Here are 63 books that I, Zombie fans have personally recommended if you like
I, Zombie.
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I'm a life-long horror lover and author of dark fiction. I've been reviewing films and video games for Ravenous Monster ezine for nearly a decade, and my Wattpad horror novel The Hound is currently being adapted for film. My favorite thing is the intersection of the horrifying and fantastic with the mundane, and that's what appeals to me so much about zombies: in all of their multitudinous representations, they've always held up a mirror to humanity. No monster can so easily reflect the many facets of humanity as a zombie. Because, after all, the dead were once just like us – and if we're not careful, we might end up just like them in the end.
The first of a series, this book introduces Angel Crawford, a high school dropout with an alcoholic dad, a dead-beat boyfriend, and an addiction to prescription drugs. When things in your life are that bad, waking up as a zombie is more of an opportunity than a setback – especially when her newly undead status comes with a fresh job at the morgue and access to all the brains she can eat. But her new job and secret lifestyle come with a big side portion of murder mystery. This whole series is a fun urban fantasy romp that goes down smoother than a feast of brains.
Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken.
That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in an horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness,…
An adventure of both science fiction and fantasy—one of the great love stories—this is William Hope Hodgson's masterpiece, rewritten for the modern reader.
The story opens in the 19th century, but quickly moves to the far future, where the sun has gone out, casting the world into a darkness broken…
I’m a Canadian author who thought too much about death as a child. But I was also a happy little goblin who grew up watching Disney fairytales and Transformers cartoons—all of which shine in my blend of twisting horror meeting tales of love and friendship. My degree in History helps me add depth and a political thriller edge. Bands of brothers, found family, and loyal hounds round out my books. I adore being scared, but I also want my characters to find happiness. So I’ll put you on the edge of your seat and have you jumping at the next twist—but don’t worry, the dog always lives.
This book rose out of the grave and grabbed me by the ankles. I’ve always loved (and been completely terrified of) zombies. After 28 Days Later scarred me for life (that one scene with the crow and the blood ACK), zombies became somewhat of an obsession. But I always found myself wanting…more. Then this book shambled in my door, and suddenly, I had the twisted, funny, heartwarming zombie fairytale I never knew I needed in my life. It upended the undead genre, and I will love it forever for giving the mix of zombies and romance a big ole bear hug.
Now a major motion picture starring Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer and John Malkovich, Warm Bodies is the ultimate zombie read this Halloween.
'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.
Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons…
I'm a life-long horror lover and author of dark fiction. I've been reviewing films and video games for Ravenous Monster ezine for nearly a decade, and my Wattpad horror novel The Hound is currently being adapted for film. My favorite thing is the intersection of the horrifying and fantastic with the mundane, and that's what appeals to me so much about zombies: in all of their multitudinous representations, they've always held up a mirror to humanity. No monster can so easily reflect the many facets of humanity as a zombie. Because, after all, the dead were once just like us – and if we're not careful, we might end up just like them in the end.
Imagine coming back from the dead only to realize the world doesn't want you: You move in with parents who are disgusted by you, random strangers on the street throw food or pull mean jokes on you and your friends, and being caught out past your curfew sends you to the dog pound. That's the life that Andy Warner reanimates into after a fatal accident. It's not all bad, though. At least he's got some friends at the Undead Anonymous support group, including the dead-sexy Rita, and Ray, a guy whose “venison” seems to come with some miraculous healing abilities. This is a darkly comedic book filled with a colorful cast, and you can't help but delight in the tragic spiral of the characters as they become increasingly inhuman. After all, can you blame them?
For fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Christopher Moore, a hilarious debut novel about life (and love) after death.
Meet Andy Warner, a recently deceased everyman and newly minted zombie. Resented by his parents, abandoned by his friends, and reviled by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new existence.
But all that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls in Rita, an impossibly sexy recent suicide with a taste for the formaldehyde in cosmetic products, and Jerry, a twenty-one-year-old car-crash victim with an…
Robin dreamed of attending Yale and using her brain. Kory lived on the streets of Seattle and relied on his brawn. Without the asteroid, they never would have met.
For three years, Robin and her grandfather have been hiding, trusting no one. When a biker gang moves into town, Robin…
I'm a life-long horror lover and author of dark fiction. I've been reviewing films and video games for Ravenous Monster ezine for nearly a decade, and my Wattpad horror novel The Hound is currently being adapted for film. My favorite thing is the intersection of the horrifying and fantastic with the mundane, and that's what appeals to me so much about zombies: in all of their multitudinous representations, they've always held up a mirror to humanity. No monster can so easily reflect the many facets of humanity as a zombie. Because, after all, the dead were once just like us – and if we're not careful, we might end up just like them in the end.
Lindqvist already reimagined vampires with Let the Right One In, and Handling the Undead is his answer to the zombie apocalypse. Unlike some of the other books on this list, where the zombie protagonists are sympathetic and mostly retain their humanity, the characters who come back from the dead in this book are deeply unsettling. The main focus is on the still-living family members whose lives are turned upside down by the dead coming to life. Following multiple story threads as many families throughout Stockholm struggle to cope with their newly resurrected loved ones, this book is equal parts heartfelt and utterly chilling.
'Reminiscent of Stephen King at his best. Best read by sunlight' Independent on Sunday Something very peculiar is happening in Stockholm. There's a heatwave on and people cannot turn their lights out or switch their appliances off. Then the terrible news breaks. In the city morgue, the dead are waking up. What do they want? What everybody wants: to come home.
Has anyone ever said that someday they would eat you? Well, I used to be able to say no to that question too… until the day someone did. The blood-thirsty declaration of a madman reawakened a game of “what if” that my brothers and I used to play when we were kids. What if the world was swallowed in a zombie outbreak? Who would survive? Were the creatures shufflers or runners? Did they only want brains or the whole body? Was the disease airborne or only transferrable through a bite? As mad as the man with the munchies had been, my writer’s mind couldn’t stop running with the question. What if zombies…
Stony Mayhall is not like other boys. Discovered as a baby with a still heart but a moving body he is, as you may have guessed, among the undead. Nevertheless, the introspective witty youth will win your heart in the end.
I personally love this zombie story’s deep dive into zombie politics and Stony’s anti-hero arc as he tries to discover the meaning of his own existence. And despite the heavy weight that puts on a zombie, Daryl Gergory still manages to have a lot of fun with the characters, the premise, and the plot.
From award-winning author Daryl Gregory, whom Library Journal called “[a] bright new voice of the twenty-first century,”comes a new breed of zombie novel—a surprisingly funny, vividly frightening, and ultimately deeply moving story of self-discovery and family love.
In 1968, after the first zombie outbreak, Wanda Mayhall and her three young daughters discover the body of a teenage mother during a snowstorm. Wrapped in the woman’s arms is a baby, stone-cold, not breathing, and without a pulse. But then his eyes open and look up at Wanda—and he begins to move.
The family hides the child—whom they name Stony—rather than…
I grew up watching the best horror movies of the 80s. My parents put me to bed watching Nightmare on Elm Street and this harbored my passion for a truly scary bedtime story. Zombies became my focus when I was trying to decide what road to take with my own writing. There’s something familiar about them, since they were once humans, but also terrifying. They don’t need to eat or sleep, they never stop, and they’ll just keep coming no matter how much you fight them off. I spent my twenties devouring every zombie book and movie I could and now I'm privileged to be a part of this classic horror genre.
I absolutely loved this book because I am one of those not-so-rare adult Disney movie lovers and this book had all the classic fairy tales I’ve come to know and love through Disney, but with the unique twist of being reimagined as zombie tales! It was the best of both worlds for me. I also loved that as you read through the different fairy tales they all start to connect to one another. It was very cleverly written and not overly disgusting that even non-horror lovers could read and enjoy it.
Once upon a time, a mysterious plague beset a quiet village in the woods—a plague of the walking dead. Suddenly, beloved fairy tale characters are thrown into a world of stark violence and horror: Cinderella is worked to death before the ball, Pinocchio is made from children's corpses, and Little Red Riding Hood finds more than wolves in the forest.
Surreal and full of black humor, Zombie Fairy Tales is a genre-bending narrative of a world on the brink of apocalypse, a world with no happily ever afters.
I’m a Canadian author who thought too much about death as a child. But I was also a happy little goblin who grew up watching Disney fairytales and Transformers cartoons—all of which shine in my blend of twisting horror meeting tales of love and friendship. My degree in History helps me add depth and a political thriller edge. Bands of brothers, found family, and loyal hounds round out my books. I adore being scared, but I also want my characters to find happiness. So I’ll put you on the edge of your seat and have you jumping at the next twist—but don’t worry, the dog always lives.
I love this book’s original take on the “spore” or “fungal” zombie outbreak. It feels like the author took The Last Of Us (which I also adore) and flipped the story on its head. Melanie is this unique character, at once the snarky, hilarious child of the piece and its terrifying monster.
She’s the threat, battlefield, and hope—and I find that combination so compelling. While it’s a grim, often bleak tale set in a decimated UK, this thread of unexpected hope and unusual connections kept me hooked. This story might not give me the future I wanted at the start of the story, but it offers a different vision with its own version of hope for humanity, and because of that, it has a special place on my shelf.
'ORIGINAL, THRILLING AND POWERFUL' - Guardian 'HAUNTING, HEARTHBREAKING' - Vogue The phenomenal million-copy bestseller that is also a BAFTA Award-nominated movie
NOT EVERY GIFT IS A BLESSING
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite. But they don't laugh.
Melanie is a very special girl.
Emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS is the…
The moment I read the first page of The Stand, I was hooked on apocalypse stories. The good ones make you question your lifestyle and the bad ones give you hours of tragic entertainment. You’ll be stockpiling rice and toilet paper, and leaving on the hall light against the dark. You’ll be scanning obscure headlines for news of rapidly-spreading diseases and shoveling your own fallout shelter at the first sign of nuclear saber-rattling. Apocalyptic novels can make you into a more prepared person—or a crazy one—and sometimes they’ll even become your career. My recommendation list helped shape me into the writer I am today… sorry about that.
This is a gem of a novel and one that should not ever be skipped over. The author’s humor bleeds through every page. This novel, and the entire series, literally had me in tears of laughter at many points. Even though the comedic aspect does tend to be the overarching theme, it does not detract from the horror of the situations the main characters find themselves in. The main character is obviously based on the author himself, as well as his family and his dog. This is fascinating because many authors may take certain aspects of themselves or loved ones and create characters with a trait or two, but Tufo goes all out and just makes himself a (hopefully!) exaggerated character in his own novel. The series starts small and centralized and builds itself into an entire world (or ten) of horrific and hilarious zombie craziness. You love many of…
Zombie Fallout It was a flu season like no other. With fears of contracting the H1N1 virus running rampant throughout the country, people lined up in droves to try an attain one of the coveted vaccines. What was not known, was the effect this largely untested, rushed to market, inoculation was to have on the unsuspecting throngs. Within days, feverish folk throughout the country, convulsed, collapsed and died, only to be re-born. With a taste for brains, blood and bodies, these modern day zombies scoured the lands for their next meal. Overnight the country became a killing ground for the…
Like many of my generation, my formal introduction to the zombie genre started with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Stories of the zombie apocalypse, and the arterial sprays, dismemberments, and eviscerations that accompanied it, have fascinated me ever since. But, I'm also a psychology professor. Although I was initially captivated by the carnage of the undead, I quickly found that the mindsets of the survivors were equally fascinating. More than anything, I love seeing how fictional worlds represent real-world psychological concepts.
Work smarter, not harder. If you want to survive a zombie apocalypse, you'll need to understand the behavior of the undead. And it all starts with a necrotic brain. If you know why zombies hunt, infect and kill their victims, you can devise effective strategies for avoiding and moving among the undead and, if necessary, killing them. I loved that the neuroscience in this book is very real, even if the zombies are not (yet). It is one of the best applications of nonfictional content to a fictional world available today — a must-read for lovers of brains, both alive and dead.
Even if you've never seen a zombie movie or television show, you could identify an undead ghoul if you saw one. With their endless wandering, lumbering gait, insatiable hunger, antisocial behavior, and apparently memory-less existence, zombies are the walking nightmares of our deepest fears. What do these characteristic behaviors reveal about the inner workings of the zombie mind? Could we diagnose zombism as a neurological condition by studying their behavior? In Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, neuroscientists and zombie enthusiasts Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply their neuro-know-how to dissect the puzzle of what has happened to the zombie…
I have been fascinated by the zombie genre since I was a child. No other genre has influenced and inspired me as much. I am also a very critical consumer of zombie content, as I have great respect for the genre. I began writing my own stories to fill in gaps that I felt had not yet been addressed by previous works. Since the release of my first novel, I have enjoyed meeting with zombie genre fans, writers, crafters, and creators at horror cons, zombie cons, comic cons and have participated in many panels and podcasts. It is a subject that I will never grow tired of discussing. The zombie genre is truly undying.
While I was born in the United States, New Jersey to be exact, I have always had an affinity for England. At the time of my birth, my mother was still a ‘subject of the Crown’ and a ‘British Citizen’. She did not become an American Citizen until I was nearly ten years old. So theoretically, I was born a dual citizen of both America and England. Perhaps that is why I am such a big fan of Netflix's The Crown. As for the book Zombie Apocalypse!, it takes place in England and gives you a glimpse of how those across the pond would handle the apocalypse. Hopefully, this is not a spoiler, but one of the most memorable parts of the book features the Queen alongside a zombie Prince Charles and zombie Princess Diana, need I say more.
A "mosaic novel" set in the near-future, when a desperate and ever-more controlling UK government decides to restore a sense of national pride with a New Festival of Britain. However, controversial plans to build on the site of an old church in South London releases a centuries-old plague that turns its victims into flesh-hungry ghouls whose bite or scratch passes the contagion on to others. Even worse, the virus may also have a supernatural origin with the power to revive the dead.
Despite the attempts of the police, the military and those in power to understand and contain the infection…
