of them, like Cyberpunk and the Living Dead by Andrea Austin, were just too chewy for me. Others, such as The E-Dead: Zombies in the Digital Age by Brendan Riley, were much more enjoyably and readily digestible, if you'll pardon the pun. The biggest plus me for was that the essays covered Zombies in film, fiction and gaming.

Apparently one of the greatest appeals of zombies is that they represent whatever happens to scare us the most. For some of us that's a unruly mob, for some it's contagion, and for others it's our most base and animalistic instincts. But for most of us it's simply death. To quote Simon Pegg from Riley's essay: "As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of 'most potent metaphorical monster.' Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large."

If you have any doubt that zombies will be part of popular culture for some time to come then give this book a go. It’s not for the squeamish, though.½

Anyone who knows me knows I love plague literature, although they, like me might not know that plague lit is considered an actual genre. So I wanted to really really like this book. Academic essays about the zombie phenomenon. How awesome. And some of the essays were pretty good. I very much liked "The National Strategy for Zombie Containment" which compares how Homeland Security works vs. organizations like Zombie Squad (which is kind of like a survivalist group through a zombie lens). But most of the essays would seem to appeal only to an academic audience, and even then, to a small group of academics. And one in particular had such a huge error that it called the conclusions into question. That would be "Gray Is the New Black." The author refers to The Canterbury Tales as plague literature. And I quote: "WWZ [World War Z, which I personally loved] could be read as a descendant of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with zombie apocalypse substituted for the Black Death." No! No no no no no! The Canterbury Tales is a series of stories recounted by travelers on a pilgrimage. To Canterbury. Hence the title. They're on their way to the shrine of Thomas a Becket. There is nothing about their travels related to the Black Death! I'm guessing the book the author is thinking of is Boccaccio's Decameron, which admittedly did in part inspire Canterbury Tales. In The Decameron, however, it's made clear these people are waiting out the terrors of the plague. Nothing is really added to the essay by the comparison and much is lost by using the wrong work of medieval literature.

I also thought I read in one essay a sentence about Barbara from Night of the Living Dead killing her child. However, I couldn't find it looking back through the book, so I may have misread something, and that makes me feel a LOT better, since someone involved in a book about zombies should catch an error that grave.

So a few I liked, a few I didn't, one I was disappointed in, and most I just didn't care about. Whether you like it will depend on what lens you view zombies through. After all, that's one of the great things about zombies: they're the ultimate monster because they're a blank slate: you can view them as any terror you choose.

Zombies stop being fun when people start taking them as seriously as the contributors to this book do. Why does a zombie have to be a metaphor for anything? Why can’t it just be a scary monster?

A collection of well-written essays, Generation Zombie is an outstanding look at the Zombie universe and how the living dead fit into modern culture. The essays range from scholarly to conversational.

The book was amazingly thought-provoking providing a wide range of examples of how zombie have been connected to culture. Since I only have a basic knowledge of zombie culture and movies, I found myself unfamiliar with some of the examples. However I'm sure most fans would known the references.

I would recommend this to movie and zombie fans, however readers need to keep in mind that it's written as a scholar work as opposed to a light look at zombie culture.

Generation Zombie is a collection of essays that comment on the Zombie phenomenon in recent culture. A few of the submissions are more of the English Major variety but there is enough geeky information to keep a Zombie lover such as myself reading throughout.

There is a general consensus that traces the written tradition back to a travelogue by William Seabrook titled The Magic Island. This 1930’s best seller is considered the source for the first film adaption . The 1932 film White Zombie.

The collection traces the evolving path of the use of Zombies in books, films, flash mobs, and even Epidemiology through about 2008. In eighteen separate steps the impact of the Zombie on the culture of the west is outlined.

As stated this is not a “fan” book. However, I found it a very good read and would give it a good recommendation.

A free copy of this book was provided for the purpose of review.

When I received this book to review, my first thought was, "Good lord, academics really will write about anything." Thus, it is from this standpoint of skepticism that I started reading.

I'm delighted to report that overall, the book is more interesting and thought-provoking that I would have guessed. It's composed of a series of essays by different authors. Some authors are more convincing than others. The introduction and the first few chapters provide a thorough overview of the origins of the zombie as we've come to recognize them and they're well-written enough that I find myself actually wanting to rent the Romero films to see them for myself.

My favorite essay was "White Zombie and the Creole: William Seabrook's The Magic Island and American Imperialism in Haiti" by Gyllian Phillips. This essay successfully demonstrated how culture, history, and fiction all wound together to form the precursor to our contemporary zombie figure.

There are a few essays that I would have preferred either more development or just general exclusion. For example, the chapter entitled "The Eco-Zombie: Environmental Critique in Zombie Fiction" is well-written but it lacks enough examples to fully support the author's central idea. I don't know where the author just didn't include enough material or the subject is just too niche but either way, I didn't feel like it was quite enough.

I thought the weakest essay was "Ztopia: Lessons in Post-Vital in George Romero's Zombie Films" by Tyson Lewis. It was nigh incomprehensible. Every time I felt like I was finally able to connect all his ideas, he would introduce some other, poorly-connected train of thought. His contention is that "the zombie inhabits the space of bare life and that the zombie film is one attempt to gaze at the disturbing realm of bare life to examine its political implications." To that end, he compared zombies with coma patients and Holocaust camp inhabitants. Zombies make an excellent vehicle for all sorts of serious culture commentary, but I just cannot quite accept the comparison of this fictional plight with the very serious, very real issues of comes and the Holocaust. Added to all this, I find his use of the "self-negating compound" livingdead (strikethrough) to be gimicky and distracting.

Portions of several essays were interesting. Unfortunately to get to the interesting tidbits, one has to wade through pages and pages of self-important high-minded psycho-jargon. It seems that once any subject reaches a certian level of popularity, it becomes the subject of 'critical analysis.' I'd argue that the large majority of zombie fans are much more interested in the 'visceral thrill of killing zombies and the survivalist fantasy' than they are by examining the 'fine line between consciousness and unconsciousness, the living and the dead.' If I want deep philosophical discussions, I'll read a psychology journal. The authors, and consequently the essays themselves, take themselves way too seriously. And by charging $45 for what is essentially a collection of grad school theses, they seem like a bunch of greedy bastards. I hope when the zombie hoards attack, they head to the offices of McFarland & Company first.

The editors of Generation Zombie were right on target presenting this collection of essays. Generation Zombie needs to be taken in small doses. Consumption of that much bologna in one sitting is certain to be detrimental to one’s health.
Given the penchant of the living dead for attacking capitalism, I’m surprised that this book is being offered for sale. The money generated by mindless consumption could well spark a new zombie uprising. Fortunately the authors of the essays have little to fear. Except for portions of Sarah Lauro’s piece and Sean Moreland’s brief flashes of insight into I am Legend, the whole thing is indistinguishable from the plodding masses of moronic zombies being discussed. The real element of horror is not that educated people who suppose themselves the “critical elite” can conceive such nonsense. It’s that they dared to put it into print for the entire world to see.
After reading Generation Zombie, I can see why moviemakers are so socially conscious. The burden they bear for enlightening the masses must be taxing. Authors, screenwriters, and the movie going public, who plunk down their hard earned cash, realize something that scholastic critics miss every time. On the big screen, sometimes “a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.”

While this was an interesting book, I have to say that it is definitely not for the average zombie fan. It is a fairly scholarly work, and is obviously intended for scholars who are interested in zombies and particularly scholarly zombie fans. If you don't fall into one of those two categories, you will find most of the essays dull. Some, like Kim Paffenroth who is a writer of zombie fiction, write essays that are very readable and interesting, but others are full of academic jargon and are hard for non-academics, like me, to follow.

Also, as is also the case with anthologies of zombie fiction, there are several entries that seem to only be tangentially related to zombies. I'm not entirely clear on what analyses of Neuromancer and The Day of the Triffids really have to with zombies, even if the authors of those 3 essays make some tenuous connections to zombie films.

Finally, I should also point out that while I got this book for free as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, it is very overpriced on Amazon. $45 dollars for a paperback book is far to expensive for most people. That's more in the range of what I would pay for a limited edition hardcover, but never a paperback. At that price, I'm guessing the publisher is hoping it will be used as a college textbook, which as I recall from my college days are similarly overpriced.

At this point we can honestly only review the essay by Christopher Zealand - but that one is really good.
Read March 2010.