This looks great. At least to my warped little brain. Below is the trailer for AMC’s new zombie television series, The Walking Dead. It has a bit of a 28 Days Later vibe at the onset, with a guy waking up in the hospital to a world gone mad, but after that … wow. I really like the look of this, and the acting seems pretty good as well.

The Walking Dead premiers Halloween night in a 90-minute pilot episode.

I’ve been thinking that zombies have pretty much been played out as a monster, but when I heard Frank Darabont — director of the brilliant Shawshank Redemption as well as the creepfest The Mist — was adapting a graphic novel called The Walking Dead as a miniseries for AMC Television, my curiosity immediately piqued.

The video below is a behind the scenes look at the creation of the “bicycle girl” zombie. I can imagine that someone with claustrophobia would have some difficulties dealing with this kind of total immersion in makeup. But the results are excellent.

I was on Twitter recently and said that I thought zombies worked better in movies or shorter works of fiction than they do in novels. To me, there doesn’t seem enough for zombies to do to have them be the bones of a story (ha ha!) that will carry on for a few hundred pages. My online Twitter friend @zombiejoe disagreed and thought there were some zombie-ish novels that were great. One he mentioned was Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. I recently reviewed Boneshaker and loved it, but I don’t consider it a zombie novel. It’s a steampunk book first and foremost — the zombies are part of the backdrop but not really a central part of the story (though they are an ongoing menace).

I realized I hadn’t really read much long-form zombie fiction. I bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies at the beach last year and while I appreciated the idea of the mash-up, I just couldn’t get into it and put it down without finishing it.

I thought about it some more and perused my bookshelves and came to the conclusion that I have not read any zombie novels.

I really have nothing against zombies. I said to Zombiejoe that I thought they probably worked better in movies than they do on the page, but that may be coming from my own lack of exposure and inability to imagine a good zombie book than a failure of the zombie genre.

Zombieland Rule#1: Cardio

I love movies like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and 28 Days Later (and it’s sequel). I thought Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead was pretty killer, and I’d been prepared to despise it since the original was one of the seminal movies of my teen years. I guess I’ve always preferred to watch zombie mayhem than read about it.

So I’m going to ask for recommendations. What should I read? What are some good zombie novels out there that you think hold there own over a few hundred pages? I’m vaguely familiar with World War Z and a book called Xombies (though i guess barely aware would be more accurate). Tell me what you think are the books at the top of the genre (or sub-genre, or niche, or whatever) so I don’t have to do any work and figure it all out for myself. Use the comments here to let me know what you think are the best and why.

Let the recommendations commence!