0:00

I finally read a book. I mean, I listened to

0:02

a book, but that kind of counts as reading, right?

0:04

I mean, I do a lot of reading in the

0:06

nonfiction world, but I finally just sat down and

0:09

listened to a fictional book I really enjoyed. And

0:11

I thought I would share that with you all

0:13

today. Welcome to the Council Trent

0:15

podcast. I'm your host, Catholic Answers Apologist Trent Horn.

0:17

Monday, Wednesday, we talk apologetics and theology, but on

0:19

Free For All Friday, it's a Free For All.

0:22

We talk about whatever I want to talk about.

0:24

Now, most of the reading I do, I mean,

0:27

I've been reading books nonstop throughout my whole academic

0:29

career, my adult life. But

0:31

typically, what I read is nonfiction,

0:33

right? I got to read history,

0:36

science, philosophy, theology, biblical studies. There's

0:38

so I could spend a whole lifetime and never

0:41

read all of the books and studies I wish

0:43

I could read to be knowledgeable on some on

0:45

different subjects. I just couldn't. So

0:47

I can get consumed in it. And a lot of times

0:49

I felt like reading fiction wouldn't

0:51

be that great of a use

0:53

of my time because there's so many other

0:56

things I just have to learn about, which

0:58

is sad because you actually learn a lot

1:00

about life through fiction. You can

1:02

learn a lot about history, for example,

1:04

through historical fiction. When you read great

1:06

works of literature, it helps you to

1:08

understand the time and place in which

1:10

it was written. So

1:13

I really do enjoy fiction. I mean, I most

1:15

of the fiction books that I read like the

1:17

classics, for example, I remember I think

1:19

I was in I was in seventh grade, I

1:21

was in junior high. And I just went through

1:23

this kick where I didn't really like hanging out

1:25

with people very much as a tad antisocial. So

1:27

I would just go to the library, sit in

1:29

the library, play a round of Where in the

1:31

World is Carmen Sandiego on the old apples. And

1:34

then I would read just the old books on the

1:36

shelf, just the classics. I think one of the first

1:38

ones I picked up was Melville's

1:42

Moby Dick. And then when I needed a break from

1:44

that, I'd hop back on the Apple computer, do

1:47

SimCity, Oregon Trail, and then hit other classics. So

1:49

I read most of the classics, I would say,

1:52

junior high, high school, a little bit into college

1:54

before I got more into all my nonfiction research.

1:56

And I did a lot of nonfiction research during

1:58

the latter part of of high school,

2:01

which was my conversion to Catholicism

2:03

from deism. But I

2:05

remember, though, back in 2003, when

2:08

I was a senior in high school, Max

2:10

Brooks, who's actually the son of Mel Brooks,

2:12

by the way, so the famous director, he

2:15

wrote a book called The Zombie Survival Guide. And

2:17

in the early 2000s, if you're one

2:20

of the younger crew listening to this podcast, you

2:23

may not be familiar that the early 2000s, it was

2:26

just zombie craze. Everybody was obsessed with

2:28

zombies, especially when, well, it was because

2:30

in 2004, they did

2:33

a remake of the George Romero film, Dawn of

2:35

the Dead. So there had been other zombie films

2:38

before that in the 70s and the 80s. But

2:42

this was the first time, at least for the

2:44

two, using 2000s film

2:46

tech and editing styles to

2:49

create this kind of gripping zombie

2:52

apocalyptic thriller. And

2:55

I remember being obsessed with it. My friend Andy

2:57

and I, whenever we would drive to community college,

3:00

after we saw the film, every day we talk about, OK,

3:02

what's our plan when the zombies show up? We probably said

3:04

the next three or four months, the only thing that we

3:06

talked about were the plans, like,

3:08

OK, what do we do when the zombies get

3:10

here? What are we going to fortify? Let's get

3:12

to the Costco, board it all up.

3:14

It's easy to defend. This is easy to defend. That's

3:17

not easy to defend. 2004, 2005, 2006,

3:19

that's what people in high school and

3:22

college, guys at least, would be talking about.

3:25

And so in 2003, Brooks released a book called

3:28

The Zombie Survival Guide. It's a satirical survival

3:30

guide meant to teach you how to deal

3:33

with zombies. In particular, these were the Romero

3:35

zombies. These are different because a lot of

3:37

the modern zombies in the early 2000 films,

3:39

they were the fast zombies. So there's different

3:41

kinds. So for example, in 2002, there was

3:44

a film that came out 28 days

3:46

later. Remember, this is the whole zombie zeitgeist, OK?

3:49

And then 28 days later is probably the

3:51

most realistic of the zombie movies because

3:53

the zombies are just people infected with

3:55

a rage virus that can be transmitted

3:57

with bodily fluids when you attack someone.

4:00

So they're not the undead, they're just

4:02

living human beings who are infected with

4:05

a virus that turns them into raging

4:07

monsters that attack and bite and try

4:09

to kill other people around them. So

4:12

they spread and then it ends up

4:15

taking over Europe and Great Britain. It's

4:17

a very good film. But

4:20

what's interesting is the survival there, it's a bit different. I

4:22

don't see how you would end up having – they talk

4:24

about it in the sequel, what was it, 28 weeks later,

4:26

I think it was the sequel, about

4:29

how it's spread and it's tampening down. But

4:31

they mentioned in the film that these zombies,

4:33

they can't stick around. These are rage-infected human

4:35

beings. They're still susceptible to

4:37

things that can kill them. They

4:40

can be run over, they

4:42

can drown, they'll die of starvation, they don't

4:44

know how to make food, their bodies

4:46

will break down, and they'll die. They're

4:48

just rage-filled human beings. They are not

4:50

the classic undead, but they're also fast.

4:54

So in Dawn of the Dead,

4:56

they were kind of like the undead

4:58

zombies, but they could move really quickly. But

5:01

the classic Romero zombies, like you have in that

5:03

old film, Night of the Living Dead, which is

5:05

still a classic, that coming to get you, Barbara.

5:07

Do you remember that scene in the cemetery? In

5:10

the original Night of the Living Dead, the

5:12

classic Romero zombies from the

5:14

director, George A. Romero, is that they're

5:16

slow. When you think about the stereotypical

5:18

zombie in media, they shamble, they

5:21

just kind of walk, they're not very

5:23

fast. You could outrun one of these

5:25

zombies. What makes them dangerous is

5:27

when there's very large hordes of them, all

5:30

coming at you and you're boxed in in

5:32

a building, or you're trapped, and they sort

5:34

of pin you. And what also

5:36

makes them distinct from the 28 Days

5:38

Later zombie is that they're truly undead.

5:40

Either if you're bitten, you die, or

5:43

in some of the variants, if you die from any

5:45

cause, You will come back

5:47

to life as a zombie. So You are

5:49

a corpse who is reanimated. And As a

5:51

reanimated corpse, yeah, you're slow and you shamble

5:54

around, But in the Max Brooks Zombie Survival

5:56

Guide and the Book I Want to talk

5:58

about today? the undead. The

6:00

only way you can on undead them.

6:02

The only way you can stop them

6:04

is by destroying the brain. But.

6:07

They are walking corpses, their decomposing and

6:09

because they're walking corpses, they don't need

6:11

to eat or they can be frozen

6:13

and be sod and still survive. which

6:16

presents challenges in the book them and

6:18

discuss are they can survive under water,

6:20

they don't need oxygen so they're extremely

6:23

durable these zombies and a zombie survival

6:25

guide and in World War Z the

6:27

book were talking about today very durable

6:29

but they're also very slow when they

6:32

sample about their primarily dangerous when when

6:34

they corner people are people aren't expecting.

6:36

It or they don't understand the threat. So

6:38

now to the book I've been so that's

6:41

why I read the Zombie Survival Guide. I

6:43

read like half of the in a Borders

6:45

once in two thousand and three hours member

6:47

Borders anybody though bookstores they bad business a

6:49

long time and I read Zombie Survival Guide

6:51

I just i was says you're broke. High

6:54

school student early college working at Harkins

6:56

movie theaters making five dollars and fifteen

6:58

cents an hour taking tickets can can

7:01

afford to get a zombie survival guys

7:03

but I remember seeing seeing the bookstore

7:05

in reading through about half of this

7:07

and into said you know do this

7:09

don't do that the have long hair

7:12

cut it put it back into a

7:14

ponytail seat on could grab by the

7:16

zombies. Or what kinds of weapons

7:18

are effective against hobbies? Flame throwers aren't

7:21

that effective because the zombies was keep

7:23

walking to the flames, are impervious to

7:25

pain or what to do? What's right?

7:27

Melee weapons, right strategies, buildings and complexes

7:29

you think will be safe that actually

7:31

aren't. Like I said, two

7:33

thousand and two thousand and five or twenty days

7:36

later, Down The Dead. Odds are there was a

7:38

sequel Down the Dead as he was called Day

7:40

of the Dead and John Leguizamo is and Dennis

7:42

Hopper wasn't in. Of all people, Have

7:44

not as good as regional Da the Dead

7:46

but us we were all talking about. At.

7:49

Largely fasting, so in two thousand

7:51

and six Brooks released this. It's

7:54

kind of an anthology. It's it's

7:56

it's an apocryphal. oral

7:58

history of Zombie War. So

8:01

it's called World War Z, an oral

8:03

history of the Zombie War. And

8:05

I really enjoyed it because it was released

8:07

on Audible in 2007. And the Audible,

8:11

so it's a series of interviews. What I love

8:13

about it, and do not compare this by the

8:15

way with the movie World War Z with Brad

8:17

Pitt. Totally different. Talk about that

8:19

in a second. What I liked

8:22

about World War Z, the oral history of the Zombie

8:24

War, this Audible version, the book itself, is

8:27

that it takes place 10 years after

8:30

a worldwide war against the zombies.

8:32

There's a worldwide zombie epidemic, the

8:34

zombies take over, humanity fights

8:36

back and eventually defeats the zombies. And so

8:38

this is an oral history. It's a series

8:40

of, you know, fake obviously. Which I have

8:42

to say that to you guys. Come on,

8:44

you know, it's fake. It's a

8:47

series of interviews with people who fought in

8:49

the zombie wars. A wide variety of people.

8:52

So you have high-profile, you know,

8:54

politicians, government leaders, scientists,

8:57

soldiers. But you also have just

8:59

regular people. You have regular

9:01

people that fled to the wilderness of

9:04

Canada, bad things happened there, moms recounting

9:06

what happened. All different kinds of people.

9:08

People who trained canine units, mercenaries.

9:11

There's just a great part about a kid in

9:13

South Korea who is so obsessed with video games,

9:15

he doesn't know the zombies are attacking and how

9:17

he just tries to escape his apartment and get

9:19

out of the city and what he has to

9:21

do to be able to do that. So it

9:23

covers a wide variety of people that are interviewed.

9:26

It was inspired by a book called The

9:28

Good War, an oral history of World War

9:30

II. It was published in 1984 by Studs

9:32

Turkle. So it's this oral history

9:34

and what I like about it is that you

9:36

really enter into it hearing the

9:40

narrations of what all of these different people

9:42

went through. You might be thinking,

9:44

come on, this is kind of nerdy, right? Do you really care about

9:46

zombies that much? No. What makes

9:48

the book interesting? And I would definitely

9:50

recommend getting the Audible version because the

9:52

voice acting cast is phenomenal. Alan

9:55

Alda from MASH, Mark Hamill has a

9:57

prominent role as a particular soldier in

9:59

it. a great job, but

10:01

it's very good. What I

10:03

like about it is that the book

10:05

is very well researched. Brooks is very

10:08

thoughtful about, hey, what would happen if

10:10

this plague really happened, and

10:12

how would people respond? This

10:14

is written in 2006, and what's hilarious about

10:17

it is that there are a lot of

10:19

beat-for-beat similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic that took

10:21

place 14 years later. So in the

10:25

book, the zombie plague begins in rural

10:27

China where someone is bitten, and so

10:29

the zombie outbreak starts, but the Chinese

10:31

government covers it up and doesn't want people

10:33

to know about it. So it spreads

10:35

from rural China to other rural

10:38

countries and areas around China. Chinese government does the

10:40

best to cover it up and hit the hot

10:42

spots where it can. The zombie

10:44

virus, so what happens is if somebody dies

10:47

in China and they're a zombie, sometimes immediately

10:49

after they die, their organs are cut up

10:51

and sold on the black market organ trade.

10:53

So the zombie plague spreads not by zombies

10:55

marching around, but you have a heart taken

10:58

from China from a zombie, but you don't

11:00

know it's a zombie yet, goes to South

11:02

Africa for the black market organ trade, gets

11:04

put in somebody, then they wake up, they're

11:06

reanimated as a zombie, and then it spreads

11:08

from there. So the Chinese

11:11

government covers it up, the US government plays it

11:13

down saying, oh, it's not that big a deal,

11:15

they send special forces to deal with it. People

11:17

in the media in the US, they think, oh,

11:19

it's just African rabies. It's not

11:21

that big a deal. The book calls this the great

11:23

denial. But then eventually, the outbreak,

11:25

it gets more and more, it spreads. And like I

11:27

said, these zombies don't require air. So a lot of

11:29

them, when people are trying to get rid of them,

11:31

they dump them in the ocean and forget about them.

11:34

But the problem is the zombies keep walking on the

11:36

ocean floor. And then there's a scene

11:38

in the book where a mom just talks

11:40

about she lives in a rural, not rural,

11:42

sorry, suburban area of San Diego. And a

11:45

zombie comes to her door and it reeks of

11:47

the tide and seawater because it just walked out

11:49

of the beach. And people like, Oh, what's this

11:51

guy? Okay, what's going on? Ah, brains, right? I

11:53

don't say brains, but they, they lunge at people

11:55

and then try to bite them and eat them.

11:58

And then when you get hit You

12:00

turn into into the zombie so I was like

12:02

oh man. This is pretty beat for beat like

12:04

with the China cover-up They

12:07

try to do a vaccine saying oh, there's a vaccine

12:09

that protects you from this It's okay, but the vaccine

12:11

doesn't actually work. I'm like man. This guy was really

12:13

ahead of his time, right? So

12:16

then the book continues, and

12:18

I'm not gonna say everything about it But I just want to talk

12:20

about the parts I found really enjoyable But

12:23

yeah, the book continues and the great denial

12:25

becomes the great panic people realize that the

12:27

world's being overrun by zombies So a lot

12:29

of people just get in their cars and

12:31

RVs and they're told go north zombies freeze

12:34

in the cold They can't hurt you so

12:36

they flee into Northern Canada where the book

12:38

says 11 million people died of starvation hypothermia

12:41

and Cannibalism so there's great

12:43

interview with a woman who went there with her parents

12:45

when she was like, you know 15 years

12:48

old was like a teenager and talks about people

12:50

Oh, they're having such a great time in the

12:52

woods and it's gonna be so fun We're camping

12:54

out But they didn't think ahead and bring enough

12:56

supplies and as supplies start to dwindle people start

12:58

to fight Bad things start to

13:00

happen and it's narrated from her perspective having

13:03

lived through it and it's gripping Oh back

13:05

to the thing I said earlier. It was

13:07

a big deal with the zombies what

13:09

I like about the book It's not the zombies per se it's

13:13

the fact that the zombies are used as a

13:15

narrative narrative device to craft

13:17

a story about

13:19

war about Refugees

13:22

about the worst things that humanity can

13:25

endure and has endured throughout history and

13:27

how Humanity can overcome

13:29

that so instead of just reading a

13:31

depressing book about You

13:34

know a genocide in Africa or Uganda in civil

13:36

war or World War two or something like that

13:39

The zombies, you know, they make it a

13:41

little bit absurd But also peppered in to

13:43

keep them from being so because there's a

13:45

lot of depressing elements about it But the

13:47

thing that make a depressing in the book

13:49

in World War Z is this happens in

13:51

real wars like for example There are feral

13:53

children who are trying to be Integrated

13:55

Into society who don't have language skills

13:58

because they're they. Their parents were. Oh

14:00

by the zombies in the like four years

14:02

old and they somehow survived off of you

14:04

know supplies were left over an abandoned towns

14:07

and now they're They're these feral children that

14:09

have grown up and have to be reintegrated.

14:11

That does happen. There have been feral children

14:14

history usually that the civil wars like in

14:16

Southern Africa. Parents. Are killed. Everyone's

14:18

killed. They go and live in the jungle which has

14:20

survived. And. They don't develops

14:22

human social skills or language abilities, act

14:24

more like animals. And there's other things

14:27

are there are the Quisling. There's the

14:29

people who are so psychologically traumatized by

14:31

the whole thing. they start to act

14:33

like zombies or but that's similar to

14:35

like Stockholm syndrome or what can happen

14:37

to people who have been occupied by

14:40

the enemy. They want to displease enemy

14:42

so badly they become the enemy. Or

14:44

but yeah, talking about how food supplies

14:46

run our people do and desperate situations,

14:48

how the military's mobilized. What are the

14:51

best. Chapters Isabel of Yonkers so it's over

14:53

run in the Us government's like look people

14:55

are panicking we gotta show were in charge

14:57

So they staged a media fight a battle

15:00

with the military filming as our with the

15:02

media filming it in Yonkers New York to

15:04

try to so we can stop the zombies

15:06

for the problem is. The

15:09

military is using. Non.

15:11

Zombie strategy. So they use artillery shells and

15:13

tank rounds that yeah that will cause a

15:16

normal human being to die from their organs

15:18

exploding. But of a zombies organs don't need

15:20

to work as keep marching through all that

15:22

stuff or the soldiers who are fighting their

15:24

inferences fighting the zombies on the ground. When

15:27

you don't need trenches, zombies don't have guns.

15:29

Instead they're trying to shoot the zombies with

15:31

are all trained to fire at center of

15:33

mass. We need to hit the head. If

15:36

you're not trying to hit the head, it's

15:38

hard to do lots of things. It's it's

15:40

all those wrong. they get over ryan and

15:42

people see the military does know what they're

15:44

doing here's part of the battle yonkers were

15:47

mark hamill ha with skywalker does a great

15:49

job reading from the soldiers perspective in the

15:51

battle i also love how in the story

15:53

which is what people don't realize they come

15:56

up with nicknames for the zombies so they

15:58

call the zombies zach word see G

16:00

stand for ghouls which makes sense because

16:02

throughout most wars, you know, there were

16:04

nicknames or giving people on the other

16:06

side But I like Zach and ghouls

16:08

or G's the fire was dying Zach

16:11

was still coming and the fear Everyone

16:14

was feeling it in the orders from the squad

16:16

leaders and the actions of the men around me

16:18

That little voice in the back of your head

16:20

that keeps squeaking They

16:25

Came by the thousands spilling out over

16:27

the freeway guardrails down the side streets

16:29

around the houses through them So many

16:31

of them their mone so loud they

16:33

echoed right through our hoods We

16:36

flipped our safeties off sighted our targets

16:38

the order came to fire The

16:41

initial burst was too low. I caught

16:43

one square in the chest I watched him fly

16:46

backward hit the asphalt then get right back up

16:48

again and said nothing happened Dude

16:51

when they get back up PS

16:53

I added in those bleeps. So if you're thinking

16:55

about getting this for like one of your kids,

16:57

it's definitely more mature content I'd save it for

16:59

older teens or adults So then

17:01

the book transitions into the military the

17:04

government has retreated to Hawaii Pan

17:07

past the Rocky Mountains or the zombie hordes end

17:09

up freezing and they also narrate by

17:11

the way also what happens in India like India

17:13

and Pakistan or no is it was it a

17:16

rant? I think was Iran and Pakistan who was

17:18

it destroyed themselves in a in a nuclear war?

17:20

It was always Iran in Pakistan and they have

17:22

a miscommunication about everything. They destroy each

17:24

other nuclear war also, the

17:26

winters are longer and colder because of the

17:29

forest fires the nuclear fires the Campfires

17:31

that are just started by people to warm

17:33

themselves change the atmosphere He

17:36

really thought through a lot of

17:38

things about What

17:40

would happen in a global conflict? That's not to

17:42

be zombies It could be what would happen if

17:45

there was a global thermonuclear war What if there

17:47

was a covid plague but covid was you

17:49

know? Ten times more fatal and

17:52

a hundred times more transmissible for

17:54

example, you know What would happen

17:56

in these situations and I think Brooks shows well that

17:58

we would see a A lot of the

18:01

population die off. We would see living standards

18:03

go back maybe 300 years. Like

18:05

now in the post war, it's neat, they

18:08

go through how they defeat the zombies, how the

18:10

nations apply different strategies to do

18:12

that. And then how do you rebuild society?

18:14

And they talk about how in this

18:17

future society, the most valuable people are

18:20

construction workers, plumbers, machinists,

18:23

people like that. Whereas a lot of people have

18:25

white collar jobs, they're not very useful now in

18:27

the post zombie world and they have to be

18:29

retrained to do other things. So

18:31

it's interesting if you had that, if you had

18:33

a post apocalyptic world, I mean it wouldn't send

18:35

you back to like the middle ages because we'd

18:37

still have memories of technology. We'd have technology, let's

18:39

say you have cars, you don't have gas to

18:41

put in them. At least you have

18:43

the cars, you could reverse engineer how things work,

18:45

how to build machines, how

18:47

to eventually create new technology. Well

18:50

although we'll see this, one of my favorite scenes though

18:52

is they talk about how in the end when they're

18:54

trying to rebuild society, they gotta get the oil wells

18:57

up and running. So the problem

18:59

is the people, the underwater technicians for

19:01

the oil wells keep getting attacked by

19:03

underwater zombies, so they have to send

19:05

in special divers and metal suits to

19:07

fight the zombies underwater, narrated

19:09

really, really well. By

19:12

the way, yeah, when I mentioned World War Z, the

19:14

Brad Pitt film, don't watch it, if you do it

19:16

has nothing to do with the book. Even Brooks said

19:18

that when he watched the film,

19:20

he said I wasn't mad about the film because it had nothing

19:22

to do with my original story, except for the title. The

19:25

Brad Pitt movie is just generic, Brad Pitt

19:27

travels the world trying to fight zombies and

19:29

find a cure. It's so

19:32

boring. When this book,

19:35

what it deserves, the problem was when

19:37

World War Z came out, which was

19:39

in 2013, it was meant for theaters

19:41

obviously, and there wasn't any real streaming

19:43

technology to make it a big deal

19:45

at home. Now though, I think that

19:48

World War Z could get a great

19:50

adaptation as a streaming series on Amazon

19:52

or some other Hulu, HBO

19:54

Max maybe, And you

19:56

just have new episodes, And each episode it's

19:58

episodic, Look at episodic and

20:01

you just go. Each season could be a

20:03

chopper, the books and each episode is just

20:05

a story. Of. And the stories

20:07

are really gripping as you have a a

20:09

narration of a feral child explaining she's a

20:11

grown adult who talks like a four year

20:13

olds what it was like when her whole

20:15

family and church were killed by the zombies.

20:18

You got agree on from a guy who

20:20

talks I would. It's like being the canine

20:22

unit and how used to hate dogs, then

20:24

how they trained the dogs to fight the

20:26

zombies and lead military groups. Like I said

20:29

there's our there's another one about a mercenary

20:31

who worked at a house of celebrities who

20:33

are riding out the apocalypse and they're all

20:35

live. Streaming. Look at us man you know

20:37

are all are a lot lie similar on

20:39

Tv with their cameras. like to ride it

20:41

out here and then the other survivors crash

20:43

the place and all the celebrities get killed

20:45

by zombies. So much grace other you could

20:47

do episodic for a kind of streaming series.

20:49

Ah it's if you're out there you work

20:51

in Hollywood. Please do it. I would watch

20:53

at least I'm sure others would as well.

20:55

It's it's been a long enough time since

20:57

his on be craze be blurred sick zombies

20:59

like they're sick of superhero films. Now. Give.

21:02

It a shot. So. That's my view

21:04

their I to say cause you know I took a

21:06

break a little bit from all my intensive research. I

21:08

just one listened to a fun six and book for

21:10

gonna listen or six and but why don't you listen

21:12

to us. This. Insert this classic

21:14

this unless it's a fun. So.

21:17

And I'll get to the classics in already. More classics

21:19

on I have. More. Time to wind down

21:21

on things, but this was fun. World War Z

21:23

by Max Brooks The audio book at the Are

21:25

You. I think there's only one version that has

21:28

the cast that reads all the different things. I

21:30

read the unabridged addition. Really good. Yeah,

21:32

so I found interesting and I hope you found

21:34

today's episode interesting as well. Thank you guys and

21:37

hope you have a very pleasant weekend.