Review: Zombies For Zombies: The Play & Werk Buk

David P. Murphy, 2010, Sourcebooks

Just when you thought brains couldn't get any more appealing, Z4Z: The Play & Werk Buk gives you, the recently turned zombie, a range of new ways to maintain your sentience and minimise your inclination to moan and shuffle. Packed with games, puzzles, stories, quizzes and other ways to embrace and improve your new zombie life, this book is a great inactivity guide for the whole morgue...

There's not much that can be said about The Play & Werk Buk that isn't covered in the blurb above. Basically, it's an activity book for zombies (taking cues from Murphy's previous darkly satirical publication, Zombies for Zombies), and, as such, is as irreverent, funny, grotesque, and downright disturbing* as one might expect. The Play & Werk Buk is an enjoyable and funny read, and a worthy addition to the range of 'novelty' zombie publications currently on the market.


* Perhaps the most disturbing thing about The Play & Werk Buk is that - according to Mrs NecroKeeper, who is currently completing her teaching degree (hey, the undead are entitled to an education, too!) - the majority of the book's content has genuine educational applications for primary-age kids.

Review: Zombies for Zombies

David P. Murphy, Sourcebooks Inc., 2009


So you've been bitten by a zombie. Bummer. But there's no need to panic. Yes, your life will be undergoing a major transformation, but this doesn't have to be the end-all it once was when the Disaster first hit...

Following a recent unfortunate incident - widely reported - in which Australian horror writer Robert Hood was viciously mauled by zombies, I immediately rushed out to buy myself a copy of Zombies for Zombies, a publication that serves both as a motivational- and a 'life'-skills guide to those making the often painful and confusing transition from life to undeath; chiefly because Rob knows where I live, but also because this handy tome - completely coincidentally set out in the style of (and even visually resembling) the famed Dummies' Guide series - is the guide you want by your side when those weird brain-cravings start to hit.

Among the many aspects of zombie existence covered extensively in this publication are:

* How to dress for your new lifestyle.

* Fitness ideas for keeping you somewhat energetic.

* New skin-care regimes to help ward off that 'rotten flesh' look.

* How to overcome that damned zombie social stigma. And;

* Sex.

You'll also find a wealth of information that may, confusingly, appear at first to be little more than a vast mass of infomercial and product placement, but which is, in fact, Highly Useful Brand Information aimed exclusively at Undead Consumers. Honestly.

Any reviewer mistaking this guide for a work of fiction would no doubt comment upon the 'fact' that the author has managed to inject a genuine sense of unease into this publication, due largely to some deft world-building that goes well beyond the 'same old' established by previous 'apocalyptic' zombie fiction and cinema, as well as via increasingly-common and heavily-veiled 'suggestions', as one progresses through the guide, that all is not as sunny as one might believe in this 'fictional' world. Fortunately, of course, this book is non-fiction, so we can completely discount any comments by the author regarding 'communication failures' at an increasing number of Containment Facilities. Ha-ha-ha. Ahem. Nothing to see here.

Zombies for Zombies is a damn good read (and none of its myriad sponsors have paid me to say that), so run out and buy a copy while you can still run.

Must go. Doorbell. That'll be Rob...