We received a free copy of Zach Meets the Zombie in exchange for this review.

Zach Meets the Zombie
By Rickman

Synopsis: Zach would like to go outside and play, but he can’t because a zombie is at his front door. This book is laid out in basically two parts. The first explains what a zombie is, how one might come to exist, and traits of a zombie. The second part explains how to get rid of a zombie if you happen to come across one.

My Opinion: I am going to review this as a kid’s book, not a novelty gift book, because, after talking with some of the folks involved in this project, I think that children are the intended audience.As far as novelty gift is concerned, suffice it to say that it would be a funny gift for anybody you know who enjoys the zombie genre.

There are a few things I look for in a book that I read to my kids. One is that there are words that might help them develop a larger vocabulary. Zach definitely delivered on that front with words like reanimated, extraterrestrial, supernatural, incinerate, fiendish, and others. My kids were constantly asking, “Daddy, what does this word mean?” That is a huge plus in my opinion. Additionally, I look for a book that delivers on some kind of valuable moral. I’ve got to say that this was the weakest point for me in Zach Meets the Zombie. It is certainly fun and silly and teaches kids how to dispatch a zombie, but underneath all that there isn’t really anything my kids learned (that would apply in their everyday life, like sharing or healthy eating) from the book, but that isn’t always the most important thing. Most importantly, since reading, in and of itself, is valuable, even if a book doesn’t deliver on morals or vocabulary, is if my kids enjoyed it and it kept their attention. Zach Meets the Zombie absolutely delivered in this area. If they don’t lose focus you know they liked it, if they want to read it again immediately after, you know they really liked it, and if they ask to read it every night at bed time for days on end, you know they loved it. In the case of Zach Meets the Zombie the kids have asked me to read it several times since we first read it about a week ago. The illustrations are very bright and colorful and fun, and the words are big and bold. The story is silly and funny. All these things add up to be quite appealing for the kids, and you can’t really ask for much more than that!

The cover recommends a suggested age of ten and over for those reading the book, and I think that is generally a good age rating. My kids are younger (three, four and five) but have been exposed to the zombie genre their entire lives. While the content is a bit morbid, involving chainsaws, flamethrowers, axes, and sledgehammers, the illustrations do a nice job of making these seem more funny than scary, sorta like a Tom and Jerry or Roadrunner cartoon.

Overall I loved Zach Meets the Zombie and highly recommend it to anybody who wants to get their kids into this great genre! There is very little on the market that allows kids to enjoy zombies, but this book is a  notable gem among the little that is out there.

Rating:

4 out of 5 Brains: worth fighting the horde over

Note: Zach Meets the Zombie is the first of the Meet the Monster series that will be released through 1313 Publications. We’re looking forward to the others!

Available from: 1313 Publications and on Itunes

We here at Zombie Theology hope you have an awesome Christmas!
 

To show our appreciation, here is a brand new, freshly drawn, Zeke the Zombie comic strip. Also check out these Zombie Christmas Carols.

Merry Christmas!

Click the image to see it full screen.

Just wanted to let everyone know that Zeke the Zombie Lost His Arm is now available IN PRINT ONLY on Amazon. I am working on formatting the book for Kindle as well, and hope to have that completed soon, but for now, if you’ve been itching to get your hands on a copy, you can head over to Amazon and pick one up:

http://www.amazon.com/Zeke-Zombies-Lost-His-Volume/dp/1463581521/

If you do feel inclined to purchase it, I would greatly appreciate your feedback. Feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think. Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, if you would like a free digital copy in exchange for a review, just let me know.

Thanks to everyone for encouraging me to do this. I hope that Zeke will have several more adventures over the coming years!

I’m not sure if you guys remember or not, but in July of 2011 I posted a story on here titled Zeke the Zombie Lost His Arm. It got really positive feedback and lots of people really seemed to enjoy it.

Well, I decided it was time to try and self publish it. I made lots of changes and edits from the version that I shared on here, and I am currently in the process of self publishing through Amazon’s Create Space. I have received all the necessary approvals to go ahead and publish. It is my hope that within the next couple of weeks to have Zeke the Zombie Lost his Arm available in print and for the Kindle.

I will provide an update when that time comes around, and would greatly appreciate if you guys wanted to check it out and share your opinions (good, bad, or ugly) in the reviews section. My intention is to sell it for 99c on the Kindle, but am also willing to give away digital copies in exchange for reviews (they don’t have to be good reviews!).

For now, I have set up a facebook page, and would love it if you went over there and liked it: facebook.com/ZeketheZombie

If this goes well, I have a few other stories in mind for Zeke and hope to put those out there as well.

Please let me know if you are interested in receiving a review copy by emailing me at dan [dot] sebts [at] gmail [dot] com.

Here at Zombie Theology we greatly appreciate the interaction and input of others in the zombie community. We have had some great comments and interaction on facebook and twitter, but we would like to move your involvement a step further. This is why we have created the new “Field Submissions” category. This category will be entirely made up of guest submissions. These can cover any genre of writing: short stories, tips and tricks, how to’s, interesting news, poems, videos, whatever. If it relates to zombies we want to read it and share it here at Zombie Theology.If you have any ideas or questions please email us at zombietheology[at]gmail[dot]com.

The following is a Field Submission brought to you by  Daniel Otto Jack Petersen (Hack, Reflectivist, Shape-shifter) who is a husband of one and father of five.  Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana he now lives in Glasgow, Scotland and blogs about theology of monsters at The God Who Loves Monsters.

As always, we pray for your sanity and survival in these dark days…

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There are a few of them left. The non-zombies. Even a few still grouped in roving units. It’s utterly terrifying to even see one from a distance; worse to see a group. I’ve felt the shudder run right through a thousand of us as we travel – and only saw the dreaded thing after I felt the tremor of fright pass through me too. It’s a horrific irony to be terrified of your own food. But we survive. We millions. On each other mostly now. Or our own personal flesh when it comes down to it. Heh, I just remembered I ate my arm up to the elbow today. I’m sitting here typing one-handed and not even thinking about it – got that whole phantom limb thing going I guess – just felt like I was typing two-handed as always. I got separated from the conglomerate almost a week ago and somehow can’t find even a scrap to gnaw on. Had to make due today – the hunger pains had gotten unbearable. It’ll be better when there are none of the humans left to hunt and eat. Then I’ll dine without fear. The weakest of us will go first, which makes us live only strong days, strongest of the strong. I do envy the last zombie standing, the last former human feasting on the remains of the next to last. That will be the feeling. The knowledge of total and complete annihilation of the race that we’ve yearned to know, to be. I dream it could be me. Sure, an impossible dream but why not? I’ll get something cruelly jagged and deadly in place of this lost forearm, better than what I had. I’ve seen some others with stuff like that. Yeah, maybe I’ll eat some other carefully selected portions of myself to make way for improvements and ‘upgrades’ – make a real badass warrior out of this old carcass of mine. Yeah. I dream. The last zombie standing.

Well, goodnight Facebook friends. It’s funny how we drift into these social networks on occasion and do this pointless stuff the old us used to do. Before we were Eaters. Guess it’s just our last testament. Or theirs. We eat up their cyberspace along with their flesh. We the Eaters. I the Eater. The last zombie standing…

I found this image and had to share it with our readers.

Yes, this would be an awkward moment indeed…

Here at Zombie Theology we greatly appreciate the interaction and input of others in the zombie community. We have had some great comments and interaction on facebook and twitter, but we would like to move your involvement a step further. This is why we have created the new “Field Submissions” category. This category will be entirely made up of guest submissions. These can cover any genre of writing: short stories, tips and tricks, how to’s, interesting news, poems, videos, whatever. If it relates to zombies we want to read it and share it here at Zombie Theology.If you have any ideas or questions please email us at zombietheology[at]gmail[dot]com.

The following is a Field Submission brought to you by The Zombie Mom, mother of three precious undead children and the author of the blog Dead and Domestic.

As always, we pray for your sanity and survival in these dark days…

——————————————–

Now they lay me down to sleep
So no more people I will eat
No more munching on their brains
No more ripping out their veins

So will they end me with a gun
I sure will miss the way they run
When I come stalking down the lanes
Moaning, groaning, “brains, brains, braaaaiiiinnnsss!”

But now they shoot me in the head
It doesn’t hurt for I am dead.

]]> http://zombietheology.com/now-they-lay-me-down-to-sleep-an-undead-poem/feed/ 0 http://zombietheology.com/a-letter-to-a-new-zombie/ http://zombietheology.com/a-letter-to-a-new-zombie/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:00:35 +0000 J Stephens http://zombietheology.com/?p=2953

Dear Zombie,

Sorry to hear about your bite. That’s a real bummer. I bet by now you are curled up in a corner, wrapped in a blanket, fully given over to the infection coursing through you. Soon, you will be completely transformed into what you were supposed to have been fighting against.

What happened with that, anyway?

You were supposed to be one of the tough ones. You seemed to always let your creativity out, you seemed to really live life, you seemed to have it all put together and seemed to genuinely love the people around you.

But when things got tough, you just gave up and let it happen.

It’s like all those things you told us—about how powerful love is, about how much we should cherish life, about how easy it would be for any of us to get the virus so we should do all we could to protect our passions—you ignored yourself.

What about that stuff where God was bigger than any virus? That any complacency, or apathy, or arrogance, or doubt was totally avoidable if only we made sure to remember where our life comes from…

…why didn’t you listen to yourself?

We listened, and we are still here. It is tough, sure…especially seeing the people around us collapse like marionettes, no longer even resembling the family they once were. But we are still here because we know that we can’t do it alone. Maybe that’s where you went wrong. You told us for so long the best, most powerful way out, but in the end you decided you could do it on your own.

You couldn’t. We can’t.

But I think there is still hope. The God you told us about, the one whose strength is unending and whose love is unsearchable, He can still break through that virus. That mud that’s sweeping through your veins right now, causing you to give up on everything around you except your fallen needs…it can still get cleaned out.

You just need some clean blood. Some saving blood.

That’s part of our war, after all. We aren’t told to just avoid the zombies and the virus. We are told to combat it, with all we have. And so when we see you again, with those lifeless eyes, know that we are all looking at you as the person you can still become…the person you used to tell us you wanted to be.

And in the meantime, try to not make things too messy.

Sincerely,

The Survivors

P.S. – “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13

Here at Zombie Theology we greatly appreciate the interaction and input of others in the zombie community. We have had some great comments and interaction on facebook and twitter, but we would like to move your involvement a step further. This is why we have created the new “Field Submissions” category. This category will be entirely made up of guest submissions. These can cover any genre of writing: short stories, tips and tricks, how to’s, interesting news, poems, videos, whatever. If it relates to zombies we want to read it and share it here at Zombie Theology. If you have any ideas or questions please email us at zombietheology[at]gmail[dot]com.

This drawing comes to you from a good friend, Steve Gower. He draws some awesome stuff, but this was his first go at “zombifying” someone. I’d say he did a damn good job! Make sure to share the love in the comments section if you wanna see some more of his awesome drawings of the undead!

As always, we pray for your sanity and survival in these dark days…

——————————————–

Well, we’ve somehow managed to survie another year in the zombie apocalypse… at least, we’ve survived another season of AMC’s HOT HIT show The Walking Dead.

And, if you haven’t heard, the season finale which aired last Sunday blew away the competition (literally and figuratively) raking in 9 million viewers making it the most watching cable show in history by adults. And, who did it unseat? Well, itself. The Walking Dead has held that position (#1 show among adults) since at least season one’s finale.

But, now, AMC TV has given us another prize… a bonus if you will. They’ve produced a video of the main cast of The Walking Dead looking ahead to what’s in store for next season: