GIVEAWAY
Undead Obsessed:
Finding Meaning in Zombies
Finding Meaning in Zombies
by Jessica Robinson
This book blitz and giveaway for Undead Obsessed is brought to you by Reading Addiction Book Tours. Please be sure to visit the other participating blogs as well.
Description
Jessica Robinson's obsession with zombie films started when she was in junior high. Horror films are a great lens to examine concerns society has about modern science. Let’s face it, when it comes to horror movies, science has a bad reputation. Blind ambition, experimental serums, and genetic experiments are often blamed for the giant monster terrorizing the city or the reason aliens are taking human prisoners or the cause of the dead rising from the grave to consume living flesh.
Using film, literature, and interviews with experts, Robinson examines how zombies portray real-world fears such as epidemics, mind control, what may or may not exist in space, the repercussions of playing God, and the science behind the fears. Robinson's goal is to explore how zombies become a metaphor for our fears of science and what could happen if science gets out of hand.
Featured Review
Movies and books about zombies are more popular now than they’ve ever been. Some stories about zombies are humorous while others are scary, but zombies carry a deeper meaning. They represent society’s fears of disease, social isolation, the collapse of civilization, mind control and the fear of playing god. These are only a few of the fears that zombies represent, we haven’t even touched on the biggest fear, which is the fear of the science that makes the zombie apocalypse possible.
In her book Undead Obsessed: Finding Meaning In Zombies, Jessica Robinson examines how zombies are a metaphor for our fear of science getting out of hand. She also gets into how the zombie apocalypse could happen and how science may be responsible but at the same time may be the only thing that can save us. A line from the intro in Undead Obsessed really set the tone for this book. Jessica says she once had a professor who said, “every film has a message, but if you really want to know what society is afraid of, watch horror movies.” The main idea of this book is to find out why we’re afraid of zombies.
This book goes deep into the meaning behind zombies. Jessica Robinson tackles voodoo zombies such as the ones in Serpent And The Rainbow and the flesh eaters that we know from Night Of The Living Dead. It also gets into what zombies are, how the zombie plague can be transmitted, and how to survive in a world full of zombies. Jessica does this by using examples from such movies as The Crazies, World War Z and The Walking Dead.
My favorite part of this book were the chapters dedicated to surviving the apocalypse. I like the talk on how people would need to work together to survive and how egos need to be put aside. Another good point that is brought up in Undead Obsessed is how in most zombie movies scientists are the ones who start the apocalypse, such as in the movie 28 Days Later (actually animal rights activists had a lot to do with it also), but in a movie like World War Z, it’s a scientist who is the hero. Scientists get a bad rap in movies and it’s probably because people fear that scientists are smarter than them and are withholding information. Though we also have to realize that in certain situations we would have to rely on science to fix the world’s problems.
Undead Obsessed is a zombie book unlike any other and a must-have for zombie literature fans. While I admit that some of the science in this book went way over my head, I found it an entertaining read. Undead Obsessed is for the horror fan that likes to look past the blood and guts for the deeper meaning.
Some people watch zombie movies and see it as simple entertainment. In this book Jessica Robinson shows us that there is more meaning to zombie films then people think. The main idea I got from Undead Obsessed is that science can be harmful and beneficial. Watching a zombie movie is a way to help us understand these fears. This is a great analysis of what zombies stand for and it will change the way that you look at horror in general. There is always a deeper meaning if you're willing to look for it.
About the Author
Jessica Robinson is an editor by day and a zombie-killer by night (at least in her books). Since the first time she watched Night of the Living Dead, she has been obsessed with zombies and often thinks of ways to survive the uprising. In addition to her nonfiction book, under the pen name Pembroke Sinclair, she has written YA novels about zombies and the tough teens who survive the apocalyptic world. She has also written nonfiction stories for Serial Killer Magazine and published a book about slasher films called Life Lessons from Slasher Films.
Giveaway
Enter the blitz-wide giveaway for a chance to win one of two print copies of Undead Obsessed (US only).
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