Death is Chasing You
An Apologia for the Zombie Apocalypse Novel as Existential Literature
And but so I've long had this essay brewing, a grand apologia about how the ZA novel is actually the ultimate sandbox for the exploration of existential themes, how I swear up and down if Graham Greene were alive today he'd be writing them, &c. &c. I never got around to writing it, but instead finally put it together as a talk for the recent Nine Worlds London GeekFest Convention, which was incredibly good fun. There was no filming allowed, but herewith the audio and slideshow (the slides are the fun part), and all you're really missing is me stalking around a semi-dark room gesticulating. Topics range across Camus, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Santayana, Frankl… and Romero.
Here's full text of the talk, by the way, minus some last-minute hand-chicken-scratched emendations, and on-the-day extemporising.
Oh, yeah, and here's a single still taken from the front-row bean-bag seating.
