I really dislike movies about zombies that follow the typical George Romero stereotypes. I feel the same way about similar books and stories about zombies being mindless, shuffling brain-eaters.
I recently discovered the TV series, iZombie, on Netflix and found myself liking it a lot. Can you recommend stories that follow the idea that a zombie is not necessarily a rotting, mindless corpse, but can be the protagonist - a good guy (or gal) with good looks, intelligence, humor and compassion?
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3095130/1/Charon-Docks-At-Daylight
The zombies are not the protagonist, but some of them are really intelligent
It's a really good lesbian drama.
Terry Pratchett's "Reaper Man" for a humorously different take on them. Reg Shoe shows up in some of the later books as well.
I hate hawking my own stories, but check out my The Zombie Leza story, as it turns the entire zombie genre on its head. If you dislike the traditional zombie story, you may enjoy this one.
Hint: It's more drama than horror.
I hate hawking my own stories
Why? Who else is going to hawk them if you can't be bothered to do it?
Hint: It's more drama than horror.
You have to ask your readers about that. Someone nominated a story of mine at the Clitorides Award for best horror story of the year and I didn't even know I ever wrote a horror story.
ETA: I just hope the reader didn't make a mistake and actually wanted to nominate my story for most horrible story of the year.
It's a novel rather than online story, but Monster Island by David Wellington has a character who manages to survive the zombification process with his brain intact. He's neither the protagonist nor hero, but it's an interesting point of view.
Also a novel, Headshot by Matthew Siege is a litrpg story about a guy who's extremely invested in a realistic online zombie game. It's free to play as a zombie, because they want lots of victims for the pampered rich folks who play as living hunters. The game's feedback mechanism make the MC really enjoy eating live flesh, and the overall effect is an intelligent zombie who is trying to survive and powering up so he can bring the fight to the humans.
Turns out some of Headshot is available free on Royal Road, so you can give it a shot.
Headshot
It's probably not what you are looking for:
John Ringo's Black Tide Rising series (Baen Books) is about atypical zombies. A viral plague destroys the human mind and the victims become aggressive mindless man-eaters. The brain damage is unreversal.
The series is about some humans who survive the apocalypse and try to rebuild civilisation despite the hordes of zombie-like victims of the plague.
HM.
A viral plague destroys the human mind and the victims become aggressive mindless man-eaters. The brain damage is unreversal.
Sounds very typical to me.
I recommend 'Driving Miss Daisy'. It's originally a stage play but also available as movie or book.
I recommend 'Driving Miss Daisy'. It's originally a stage play but also available as movie or book.
Which one is the zombie? The old lady or her driver?
Yeah, living "zombies" haven't been atypical for quite awhile. Good variation on the basic idea, though, and Black Tide Rising's not a bad read.
Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines is another normal zombie story with a twist, this one being that the zombie apocalypse hit a superhero world and a group of heroes are desperately trying to keep a compound full of humans alive. The main antagonist is something very like a smart zombie, come to think of it, but definitely isn't the good guy.
Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines is another normal zombie story with a twist, this one being that the zombie apocalypse hit a superhero world and a group of heroes are desperately trying to keep a compound full of humans alive.
What, no zombie super villains?
https://thezombieknight.blogspot.de/2013/04/about-this-blog.html
~~A young man dies and is offered to be revived by a grim reaper in exchange for servitude. Responsibilities typically include the fight against abominable horrors, human or otherwise. However, this young man already has a few problems of his own... such as crippling shyness.~~
I am currently starting to read this webserial.
I read almost all oft it and liked it so far. But even if zombi is in the title, this story is not really about zombis. I would say it's more of a story about super powers.
But yeah it's a good read and the author came out of hiatus some time ago, so i will read it again in the future
Yeah i would.
If you compare the mc to the typical zombies. The only thing they have in common is, that both are some Kind of undead.
So it could be something Wheezer could check out? :)
I mean, the protag kind of fits into the requirements, I read the first chapter and his body is undead, only functional through undead magic.
Don't know if the Op wants a side-zombie-outbreak though.
Don't know if the Op wants a side-zombie-outbreak though.
What I don't want is typical Romero "Dawn of the Dead" type zombies figuring prominently into the story. Go watch a few episodes of iZombie on Netflix. I'm looking for print stories that follow that general idea. Maybe there aren't any beyond the comics the series is based on.
Ok a little More info on the zombie Knight.
The Zombies if you can call them Zombies are revived humans. They are revived by reapers. A Reapers normal job is guiding souls of the dead. A reaper can only habe one revived human at a time and they are connected, means they are a Team. As long AS the reapers lives their Partner can't be killed. They regenerate. The older such a Team gets, the stronger the revived human becomes. After some time he even Manifests some Kind of super power.
The Theme of the story is, that the reaper of our MC wants him to save people that are about to die. So he really becomes some Kind of hero.
All this information gets explained really early in the story, so no real spoiler here.
Like i said, i think it's worth reading, but it's so far Form Zombies, that i think of it as a super power story.
A couple:
"White Trash Zombie" series by Diana Rowland;
"Fred, the vampire accountant" by Drew Hayes has a zombie as secondary (positive) character.