Autopsia Zombi / The Zombie Autopsies: Cuaderno secreto del apocalipsis / Secret Notebook from the Apocalypse by Steven C., M.D. Shlozman

by Steven Schlozman

As the walking dead rise up throughout the world, a few brave doctors attempt to find a cure by applying forensic techniques to captured zombies. On a remote island a crack medical team has been sent to explore a radical theory that could uncover a cure for the epidemic. Based on the team's research and the observations of renowned zombie expert Dr. Stanley Blum, THE ZOMBIE AUTOPSIES documents for the first time the unique biology of zombie organisms.Detailed drawings of the internal organs of actual zombies provide an accurate anatomy of these horrifying creatures. Zombie brains, hearts, lungs, skin, and digestive system are shown, while Dr. Blum's notes reveal shocking insights into how they function—even as Blum and his colleagues themselves begin to succumb to the plague.No one knows the ultimate fate of Dr. Blum or his researchers. But now that his notebook, THE ZOMBIE AUTOPSIES, has been made available to the UN, the World Health Organization, and the general public, his scientific discoveries may be the last hope for humans on earth."Humanity has a new weapon against the living dead and that weapon is Steven Schlozman!"—New York Times bestselling author Max Brooks"I've written and made films about zombies for over forty years. In all that time, I've never been able to convince my audience that zombies actually exist. On page one of THE ZOMBIE AUTOPSIES, Steven Schlozman takes away any doubt. This fast-moving, entertaining work will have you chuckling...and worrying." —George A. Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead"Gruesome and gripping! Steven Schlozman reveals the science behind zombies from the inside out."—Seth Grahame-Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Abraham Vampire Hunter"With THE ZOMBIE AUTOPSIES, Steven Schlozman redefines 'weird science' for the 21st Century. Brilliant, bizarre and wonderfully disturbing."—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Rot & Ruin and Patient Zero"Dr. Steve's 'Zombie Autopsy' will charm and excite a new generation into loving science."—Chuck Palahniuk, New York Times bestselling author of Fight Club

Genres: Zombies, Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Dystopia

Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

i love the idea behind this book, it just wasn't much fun (for me) to read. but then, i am a zombie nerd, not a neuro-nerd. (neurd??)

it is not because of the lack of whizz-bang zombie attacks.

world war z did not have any "zombie action" as such, and i still really enjoyed it. in that book, there were so many unexpected facets of zombie aftermath touched upon, it showed that a great deal of thought about All Things Zombies (the best of all NPR shows) had been taken into consideration. this one was more single minded, and its focus was just beyond my ken. wwz was a dissection of a society in the wake of an event, this was a more literal dissection of braaaaaains.

if you are into brain structure and brain function and your whole life is brains brains brains, you are either a neurosurgeon or a zombie. or the guy who wrote this, who is a psychiatrist and professor. and i can just picture this guy writing this, hanging out with colleagues and students, and them all having a ball with the possibilities. and i am sure that they love this book and see it as the first professional zombie novel. and if you have any pals who are both brainiacs and zombie lovers, this is probably the best present ever.

but for me, it doesn't add anything to the canon of zombie entertainment. it is a curiosity piece, like "oh, and then someone wrote this, and it was a great idea, but kind of boring to read."

because what is more boring than medical talk?? bureaucrat talk. and the end of this is pages and pages of UN/WHO (insert clue joke here) assembly packets about how the disease is to be dealt with and what the status of its victims. so you get your "what it means to be human" philosophy dose for the day, but in the most boring (but probably accurate) writing of all. plus flow charts.

here is an example of missed opportunities. at the end, after appendix II (ataxic neurodegenerative satiety deficiency syndrome/natural history and early therapeutic maneuvers), there is a list of 31 "references" taking up four and a half pages. and i read them, hoping there would be something funny in the details, or something revealing, plotwise; a gift to the close-readers. but no. just reference after reference showing what? that there is a lot of scholarship on the zombie situation in this version of the world? i think a page and a half would have been adequate for that, right?? i was totally slogging by this point. there is a lot of medical speculation, but not much in terms of a story.

i enjoyed the zombie illustrations, because i am apparently a moron who only likes pictures and isn't ready for reading yet.

come to my blog!

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to write a really good review for this book but I'm not actually going to.

This is a more high brow zombie book, or at least midlevel. there is medical terminology (one review says way too much, one review says way too little, so fuck it's a little bit goldilocks). The pictures are beautiful. The U.N. resolution at the end is as far as I can tell (which isn't any further than model u.n.) written correctly. It addressing really interesting questions like "are zombies human?" a question no other zombie novel has taken as a starting point.

the book isn't a zombies are attacking ahhhh scary apocalypse book. You have to be able to buy into the premise that if there were zombies the un would start research to find the pathogen, and the reader of these documents is going to a un meeting. The U.N is not about exciting horror drama. It's about political theory.

But I think this is a take on zombies that potentially elevates them a lot.

[Meg ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

bleurgh

[Mercadoodles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't believe I put Jane Eyre on hold to check this out. I'm not sure I really like how it was formatted with boring letters form the UN, a journal that could have been more intriguing and a smattering of letters and journal entries and "official papers" in the end. It felt a bit disorganized. When a book is mainly epistolary and is supposed to contain different "sources" it should be organized according to how you want to readers to feel in the beginning, the middle, and when they finally close the book. I think it was anticlimactic the way it ended with some clinical research terms and a flow chart.

I don't think the "journal" part really knew what it wanted to convey either. Something clinical? Emotional? It would have been better if the two were separated, even if they were all from the same "handwritten" source. The clinical autopsies, for instance, could have sounded more clinical, more like an experiment. (Seven seasons of "House" has taught me that people aren't afraid of medical terminology without sounding like the doctor is explaining it to a child.) Then contrast it with the moments when Dr. Blum was NOT performing the autopsy but reflecting on it after. I got the impression that he was writing as he was cutting and doing everything else and being emotional about it all at once.

There was also a self-awareness about the whole book with the repetition of certain phrases to a point of redundancy. Twice Dr. Blum noted "It smelled like death" verbatum. He kept hammering in the readers' heads that no human could be like this. This was not the function of a human body. This wasn't human. Well...duh.

It felt like the author had taken every aspect of what it was to be a zombie and explained it medically without really thinking it through. He explained that there was an imbalance problem so zombies tried to compensate by raising their arms in front of them, and that's why they walk like that. I had a REAL problem with this theory. A) Maybe old zombie stereotypes had postures like that, but it's not a requirement. "Zombieland" did away with that and the zombies were just as believable. B) If zombies were reduced to their basest instincts, then they wouldn't put their arms in front of them for balance because instinctively, HUMANS don't. Ever tried walking across something narrow? You don't hold your arms out in front of you for balance, you hold them out on the SIDES. Tightrope walkers use the long pole for balance in the same way. It would be more accurate to say zombies hold their arms out in front of them because they can't see very well, because their eyes are rotting/have rotted away and their optical nerves were damaged.

Third, the god-awful illustrations. Described as drawings to keep an accurate record of the autopsy, they in no way match with what is going on in the book. They looked like they were done by a very talented, zombie-obsessed twelfth grader. They were supposed to be scientific, done by one for record-keeping, and yet they were hyper-detailed pencil drawings with meticulous shading. Who had time in that facility to draw like that when everyone was more or less already turning into zombies? Some random note on the bottom would say "Spleen is enlarged and displaced" to a detailed, fully shaded drawing of the body cavity with no arrows pointing anywhere. I don't know what a rotting spleen looks like—what am I looking at? The (real life) illustrator was much more concerned with how cool she can make the zombie faces look and fully renders them in each illustration when she can, even when the whole point is look at say, the ear, the brain or the arm. Like previously stated, how did the character who was supposedly drawing these in a high-stress lab find the time? It didn't make sense.

There were so many things I wasn't crazy about with this book. I think I better stop before it turns into a rant.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being a fan of zombies, I thought this sounded like a cool idea. Blurbs from zombie heavy-hitters like Max Brooks and George Romero on the cover made me think this was going to be better than it was.

Sometime in the spring and summer of 2011, a zombie apocalypse has occurred. The zombie virus, called ANSD, has wiped out two thirds of the world's population. A team of scientists, sequestered on an island, were tasked with doing autopsies on living Stage IV ANSD infected patients (aka the NLH or No Longer Human). However, the scientists became infected and died, but the autopsy journals were rescued and are now presented before a large international council to determine how viable a vaccine would be.

Cool idea, but I had several issues with it. The author is a doctor, and while the descriptions sounded legit, as a lay person I wasn't into all the jargon. The illustrations looked too illustration-y - if they were really meant to be diagrams to show what was dissected I'd have expected something a bit clearer. I didn't really feel like there was a full story here, I would have liked to see some sort of conclusion in the Appendix notes... but I neither got a clear picture of what started the zombie virus, nor did I get a clear sense of an ending for any of the scientists or the future of the world... so I finished this book feeling disappointed.

[Robert Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read so many zombie books (and seen so many zombie movies) over the years, it takes a lot to surprise me. The Zombie Autopsies did. Written in the format of laboratory notebooks recorded during autopsies performed on "live" zombies as part of a medical research program, this novel tells a very simple story in terms of plot, but an extraordinarily deep story in terms of the thought that went into its medical detail.

And that's the thing that's so remarkable about this book. Though I've read more zombie novels than anyone else I know, this one actually came arguably the closest of all of them to really scaring me because the medical details the author, drawing from his own experience as a psychiatrist, presents in the story are just plausible enough to make the reader feel like something like this could really happen.

Most zombie stories rely either on a purely supernatural explanation or simply explain the cause of zombies as "a virus." This book meticulously documents the mechanisms by which such a hypothetical virus, coupled with a prion--a terrifying entity in and of itself--could cause many of the symptoms of zombiism. Along the way, we're treated to hints of remarkable ethical considerations related to the stage at which an infected person is considered No Longer Human.

And the book comes complete with appendices offering even further detail, including a fictional medical paper complete with a bibliography that ingeniously draws from both real and fictional sources, further adding to the overall believability of the narrative.

This is definitely a thinking man's zombie novel. That's true to the extent that those with absolutely no scientific background at all might struggle to understand it (and even if they can follow the plot, likely won't appreciate the genius of the mechanism Schlozman has invented). However, you also don't need to be a medical doctor to appreciate the book. Most of the technical details are explained as part of the narrative.

And let's not forget the elephant in the room. Though the book was written and published several years ago, the parallels (however exaggerated, of course, in this fictional setting) between government and public health responses to the zombie outbreak and to all-too-real pathogen outbreaks in the real world cannot be ignored and add an additional layer of terrifying realism to the book that the author never even intended. It's a testament to the quality of his writing that the book still rings true after more than a decade and some horrifying events have intervened.

This is one of only a handful of zombie novels I'd place on my "must read" list.

[Lolly's Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a detail-oriented, scientific-minded sort of person, which is why this type of book is right up my alley. I love pseudo-realistic books detailing the science behind fictional subjects, such as zombiism. And, honestly, the way The Zombie Autopsies reads, it could easily be taken as fact, especially considering the wackos out there today, with their private labs and endless funds, who are tampering with any number of deadly viruses and toxins, mutating them into even more deadly forms with the help of genetic engineering and manipulation. It's quite easy to see how a real-life "zombie" virus could be created.

Written by an actual physician, the medical terminology used heightens the sense of reality and lends a certain weight to the narrative. Granted, the format is singular and might not be appreciated by all, especially those who could do without the nitpicky details; however, those details are what particularly appeal to me. The book is laid out like a United Nations report, starting with a "memo" detailing the reasons behind the release of these "secret notebooks", followed by the notebooks and ending with several appendices detailing, among other items, a glossary of terms, a paper on zombiism, which in this book is called Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrom or ANSD, and even a very authentic looking and reading United Nations document detailing the proper treatment of those infected with ANSD.

The one let down is the illustrations. Described in the notebooks as "medical illustrations", they come off more like a graphic novel. Don't get me wrong, graphic novels are fantastic, especially zombie ones, and the drawings are wonderfully gross and detailed, but that's the problem. These are supposed to be drawings of medical procedures carried out on zombie specimens, impartial, less with the grossness and more with the minutiae of how the zombie virus affects the human body. I was expecting cross sections as you'd see in Grey's Anatomy, not illustrations that looked like they'd stepped out of The Walking Dead. However, I may be quite alone in my opinion; that's fine.

I quite enjoyed this novel and think it's a worthy addition to the zombie fiction genre.

[✟Roxanne✟(Death by Book Avalanche) ☠ · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭✭ 3 Stars

I liked this book because it was different to anything else I have read about Zombies. It comes from a completely different perspective; to be precise a medical journal.
Even though I knew this was a journal I still expected some more brutal Zombie action...as Zombies are brutal. There was little action in this but the artwork was nice and detailed.
To be completely honest, it became way too scientific for me which meant the majority of the explanations went over my head and it became boring fairly quickly.
If you're into Zombies strictly from a very medical/scientific point of view then definitely read this.

[Nia Nymue · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is very different than most zombie fiction you'll find. It's not driven so much by plot. It does not contain much of the psychological deterioration of survivors or a more action-based storyline that we are familiar with already. This book comprises of the diaries of a scientist, who details his autopsies as well as describes a little about what the environment is like with the other remaining scientists and the zombies.

I'm not sure if there was much difference having an inexperienced anatomist as opposed to having an experienced one, apart from the former making for easier writing. I would have loved it if it came from the hands of an experienced anatomist. I like the drawings (although it would be more gruesome and even more quasi-clinical if it had less shading) and the investigations they undertake. I know this isn't real, but I'm fascinated and I felt that I too was on a journey to figure out why there was an outbreak.

This book gave some, but incomplete, information about how zombies come about. My appetite is whet and I'm a wee bit disappointed there wasn't more to it. [SPOILER ALERT] One thing I didn't like about this book is that it stops at the diaries. I thought the inclusion of the UN memo in the beginning meant we as readers would be privy to what officials and other scientists do with the information in the journals. I wish that it picked up some place where someone reads this, preferably another scientist, who continues his investigations, preferably in a more action-paced setting, though I could do without that too. I would have liked to know why it affects only humans too. [END SPOILER]

I also had a nagging suspicion that the writer watches The Walking Dead. Some lines come directly from the series ('On their own they can be quite harmless, but in a group they are more dangerous' - not exact lines from either work; and a breakout originating in Atlanta?) and the observations he makes of the zombies are more like TWD zombies than zombies from other worlds.

[SPOILER ALERT]
Basically, the virus operates when the body's pH is low, which can happen when one has an immune reaction. So the virus causes the higher-functioning parts of the brain to become mush when it infects the body which causes the body's immune system to reach to it, leading to lower pH levels, and thus accelerating the deterioration of the brain. The book tries to investigate why zombies are so hungry all the time and why they are immune to other diseases. One thing I got from the book is that they are self-sustaining. They feed on their own body, leaving alone the heart - which in fact gets somewhat stronger - and the lower parts of the brain and the brain stem. It's fascinating to read how these living tissues can survive in a body that is dead and rotting; bowel areas are splattered with fecal matter and often contains tapeworm. This, I infer, explains why they like to disembowel living things. Because they cannot digest their own food, they get nutrition most efficiently from living things that have broken down food and are 'storing' them temporarily in their guts. But this inference of mine doesn't explain why they like brain matter or even bother eating flesh. I think the book should have explained that if it was trying to pretend to be a medical perspective on the zombie apocalypse.

[END SPOILER]

At first, I was deliberating between giving this book four or five stars. After writing the spoilers, in which I detail more shortcomings of the book, I am deliberating between giving it three or four stars. I will rate it four stars because it is a fascinating, medical (and fictional) look at a well-known fictional phenomenon. Furthermore, not once have I felt like flinging this book against the wall or flushing it down the toilet, as I have felt before with other books that I did not like. It deserves more than a three. :)

Here is a review by another reader that gives a fuller picture about the book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

(Funny how much you're reading first, if you're reading this, before deciding if something else is worth reading.)

[Lynne Nunyabidness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by a Harvard psychiatry professor, this book has a different spin than most in the zombie genre. It's not so much a thriller, with bands of refugees racing through the streets trying to stay alive and find a safe haven, as it is a fictional discourse on science and ethics. Told through the diaries of a neuroanatomist on an isolated research facility in the Indian Ocean, the story focuses on autopsies undertaken to determine just what pathogens are involved in the disease. Schlozman adds a dose of reality by making one of the underlying mechanisms a prion-based disease. (You want some real horror, study up on those.) Along the way we get a picture of the biological changes that one might see in zombies. But in the end, the book is about humanity: what makes us human, ethics of experimentation on humans or, in this case, humanoids (the autopsies are all performed while the subject is still "animated"), and the horrible things humans do to one another and the planet (though we never find out exactly who create the virus and set it loose, it is obvious early on to the researchers that this was a man-made pathogen). A fun book for those who like some science with their zombies.

[Ryan Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was very intriguing from an anatomical and physiological point of view. We've all been curious as to how a zombie becomes a zombie and this book gives some good insight into how that could possibly happen. Dr. Schlozman put a lot of thought into how being a zombie affects homeostasis as a whole. I am very excited about his next book to see where he takes the microbiology of the "ANSD virus." The anatomical and physiological terms are deeper than the average person would understand, but not too deep for an undergrad student who has taken anatomy or physiology. He makes it clear in the beginning of the "journal" that he would use terms most people would understand, which would be hard for a Harvard professor. The read isn't long or that hard, the back half of the book is mostly U.N. notes and references. Although the zombies aren't typical zombies, they are close enough while still staying true to what could possibly happen to a person who contracted this "virus." I'd call this a good read for anyone interested in biology or zombies.

[zemkat · Rating 2 out of 5]

How do zombies live? How can they survive the massive infection they must have? Why are they so hungry when a typical animal that sick would stop eating? (And why do they hold their arms up in front of them?)

These are some of the questions explored in The Zombie Autopsies, a horror novel structured as a packet for researchers attending a meeting to discuss the fate of humanity during a zombie epidemic.

The author has a medical background, so the focus is on zombiism as a disease process. The writing is a sometimes dry, and sometimes horrifying. The drawings are gruesome.

I am curious to know if it would be more interesting to readers with a stronger background in biology, but I don't recommend they read it
close to mealtime, or bedtime.

I am also amused that the copy I got from the public library had a bridal shower invitation as a bookmark.

[Ellis · Rating 1 out of 5]

A failed attempt at the going-crazy journal. In this case, a going-crazy-becoming-zombie journal. This is pretty boring all around. It's hard to be interested in the characters, since two of them die before the autopsies even start, and another two are already infected and so sick they don't contribute much to the story, other than losing consciousness & being febrile all the time. I think the endless reiteration about how the zombies have to be alive during their autopsies is meant to be shocking, but isn't because they're, you know, zombies. And not scary zombies, either, so this was pretty disappointing all around.

[Am Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tells the story of a zombie apocalypse via a scientist's journal, various official/unofficial manuscripts, research papers, and more. I liked the concept a lot, but unfortunately there's just too much unnecessary text (revolving around various zombie dissections) that doesn't further the plot much if at all, and no real story development. We don't really know for sure what happens in the end, and things are just left hanging.

Was a cure ever found? What was the organism responsible for pairing with the virus and working in symbiosis with it, that the vaccines failed to account for? And what eventually came of all those zombie autopsies??? Or were they all for naught?

I appreciated the attempt to try to make the zombie virus scenario as scientific as possible, but things just went nowhere.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parts of this book were fun and enjoyable. However, some of the appendices at the end were the opposite. 3.5 stars.

[Scott Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Zombie Autopsies focuses on the private, hand-written diary of Dr. Stanley Blum, the last scientist sent to the United Nations Sanctuary on the island of Bassas da India in the Indian Ocean where researchers from the UN and the World Health Organization are conducting autopsies on fully-animated zombies to find a cure for the living dead plague that has ravished a third of mankind. Everyone else who has ever traveled to the sanctuary has become infected and eventually turned into a zombie, so for Dr. Blum volunteering for this mission is a death sentence. In conjunction with Dr. Banca Gutierrez and Dr. James Pittman, the current researchers who are rapidly progressing from Stage II to Stage IV of the virus, the trio perform graphically detailed autopsies of the brain and internal organs of fully animated zombies. Their research soon unearths a frightening fact – the virus that has wiped out much if the world was most likely engineered by man.

An interesting twist to the novel is the bureaucratese that dominates the text. Because The Zombie Autopsies is written like a scientific paper, it has a detached feel about it. The zombie plague is referred to as Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome (ANSD), the “internationally accepted diagnostic term.” Those infected with ANSD are referred to as “humanoids” until they reach the final virulent Stage IV and become “No Longer Human” (NLH) and can be “deanimated.” Schlozman also includes references to the Treaty of Atlanta, the meeting of scientists, ethicists, and religious leaders to reach a consensus on how to characterize and deal with the infected (ethicists have been arguing that killing in mass self-defense can only be justified as an act of war, which does not apply in this scenario since the zombies did not formally declare war). Anybody who has watched the complete ineffectiveness of governments in the face of Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, and the tsunamis that recently devastated Japan will find these sections disturbingly authentic.

Check out my full review at http://scottmbakerauthor.blogspot.com...

[Jessica Bronder · Rating 2 out of 5]

The zombie apocalypse has happened. One third of all humans have become zombies or NLH (No Longer Humans). Scientists have been selected to go to an island in the south pacific call the Crypt. There, they are to find out how humans are being turned into zombies and to find a vaccine for those humans left.

This is based on the journal of scientist Dr. Stanley Blum. Stanley was part of a three party group planned to go to the Crypt. But two of the three helicopters went down in transit to the Crypt. When they land, conditions are worse then they feared. Only three people survive the landing and getting into the Crypt; Stanley, James Pittman, and Anita Gupta. But James and Anita have become infected. They are on a race to find out as much as they can about the zombies before turning into one themselves.

I have to admit that I have slight mixed feeling about this book. I liked the concept behind the story and how it was expressed. It was a new twist to zombies. But for the most part I’m disappointed that I wasted $15 on this book. The background to the story is a quick catch up memo that has been sent out. The story from the journal is only half of the book. There is reference to nukes being set off to try and kill the zombies and how that has messed up the atmosphere so anything electronic can’t be trusted, that is why there is a written journal and James does the illustrations.

Beyond that, there was nothing else. There were appendix that were suppose to explain statistic information and memos talking about how Stanley was probably the last person they should have sent to the Crypt.

I gave this book two stars because it is a nice little read about zombies. But beyond that, don’t waste the money for this book, especially $15. This could have been a great story with a little work but doesn’t make the cut.

[Emmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the start, this book was really something special. It promised to be a look into the phenomenon of "Zombiism" as a medical condition during the so called "Zombie Apocalypse". Besides cool ideas, it even contained illustrations which were graphically detailed and often repulsive, but really cool for those with a fascination in the grotesque or the anatomy. However, all promise quickly faded as I continued to read. Everything that seemed so cool pages before quickly became labored and boring. In fact, I feel as though I read the same theories again and again and again, with no real purpose to them. We were stuck in a horrible rut. And the book sat comfortably in this rut, using the death of several of the main characters as a crutch and an excuse to keep us from actually seeing that the author had no idea where he was going with the medical half of things (which is pretty much the supposed main purpose of the book). All in all, something of a disappointment, and not something I would recommend.

[Johnathan Greyshade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up an ARC of this book and read it when I was in the mood for something really dark. It delivered. This short read is full disgustingly gruesome details that only a medical profession could write about this convincingly. The medical details are clearly explained in text, but are sufficient to give the book credibility. Ultimately this is the story of a team of doctors fighting to understand a horrifying disease that they are succumbing to themselves. It is a disease that will rob them of their humanity long before their lives. Their studies begin with the brain, so we learn that their cerebral cortexes will eventually become rotting sludge leaving only a brainstem driving them to feed on flesh. It ends with the last notes of the last doctor as his mind is going. The parts in-between still make me shutter. Obviously this book is not for everyone, but if you want straight forward effective horror, you’ll get it.

[Aaron P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me, Zombies are only mildly scary. They seem slow and dumb, and generally interior to most nightmare creatures. The writing style and presentation of this book, both in formatting, and typeface designed to look like pencil notebook entries, gives this a little flair to start but the charm, if it can be called such, dies quickly. Quicker in fact than an infected zombie might. There was a bit of technical knowledge (being written by an actual M.D.) that at first made the whole thing seem more believable perhaps, but soon just made things rather boring. I kept remembering the original Resident Evil when I was reading the journal entries - and how in the game those intervals of reading similar passages were just a way to fill up the brief periods between the next freak out moment. This book seriously lacked on freak out moments and as 'smart' as it may have been it just wasn't that much fun to read.

[VJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd advise reading this book from back to front. It is written like scientific research paper or manuscript and the appendices provide crucial concept information, protocols, and background information about the disease and the research work group.

The redefinition of what it means to be human and what it means to be dead provoke ethical mental debate. For this alone, I'd recommend this gory bit of medical science fiction, but the drawings are exceptional. Glad they are in shades of gray instead of shocking color.

I learned that Kuru is caused by prions, learned what prions are, what the effects are of prolonged base pH, and that I really don't want to become a doctor! Perhaps a medical ethicist...

Now I know why zombies walk with their arms stuck out in front, what ataxia is, and how challenging it is to read tongue-in-cheek medical science fiction.

Truly, a good read!

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see why “The Zombie Autopsies” got such mixed reviews. This is a book that will only appeal to zombie fans who also possess an interest in medical science. If you don’t have that combined with at least very basic medical and anatomic knowledge, this book will 1) bore and 2) confuse you. It’s more than a bit dry, frankly; it was written by a doctor and reads like it, like a scientific report, even at the “exciting” parts. But that’s the way it should read; this is a record of a scientific study (fictionalized though it may be), not a story narrative. If you go into it understanding that then you won’t be horribly disappointed. It’s really not a bad read.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it started off well. At first, it made me feel like I was reading some top-secret medical journal, because that is exactly how it's written. However, that got a little old. It's written like a government document that contains a journal from a medical researcher.

I liked the ending, but it doesn't hit you in a powerful way. There is very minimal character development, but I didn't really mind.

Also, Steven Schlozman is very intelligent. I would only recommend this book to people who are really into zombies and can handle anatomical terminology. It's a short read.

[Theresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

A quick read, but also a boring read. Since the story is mostly a doctor's journal entries, you don't get to know any characters. Most of the writing is medical in nature and there is very little action. It is mostly just description of medical autopsies. Even the pencil illustrations of the zombies were not enough to interest me. Pass this book up and pick almost any other zombie book that has come out in the last couple years and it will be a billion times more interesting.

[Alex Flynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for most people. You have to love horror fiction and neuroscience, which I do, so it was a fun, quick, read. The story was more of a sketch and the world wasn't fully developed. Really it felt like a quasi-drunken conversation with a friend in a PhD in the waning hours of a party about zombies and biology. The grad school equivalent of my high school conversations about which super-hero would win in a melee style fight. There, now I've admitted to being a nerd.

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I was anticipating. I thought it was going to be riveting; but instead it was 100% mediocre. It was also totally repetitive and, well, it was just not interesting. I managed to finish the "diary" part but did not spend time with the fake "appendix" type of stuff at the end. Disappointed!

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVED the illustrations!

[Rusty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less science - more shotguns

[Serenity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just wasn't impressed. Lots of medical terminology.