Zombies!? Are you kididng me?

Okay, I promised you a post about zombies . . . and it's going to be a whopper. But first I think you need some back ground info.

On a writing forum I'm a member of we've been having a discussion about the appeal of vampires (and how they've changed through history) as they're portrayed in the media (books, movies, etc.) these days. The more we talked about it the more I realized that from a geek/nerd perspective, it's not vampires, but zombies. We love our undead. Just look at all the zombie killing games that are out there. Hunter the Reckoning, Resident Evil, Left for Dead, Zombie Apocalypse, Dead Space and even Call of Duty: World at War. Just to name a few.

But unlike vampires, the undead have remained creepy. There's no love story between a lonely female human and the undead, but handsome, creature she stumbles across. If one of the undead (handsome or not . . . and usually not) stumbled across a human (male or female) the only thing going through whatever passes for their brains would be "Mmmmm, warm flesh, me hungry". And that doesn't bode well for the human.

With that said, that very same night I had that brilliant epiphany (I thought it was brilliant) I got an email from Borders Books with the subject line "Star Wars and Zombies". Eh? At first glance I thought they were trying to put those two ideas together, but then I figured it was poor editing/proofreading on someone's part and what they were trying to say was "we have new Star Wars books and new Zombie books". It is, after all, the Halloween season. And there's no shortage of suckers for anything Star Wars. As a geek AND a nerd (and a sucker) when it comes to Star Wars I opened up the email and found this book:



My first thought was "Oh, it looks creepy". Then I read the plot details.

Apparently the subject line of the email was not an error, but in fact there are now zombies inhabiting the Star Wars universe. Zombies? In Star Wars? Are you kidding me?

The story is about some virus that spreads rapidly through a prison transport space barge and turns troopers/prisoners into zombies. Seriously? We've seen that before. Hunter the Reckoning happens with inmates in a prison. Dead Space has zombies in space. Now you mix those two together, throw them into the Star Wars Universe and WRITE A BOOK ABOUT IT? Are you kidding me?

Have the geeks and nerds of this world become so infatuated with zombies (like teen girls and the Twilight novels/movies) that we have to tarnish the most Holy of all geek/nerd-doms with zombies? Is that what is going to keep the Star Wars universe relevant to today's kids? Or is Lucas Arts that hard pressed for fresh original ideas that they decided one day "let's add zombies to Star Wars and see what the fans think"?

Well, this fan (and one who buys everything/anything Star Wars related) was revolted. I wanted to throw up. I felt like my innocent childhood of big dreams and epic space operas had been violated . . . by a lurching mass of the undead. Yes, I will most likely read this book. After all I am a Star Wars geek/nerd to the tenth power. Do I think this book will be an entertaining read? Possibly. Will it be great literature? I doubt it. But then again someone did put zombies in Pride and Prejudice. I guess they had to do something to get kids these days to read.