Reading – Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide

NOTE: This book was provided as a review sample by Osprey Publishing, the publisher of Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide (official Osprey page, Amazon.com product page*).

Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide*, written by Joseph A. McCullough, is an 80-page fictional guide to the history of zombies and zombie warfare in our world. Osprey, best known for a massive library of heavily-researched books, takes their publishing experience in a new direction that kinda shocked me when I first heard about it (first mentioned here). Why was I surprised by the book? I’d never heard of Osprey tackling fiction before and had always associated them with real world fact books. Fun books (I have a handful of their Civil War books), but not exactly fiction.

Attractively Presented

Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide is packed with a combination of B&W and color illustrations, with a small selection of appropriate photographs tossed in occasionally. It’s not a stunning graphic design, but it is an attractive book and the original artwork by Mariusz Kozik (the cover and a selection of full-page digital paintings) are mostly excellent, with a few merely okay pieces here and there.

The text is clean with lots of white space, and the font selections are inoffensive but not spectacular. Basically, this is a good book to look through but it’s not going to win any graphic design awards. But hey, it’s also completely legible which is appreciated; it would have been far too easy for Osprey to go with a complex, dirty design that made the book tough to read so it’s good to see they chose the clean design that’s inside.

A Serious Look at a Less-Than-Serious Subject

Unsurprisingly, Osprey’s book treats zombies as if they were real, with the subject given a completely serious guide to their history and even short sections on combating zombies. Broken into a dozen sections, the book covers the rise of necromantic zombies, the creation of atomic zombies, and even mentions several major zombie battles throughout history. The twelve sections in the book are:

• Necromantic Zombies: This 8-page chapter discusses those zombies that are created through dark sorcery and magic. Zombies of the sixteenth century, a mention of Lovecraft’s Miskatonic University, and advice on eliminating necromantic zombies are just a few of the secrets hidden in this chapter. A fun read, but an old fashioned look at zombies.
  
• Voodoo Zombies: The more classic evil zombie, the voodoo zombie is raised by a dark witch doctor, most often from Haiti. A mention of America’s secret war against necromancy and voodoo is tauntingly fun, but the chapter does little to expand on that idea. Still, the chapter’s 6-pages go by quickly and are entertaining enough.
  
• Nazi Zombies: You just knew that the Nazis had to get into the act, and as a nod to Indiana Jones* there’s even a mention of the Ark of the Covenant. And it gets even better, sending the Nazi army after the “Spear of Longinus” (Wikipedia). A lot of fun packed in these 5-pages, but to be fair to the author I’ve always had more interest in fictional Nazis than in voodoo so I was kinda predestined to enjoy this chapter more than the earlier ones.
  
• Revenants: Another 8-page chapter, this one deals with undead that return to life because of some internal power or ambition and not an external source. These “zombies” do not spread contagion and exist solely to complete some specific task or locate some lost object or other. Personally, I wouldn’t classify these as zombies and I feel the chapter is a tad out-of-place. Not that it isn’t fun, just that I never would have called these guys zombies. Still, I guess the walking dead have gotta be killed again . . . regardless of their technical classification.
  

• Atomic Zombies: “Because atomic zombies were the first zombie variety commonly accepted by the modern media, they have shaped the public perception of the undead threat.” Here we get to the classic movie zombie, complete with moans and stumbling walk. At 11-pages this is longest chapter in the book, and it’s the one that’s going to be most useful to someone looking to use this book in a roleplaying game or as research material for writing zombie fiction. A great read, second only to the Nazi Zombies chapter (again, keep in mind my fictional Nazi fascination).
  
• Viral Zombies: This is the zombie that comes from an infection, be it an alien virus or some terrible corporate experiment, and at only 6-pages McCullough packs quite a bit into this chapter. The chapter specifically traces an outbreak of “Z-Virus” in China to a battle against zombies in Mexico City; it’s an excellent example of the narrative woven through the book to present zombies as something that really exist in our world. This chapter, along with “Atomic Zombies,” make up the most valuable and enjoyable block of text in the book for those of you who prefer the classic movie zombie.
  
• Zombie Masters: Why can’t their be someone directing an army of zombies? Fantasy fiction has necromancers raising armies of the walking dead while even the Zombie War trading cards (review here) has a zombie general directing the undead army. Of course this chapter goes a different direction, presenting humans who just have an unnatural ability to command the undead. The fictional descriptions of eyewitness accounts are especially creepy.
  
• Viral Hounds and Other Zombified Animals: At only 4-pages (one of which is a full-page illustration) this chapter is, thankfully, very short. I know some people love the idea of zombified animals, but it’s never been all that exciting to me.
  

• Zombie Hunters: Fun stuff! In 7-pages McCullough introduces us to different groups of zombie hunters, including an underground organization that puts zombies up against gladiators as a kind of sport . . . and that’s before we even get into Bureau 9, a US organization originally formed by Abraham Lincoln. This team “eliminates” necromantic threats and in less than one page McCullough gives any competent RPG gamemaster what he needs to build at least one fun adventure. The chapter closes with “outbreak survivors,” the ordinary men and women (without any special training) who fight zombies. This is the second-best chapter in the book (if we treat the “Atomic Zombies” and “Viral Zombies” chapters as one, which I feel we should).
  
• Zombie Hunter Weapons and Equipment: A rather unremarkable chapter of 5-pages, this one discusses firearms and vehicles and even covers armor and special containment gear. It’s all rather common stuff with one really fun exception: One box, titled “Reaper 1 and Reaper 2,” starts off with the following sentence: “During the 1988 Cerro Gordo, Iowa outbreak, local landscaper Neil Bower used a John Deere combine harvester to single-handedly eliminate a 300-strong zombie horde.” Nasty.
  
• Zombie Hunter Tactics: 5-pages long, almost two pages of which is a diagram and step-by-step guide to the diagram, this is another weak chapter. It’s clear (at least to me) that the real fun in this book is in the earlier chapters and these last few chapters, while appropriate to a book subtitled “A Hunter’s Guide,” wasn’t where the author really had fun writing.
  
• Further Reading, Watching, and Gaming: A simple 2-page bibliography that’s light on content. You may find it useful if you have little experience with zombies, but it’s far from complete.
  

Closing Thoughts

At $17.95 I can say that Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide* is a good buy for the zombie enthusiast, but the hardcore zombie nuts may feel a little letdown by some of the later chapters in the book. It’s attractive, entertaining, and I enjoyed reading the book even if it wasn’t very long. This is a good buy as a gift for a casual zombie fan in your group, especially one who enjoys artwork and short stories (since each chapter is packed with snippets of “historical” information that could almost be considered short stories).

Click the various photos in the review and get a closer look at bits of the text and artwork for yourself. I think the samples shown here should give you a decent idea of what to expect from the book.

You can find more info, including a short video, at the Osprey website.

Philip Reed will now prepare himself for the zombies that are no doubt already knocking at the door. The dead just won’t stay down!