Flirting with the Undead

[Aim4 the hed 2 kill zomBs]

It is with great trepidation that I start this thread, because I do not want to seem so presumptuous as to tell King how to do his job, or try to throw out book ideas for him to use. I'm am merely wondering if this thought has crossed the mind of anyone else. Here goes... King flirts with zombies, or ghouls -which is closer to what I'm getting at- but he's never written a book about them solely. In his non-fiction book "Dance Macabre" he talks about the three archetypes for a horror story. The vampire, the werewolf, and "the thing with no name." He also mentions sub archetypes "The Haunted House (or bad place)", "The Ghost", and "The Ghoul." He's certainly covered all of those well, except for the ghoul. He gets close in "Pet Cemetery", and even uses the undead well in stories like "Duma Key", but he's never written a book about a good old fashioned gut-munching zombie apocalypse. This perplexes me a little since he wrote favorably of George Romero's work in "Dance Macabre." If my name doesn't imply enough, I'm unapologetic about being a zombie nerd, and would love to see his slant on it in a book since he's one of my favorite authors. I completely understand that the genre may be getting over-saturated with comics and movies, but there are few novels. The best so far being Max Brook's "World War Z."

This is a good online community, so I'm interested in any thoughts anyone else may have.

[Moderator]

You don't think Cell is a book about zombies? Or do you mean that you want the protagonists to be zombies?

[GNTLGNT]

As protagonists, that would be kinda nifty...I could just see the spin put on that!!! Zombies working at Mickey D's-"Would you like thighs with that? Please lurch around...) Zombie man, for an interesting take on the archetypes, check out the 4 issue graphic novel series "Dead Irons". Artwork blows, but the storyline is pretty solid.

[psj77]

Also there is the short story Home Delivery.

[no bounce no play]

lol... zombies are my favorite undead critters too and I wondered why SK was neglecting them... then he wrote Cell and he made me very happy

[Doc Wilson]

Home Delivery is the best romero style zombie story ever written.

[sam peebles]

Gonna have to respectfully disagree with you there Doc Wilson. World War Z is, IMHO, by far the greatest book written on the traditional, Romero-style zombies, although it's not really in novel format, but stylized as a nonfiction, oral history. If you haven't checked it out I would highly recommend it. It's by Max Brooks (Mel Brooks' son, believe it or not). I'm still waiting for the guy to come out with a straight novel on zombies.

And yeah, King has flirted with zombies multiple times. Pet Sematary, Home Delivery, Cell...I really liked King's take on zombies in Cell.

[Doc Wilson]

Thanks, Sam, I will definitely check it out.

[psj77]

There was a dollar baby made of Home Delivery. It was a cartoon too. I'd love to see it but the chances are slim.

[Doc Wilson]

Was anyone else here disappointed with 28 Days Later? I had high hopes for it from the trailers.