NMSG and Zombies

Zombie fever has, at one time or another, infected everyone from Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln and Zombies, a 2012 theatrical release) to Michael Jackson (Thriller, in the MTV video from 1983). NMSG is no exception.

Fortunately, the first zombie title NMSG produced provided a solution to this problem of exposure to the Undead. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (Broadway, 2003) was written by Max Brooks, the son of legendary comedy writer Mel Brooks. The younger Brooks has since become one of the foremost authors in the zombie genre, and his bestselling 2006 novel, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Crown, 2006), also composed by NMSG, has been adapted for the big screen. The feature film, starring Brad Pitt, is being released in the summer of 2013.

NMSG has composed several other well-received titles in the growing “body” of zombie literature. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (Ballantine/Del Rey, 2009), combines two very popular literary franchises into one bestselling tale that loosely follows Austen’s original story, with the addition of the zombie element.

What has been referred to in the media as the “Zombie Zeitgeist” is aptly captured in yet another NMSG production, Otto Penzler’s anthology Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (Vintage, 2011). This collection includes stories written by authors from W.B. Seabrook, whose book The Magic Island (1929) is widely credited with introducing the zombie literary genre, to Stephen King, who has incorporated zombie themes into several of his works (NMSG has also composed several of King’s novels over the years).

Zombies have even invaded our holiday celebrations, in It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies: A Book of Zombie Christmas Carols, by Michael P. Spradlin (HarperCollins, 2009), which includes such “immortal” classics as “Slay Ride” and “I’m Dreaming of an Undead Christmas.” NMSG worked on that one, too.

You might think that NMSG has been taken over by the Walking Dead, but we are equal opportunity monster masters: we also produced several of David Wellington’s popular werewolf novels, including Frostbite (Broadway, 2009) and Overwinter (Broadway 2010), as well as The New Vampire’s Handbook: A Guide for the Recently Turned Creature of the Night, edited by The Vampire Miles Proctor (Villard, 2009).