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 beginnings 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.

Max Brooks lives in New York City but is ready to move to a more defensible location at a moment's notice. His Zombie Survival Guide was adopted by all of the world's basic military training programmes during the recent global conflict.