A story of genetically created Zombies

[EndtheMadnessNow]

About 40 minutes into this story....Not to bad.... and I do not usually like zombie stories... Some day maybe the story will not be a story of fiction; think Prions baby, Prions all the way.

By season 3 of Walking Dead I was making plans.

Looking well prepared !

This is the first audio book that presented a semi believable scenario on how to create a Zombie that I have read/heard.

Hmmm. So, is this super looooong audio reading of only "Patient Zero" novel or multiple books in the Joe Ledger series?

LARRY: Your novel Patient Zero revolves around a bioterrorism agent/disease that appears to turn people into a zombie like state (should be dead, but aren’t, and are aggressive). Unlike other novels where the authors merely state “Oh! Look, a zombie”, you have quite a bit of science on how the disease works, delving into prions (which are important in studying human and animal nuerological disorders like mad cow disease, as I understand it) and TSEs. Where did you learn about prions, and what motivated you to include them in an action story?

MABERRY: Most of the initial research was for a nonfiction book I was writing a couple of years ago, ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead (Citadel Press, 2008). For that project I interviewed hundreds of experts in different fields, ranging from forensic science to epidemiology and other fields of medicine. I was trying to build a case for how the real world would react, research and respond to a threat as described in the George A. Romero Living Dead films, and in some of the better zombies (or zombie-like) films that followed.
I was surprised to learn that science could explain a lot of what we saw in zombie films. That’s both cool and creepy, depending on where you stand.
....
The creepiest prion disease is Fatal familial insomnia, in which the sufferers cannot fall asleep, even when medicated. They remain perpetually awake until they go crazy and their bodies break down. It’s a horrible disease…but a perfect core pathogen for a zombie tale. I went a few steps along that dark road to have my villains bond it with an aggressive parasite (also based on things found in nature).

Interview with Jonathan Maberry

Interestingly, that Fatal familial insomnia was the disease used in the 2021 tv movie "Awake" - IMDB

Oh, the horror!



Abstract & paper