5 Zombie Books You Want to Read in 2020
2020 marks the beginning of a new decade for great zombie novel thrillers! There have been a lot of new books coming out over the last few months, so now is a better time than ever to see what is new with our favorite apocalypse book genre.
Here are 5 of the best zombie books to come out recently, so if you are looking for a good book to read and want it to be about zombies, then this list is a great place to start. If we missed one that should be included, then be sure to comment below!
#5 Home (Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Series)
Outbreak - Week 1
Presidents, prime ministers, entire governments disappeared instantly, like a fragile house of cards in a hurricane. Some hid deep underground or holed up in fortified strongholds, but most were swallowed up by the dead, never to be heard from again.
Having lost both parents just weeks apart—one to Omega, the other to a brutal beating inflicted by Chinese PLA soldiers—twelve-year-old Raven Grayson finds herself in the nation’s new capital, battling loneliness and crushing depression, all while trying to find her place among her fellow transplanted Eden survivors.
Stumbling across a seemingly senseless act of destruction wrought on something near and dear to her, Raven follows the trail of clues left behind. A trail whose terminus offers up a revelation that suggests the life of a Very Important Person may hang in the balance.
With a litany of new laws to navigate, and an indifferent Chief of Police standing in her way, if Raven is to bring the perpetrators to justice she must dig deep and apply every skill she has learned in the crucible that is the Zombie Apocalypse.
What should she do with the evidence she uncovers?
Will she adapt and improvise when one pulled string starts everything to unravel, heaping upon her more trouble than she can handle alone?
Or will the training she has received since the dead began to walk be insufficient for her to overcome all that the infamous Mr. Murphy has in store for her?
Come along and find out how our transplanted survivors fare in their new HOME away from home!
#4 Zombie Army: Fortress of the Dead
Hitler is gone. Plan Z is defeated. But the Dead still walk.
Jun is a deadhunter - and a damn good one. For her, patrolling Northern Italy with Sergeant Josiah and his elite squad, eradicating zombies and searching for survivors is nothing new
When the squad encounters a group of refugees being relentlessly pursued by the Dead, they uncover a new threat: a secret Alpine Redoubt stuffed with SS and Hitler Youth, who have seemingly gained control over the Dead.
The race is on: neutralise the Nazi menace, destroy the secret base, and stem the tide of Dead - or lose Europe to an unstoppable zombie army.
World War Two is over, but the Dead War is just beginning...
“This was a great twist on history and presents a fun alternative history take. If you liked Man in the High Castle, and you like zombie books, then this is a great book and series to get into!”
#3 Run from Ruin: A Dystopian Zombie Thriller
They’re not undead; they’re just angry…The DataMind meditation app has revolutionized the world, making people smarter, happier, and more productive. But a programming glitch in the final update causes billions of users to experience uncontrollable rage and aggression. Nick, an ordinary high school senior in Fairbanks Alaska, is suddenly thrust into this life or death arena.
He and his brother must escape the zombie-like hordes of blood-thirsty maniacs and seek refuge north of the arctic circle. The four-hundred-mile journey tests the boys, their wits, and their trust in each other. They think they’re fighting to stay alive; but little do they know, they’re fighting to save mankind
Top Reader Comment: “This is a tale of woe and doom - full of secrets and promise!
Yes - I will say it is a variant of the Zombie apocalypse but handled very delicately and brutally at the same time.
Two half-brothers survive the technology enabled doom of the world (think mind apps that really work - but are corrupted during downloading) changing the physical brain (don't snicker, there is a defined psychological association disease). No supra-human zombie capabilities - just a expression of years of suppressed anger being released across most of the technological world overnight.
Two teenagers thrown together and learning about themselves and the new world. No resources but their own wits - a very unforgiving OJT course. Surviving is a passing grade, death is the only other grade you can receive.
Saved from the falling of civilization by the simple fact that their parents restricted the use of new technology they didn't fully trust (but used themselves). Follow them trying to survive!”
#2 Deadweight
When they created the perfect weight loss drug, they accidentally created the perfect zombie. Eat what you want, when you want, who you want. Millions of people from desperate teens, to pop stars, to brides and successful businessmen are attracted to the cure for fat. One which allows them to eat anything they want and still lose weight.
Quickly it passed between the users and those around them, even a kiss shared the microbe that would condemn the affected. Silently over weeks tens of millions of people were infected. No corner of the Earth would escape the carnage. The lucky ones became mindless beasts, looking for their next taste of human flesh, the hunger taking over everything they were until they exist purely to feed.
A few unfortunate souls suffer with the hunger of the dead but the mind of the living, they're neither dead nor alive but something in between, something far more dangerous to the surviving humans. The government have given up on their citizens having been unable to contain or destroy the plague that is destroying humanity.
Everyone wants something from you, whether it’s your bottle of water or the flesh off your body. Where the dead haven’t ravaged, the army have destroyed in a desperate attempt to stop the spread. In the South East of England, a Police officer, soldier, executive and IT geek are amongst those trying to make their way in the new dead world. Unsure of their place in it or how long they’ll last until they become a feeders next meal. In the world of the dead, what will the living have to do in order to survive?
#1 Zombie Fallout
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 hordes of zombies that ravaged the land. This is the story of Michael Talbot, his family and his friends.
This is their story a band of ordinary people just trying to get by in these extra-ordinary times. When disaster strikes, Mike a self-proclaimed survivalist, does his best to ensure the safety and security of those he cares for.
Book 1 - Of the Zombie Fall-Out Trilogy, follows our lead character in his self-deprecating, sarcastic best. What he encounters along the way leads him down a long dark road always skirting on the edge of insanity. Can he keep his family safe? Can he discover the secret behind Tommy's powers? Can he save anyone from the zombie Queen? - A zombie that seems by all accounts to have some sort of hold over the zombies and Mike himself.
Encircled in a seemingly safe haven called Little Turtle, Mike and his family together with the remnants of a tattered community while not fighting each other, fight against a relentless, ruthless, unstoppable force. This last bastion of civilization has made its final stand. God help them all.
Can you Make a Zombie?
A Short Essay on Some Interesting Zombie Facts.
I have to warn you: the one account of zombification we have by a Western scientist has been hotly disputed. Proceed at your own risk.
Our source here is ethnobotanist Wade Davis. In 1982 he visited Haiti to see if he could learn the secret of the “zombie powder” that local sorcerers, known as bokors, allegedly used to reanimate the dead. As told in his 1985 book, The Serpent and the Rainbow (a scholarly version, Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie, appeared later), Davis had little to go on but some tantalizing stories and a few contacts.
Nonetheless, during his first week in Haiti he managed to meet two alleged zombies who’d been patients at a local psychiatric institute. (One would become the subject of a BBC documentary.) What’s more, with the aid of a wad of greenbacks he was able to witness the manufacture of a batch of zombie powder. In a chilling passage he tells of a midnight trip to a graveyard where he watched a bokor and his assistants dig up the corpse of a recently deceased infant, portions of which — Davis is a bit vague on the details — were added to a witch’s brew of plants, sea worm, toad, lizard, and fish.
As time went on Davis learned a bit about why zombies were created. Typically the victim had antagonized his family or neighbors, who hired a bokor to do him in. The bokor would spread zombie powder on the threshold of the home of the victim, where he would absorb it through his feet. After falling into a deathlike trance the victim would be buried then later summoned from the grave by the bokor, who would exploit the zombie as a slave.
During several trips to Haiti, Davis was able to collect eight samples of powder. A number of the ingredients had psychoactive properties, but the most important, he concluded, was a potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, which was extracted from the puffer fish found in Haitian waters. The principal symptom of tetrodotoxin poisoning is paralysis — often the victim remains conscious, but his breathing becomes so shallow as to be undetectable and he appears lifeless. Davis claims some victims were thought dead but revived.
Davis tells of providing samples of zombie powder to pathologist Leon Roizin, who tested them on rats. Roizin told him the animals became completely immobilized and unresponsive, though heartbeat and brainwaves were still detectable. After 24 hours the rats recovered, apparently without lingering effects. Davis never actually saw the creation of a zombie and concedes there is much about Haitian society he doesn’t understand. But one might conclude that tetrodotoxin was the drug used to create zombies.
It ain’t necessarily so. Davis’s hypothesis has been bitterly disputed by other scientists. Two experts on tetrodotoxin, C.Y. Kao and Takeshi Yasumoto, tested two of his samples and found they contained only a minute amount of it, too little to have any pharmacological effect. They also condemned Davis for his involvement in grave robbing. According to an account of the controversy in the journal Science, Davis himself fed zombie powder to rats without result, a fact not cited in his books. Roizin never repeated his experiments, published his results, or determined what was in the samples he was given. In the Science article he was quoted as saying he was “embarrassed” by his involvement in the affair.
If tetrodotoxin doesn’t produce zombies, what does? In 1997 two researchers told of examining three alleged zombies. One they conjectured was a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome and a second they pegged as a catatonic schizophrenic. They concluded that “mistaken identification of a wandering, mentally ill stranger by bereaved relatives is the most likely explanation” of zombies. I mean, we’ve all encountered our share of glassy-eyed vegetables. But who’s to say whether the cause is exotic poisons or too much TV?