Here are 92 books that Plague of the Dead fans have personally recommended if you like
Plague of the Dead.
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I’m a historian, and while I have a great deal of experience producing straight ‘nonfiction’ work, the idea of reading something ‘non-fictional;’ within a fictional world has always excited me because it allows many opportunities to talk about us while framing it as them. They also play into what I call the ‘Rutger Hauer Effect,’ where his character in Blade Runner mentions the wonderous things he’s seen in passing. I want to see those things too! Fictional nonfiction books provide a fantastic opportunity to tease the readers with things that their author knows and has seen but exist just beyond the reach of our own imaginations.
This is an absolute classic of the genre. Brooks draws in various ‘accounts’ of a recent zombie outbreak and structures them as if the broad details are common knowledge to his in-universe audience.
This approach means the real-world reader is always discovering new details and nuggets of information in a way that really whets the appetite while increasing the sense of horror at the way events unfolded in a world that isn’t quite our own.
It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse.
Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is…
The moment I read the first page of The Stand, I was hooked on apocalypse stories. The good ones make you question your lifestyle and the bad ones give you hours of tragic entertainment. You’ll be stockpiling rice and toilet paper, and leaving on the hall light against the dark. You’ll be scanning obscure headlines for news of rapidly-spreading diseases and shoveling your own fallout shelter at the first sign of nuclear saber-rattling. Apocalyptic novels can make you into a more prepared person—or a crazy one—and sometimes they’ll even become your career. My recommendation list helped shape me into the writer I am today… sorry about that.
This is a gem of a novel and one that should not ever be skipped over. The author’s humor bleeds through every page. This novel, and the entire series, literally had me in tears of laughter at many points. Even though the comedic aspect does tend to be the overarching theme, it does not detract from the horror of the situations the main characters find themselves in. The main character is obviously based on the author himself, as well as his family and his dog. This is fascinating because many authors may take certain aspects of themselves or loved ones and create characters with a trait or two, but Tufo goes all out and just makes himself a (hopefully!) exaggerated character in his own novel. The series starts small and centralized and builds itself into an entire world (or ten) of horrific and hilarious zombie craziness. You love many of…
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…
S. L. Smith is an author, attorney, and Catholic theologian with deep roots in southern Louisiana. Despite being better known for his work in Catholic theology and history, Smith has also published extensively in the Southern Gothic genre. This crucible of tastes, religion, and location resulted in the Cajun Zombie Chronicles. Beneath the oaks and moss, lie shadows that bite.
I listened to this whole series while climbing mind-numbing stacks of backlogged legal work as an Assistant Attorney General. My vision was clogged with the vivid scenes of Bourne's books, legal folders, paper clips, and coffee stains. It actually inspired the fourth book of my zombie series.
Told in the diary format common to many books of the zombie epic subgenre, this journal depicts one man's struggle for survival. The unnamed narrator is a naval officer who was just returning home to Texas from visiting his parents in Arkansas when the zombie apocalypse hits. John, another survivor, and Annabell, John's miniature greyhound, work together with the narrator to survive, hoping to find some last working vestige of the US government.
There are some cool elements to this zombie epic that I haven't found anywhere else. They shelter in a functional missile silo at one point. The clunk, clunk…
I hated reading as a kid. It wasn’t until I was in college I picked up Chuck Pahalniuk’s Survivorand fell in love with books and writing. Since then, I’ve been a non-stop reader and writer. I’d consume on average a book a week (sometime’s more) and write fiction every day. My first novelContainment Zone, combined my love of horror and zombies with themes of coming to terms with the end of one’s life and how we treat the elderly and infirm. For me, writing horror stories is a way of exploring deeper aspects of what it means to be human, all while having some thrills and chills along the way.
Call me a sucker for some Stephen King and you’d be right! While I could go on and on all day about different Stephen King novels, Cell in particular was one of my favorites. This novel jumps right into the action, bombarding the reader with the chaos of what is essentially a zombie outbreak caused by a mysterious cell phone pulse. I always love King’s attention to character in his novels and his ability to weave that characterization in with the story while not bringing the plot to a total standstill. Throw in some mystery when the zombies start operating as though they’re part of a hive-mind and this novel kept me turning the pages.
'Civilization slipped into its second dark age on an unsurprising track of blood but with a speed that could not have been foreseen by even the most pessimistic futurist. By Halloween, every major city from New York to Moscow stank to the empty heavens and the world as it had been was a memory.'
The event became known as The Pulse. The virus was carried by every cell phone operating within the entire world. Within hours, those receiving calls would be infected.
A young artist Clayton Riddell realises what is happening. He flees the devastation…
When I’m writing, my brain’s ability to jump instantly to the worst-case scenario is a huge plus. But in life, that’s just called “anxiety,” something I’ve always struggled with. Works of fiction that do what my brain does naturally — assume the worst — and still find some hope, humor, or redemption there have always been weirdly reassuring to me. And what’s more “worst-case scenario” than post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction? Here are five books where, in the wake of disaster or the grip of tyranny, people still manage to have dreams, dignity, or even just a laugh.
In Zone One, the frantic oh-*expletive* bloodbath phase of a zombie apocalypse has clicked over into something like a new normal. In lower Manhattan, our hero “Mark Spitz” mops up straggler zombies seemingly stuck in mindless loops from their past lives and reflects on the transformed yet familiar landscape. Zone One made me realize how specific streets are encoded in my own memories, and made me want to be more present in my own life, to move through the world less like a zombie.
In this brilliantly original take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, American novelist Colson Whitehead shakes up the zombie genre with genius results.
A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuilding civilisation under orders from the provisional government based in Buffalo. Their top mission: the resettlement of Manhattan. Armed forces have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street - aka 'Zone One' - eliminating the most dangerous plague victims, but pockets of infected squatters remain. Teams…
I’ve been reading horror books and watching horror movies since I was entirely too young to do either—thanks to my father’s collection of Stephen King books and my uncle’s love of horror movies. Now I’m a horror writer and wake early each morning to make blank pages darker. Zombies remain one of my favorite horror sub-genres. There’s something relentlessly compelling about these mindless ghouls linking inside each of us waiting for some triggering event to set them loose. Maybe it’s the resulting chaos. Maybe it’s the gruesome horror. Mostly, it’s how such tales show us the fragility of our civilization and the darkness of our own nature.
Originally released in ten parts as a horror serial, The Resurrected is a real treat. For starters, the zombie virus has a unique origin. The planet is hit by a series of freak storms. In the aftermath, strange flowers bloom, spreading a virus that transmits across humanity. The shocking action that follows is told from a shifting array of characters with many of their stories intertwining. My favorite thing about this book is Hart’s visceral description. Her sensory details will transport the reader right into each moment. It’s a wicked read, and features the best zombie sex scene you’ll ever read!
The Resurrected, The Compendium, includes the entire contents of the original serial, parts 1-10. Some content has been revised or updated and may differ from the original. When a series of freak storms sweep across the world, they leave behind something more than devastation. First come the swift-growing flowers, smelling like heaven and dying as quickly as they bloom. Next comes the infestation as the flowers breed and multiply inside their hosts. After that, chaos, mayhem and death. And after that...resurrection.
I am a quiet horror and apocalyptic fiction author with a love for all Horror, but I started with zombies. I have eight published books (three of which are zombie apocalypse novels) and short stories in a handful of zombie anthologies. My favorite movies (Dawn of the Dead remake, 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Rammbock: Berlin Undead) populate the zombie subgenre. I’ve participated in several zombie walks, written a zombie song and made a music video for it, and done zombie wound special effects makeup. Several of my plague short stories have won awards, including one about Norwegian sea zombies and another about a child-stealing plague.
Germ is an intriguing look at how a plague can be weaponized. We follow the bio-terrorist act of a modified form of Ebola that targets people of a specific genetic makeup. Ebola scares the hell out of me because it really exists and pockets of it still spring up around the world. I loved this book for how descriptive it was and how real it felt. This book isn’t so well known, but it deserves more attention. If you liked The Andromeda Strain or if you just want a somewhat gross (ebola is a messy disease!), thriller-type story you’ll enjoy this one.
The list of 10,000 names was created for maximum devastation. Business leaders, housewives, politicians, celebrities, janitors, children. None of them is aware of what is about to happen--but all will be part of the most frightening brand of warfare the world has ever known.
The germ--an advanced form of the Ebola virus--has been genetically engineered to infect only those people whose DNA matches the codes embedded within it. Those whose DNA is not a match simply catch a cold. But those who are a match experience a far worse fate.…
I have always been fascinated by horror, particularly the dark and imagination-inciting creatures produced by it (even though I’m a big scaredy-cat, haha!). In a time when slasher films and haunted houses tend to dominate the horror genre, I set out to create a creature-feature similar to the 80s and early 90s classics I grew up with (Aliens, The Thing, Phantoms, Dawn of the Dead). I fell in love with creating truly nightmarish monstrosities and deep, vulnerable but strong characters to battle them. The books on this list are definitely huge inspirations in my own work, so I hope you enjoy the beasties in them as much as I have!
I have always loved the hapless heroes and gruesome thrills of the Resident Evil video game series! When a friend bought me this book, I was a bit skeptical at first, but it quickly became my favorite book series I’ve ever read! It builds depth and likability into the characters and situation beyond what the games have ever achieved, and it’s just fun to spend some more time with zombies and other horrifying creatures! S.D. Perry is definitely one of the biggest influences on my early writing.
Claire Redfield's desperate search for her missing brother leads her to a remote island, where a mad genius has unleashed every grotesque creature at his disposal to stop her from interfering with his horrific agenda. Meanwhile, Chris Redfield has been fighting a one-man war against Umbrella's creations...and is now on a collision course with the man who betrayed the S.T.A.R.S. in Raccoon City.
I’ve long had a passion (read: obsession) with the apocalypse in whatever form it takes. I’ve written viral pandemics, zombie outbreaks, post-nuclear survival, dystopian totalitarianism, extinction-level-event, alien invasion, WW3… all of them have the theme of the great reset. The ability to reinvent yourself in the new world. The erasure of your life and the clean slate to try again and become who you want to be. I read and listen to this genre as well as write it because I'm passionate about the worlds writers create and the way their characters adapt to overcome the challenges my own have faced. As a former police officer, I’ve probably spent too many night shifts pondering the end of the world.
Chris may not be the most notable in this list, but his place is deserving. So often – and I’m guilty of this too – the zombie apocalypse is tackled head-on by a team of superhuman snake eaters. While this makes for great fiction, there’s also a beauty in showing how the average person would fare. Chris’ Zombie Castle series, and also his EMP trilogy UKD, gives the reader that perspective. It’s almost a happy apocalypse, a feel-good end of the world, and shows characters who keep their spirits up no matter what they face.
It was intended to eradicate the common cold; instead it eradicated most of the human race.A genetically modified virus killer mutates, transforming everyone it infects into zombies. As it rapidly spreads across the globe, small groups of survivors battle to stay alive and escape the growing hordes of flesh eaters.Tom, Becky and their two children are on a family holiday when the virus hits. Follow them as they try to fight their way to safety, gathering others along the way.They soon realise that their best chance of survival will be to reach an ancient symbol of power and strength.Their future…
I hated reading as a kid. It wasn’t until I was in college I picked up Chuck Pahalniuk’s Survivorand fell in love with books and writing. Since then, I’ve been a non-stop reader and writer. I’d consume on average a book a week (sometime’s more) and write fiction every day. My first novelContainment Zone, combined my love of horror and zombies with themes of coming to terms with the end of one’s life and how we treat the elderly and infirm. For me, writing horror stories is a way of exploring deeper aspects of what it means to be human, all while having some thrills and chills along the way.
Hands down. Burgess is my favorite writer. And if you read anything from this list, read this one. It is almost impossible to describe this book and give it the justice it deserves. Like the rest of Burgess’ novels, Pontypool Changes Everything is full of beautiful, morbid, and just overall insane ideas. A zombie virus that travels through spoken language is fascinating enough. But what really sets this novel apart is Burgess’ lyrical prose, which can leave you both uplifted and down in the dumps at the same time. I found myself rereading passages of this novel simply because of the beautiful prose. (Also: Be sure to check out his other zombie novel The N-Body Problem. Can’t go wrong shooting zombies out into orbit!)
The dark side of humanity is explored in this electrifying science fiction thriller in which an epidemic virus terrorizes the earth. Causing its inhabitants to strike out on murderous rampages, the virus is caught through conversation and, once contracted, leads its host on a strange journey—into another world where the undead roam the streets of the smallest towns and largest cities, hungry for human flesh. Describing in chilling detail what it would be like if thousands suddenly caught such a virus and struck out on a mass, never-ending, cannibalistic spree, this terrifying narrative is perfect for those who are ready…
