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17th Mar '13 7:55:04 PM Xtifr

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''GenerationDead'' is a surprisingly good first novel (and now a series of the same name) by Daniel Waters (no, ''not'' the same Daniel Waters that wrote ''Heathers'', this is a different one). Published in May 2008, the premise is based on teenagers suddenly ''actually'' becoming zombies, and how society deals with it. This is no ordinary horror story though - these zombies are [[OurZombiesAreDifferent a lot like other teens]], except they've got a lower body temperature, don't need to eat or sleep, often speak or move a lot more slowly... and, oh yeah, have even fewer protected civil rights owing to the fact that they're [[BlessedWithSuck still considered Legally Dead]]. Their parents aren't even required to take care of them anymore, and yes, some of them [[ParentalAbandonment go abandoned]]. Ouch.

Mixed up in all this of course, are the people whose generation is the one that's starting becoming literal zombies: American teenagers. Specifically, those going to Oakvale High, which we're told has a very good program for the "living impaired". Main characters include a number of "differently biotic" kids, especially high-functioning ones like Tommy Williams and Karen [=DeSonne=] (who talk almost normally, and in the former case, even tries out for the football team), as well as a few living kids, such as {{Perky Goth}}s Phoebe and Margi, and their football star childhood friend, Adam Layman, and his former friend, the bully Pete. Phoebe has a crush on Tommy, Adam's in love with Phoebe, both Phoebe and Margi have trouble dealing with the fact that their friend Colette came back as a zombie, and Pete? Pete's going a little off the deep end...

If it sounds like a soap opera, though, don't let that put you off; it's surprisingly light and funny... when it's not punching you in the metaphorical gut.

It has a sequel, ''Kiss of Life'', which was followed in June 2010 by a third book, ''Passing Strange''.

Not at all related to the ''Teenage Zombies'' videogame.

The number of DeathTropes is obviously high:

* BackFromTheDead - a good chunk of the cast ''start out'' this way. For some reason though, it only happens to teens.
* OnlyMostlyDead - technically the zombies are all "mostly dead" - even actually declared legally dead - though it's probably [[spoiler:Adam's death and subsequent undeath at the end of the book]] that fits the trope best. 
* DeathIsCheap - both subverted ''and'' played straight, given that only teens can become zombies when they die, and even then, most of them haven't.
* DeaderThanDead - any zombie that has his or her skull bashed in is a goner.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim [[spoiler:the PluckyComicRelief guy, of all people. ''Told'' you it gives you the occasional punch to the gut...]].

Other tropes:

* AppliedPhlebotinum - both averted and parodied heavily. While the book doesn't ever explicitly declare what it is that causes one to become Differently Biotic, the many ridiculous theories scientists come up with while scrambling to explain how kids can not only come back from the dead, but get by without breathing, eating, sleeping or having a pulse, or why it's only teens that end up as "living impaired" individuals, ''are'' covered. And they tend towards the kind of ridiculousness that would, of course, be AppliedPhlebotinum were any of them actually true in the story. Proposed causes ranged from "they played a lot of {{First Person Shooter}}s" to "it's a combination of hormones and fast food!" to ''mold spores''. The CharacterBlog expands on this list to include, among other things, "generations of people eating microwaved food". 
* BuryYourGays: Literally buried, but they get better though they aren't guaranteed imunity from hopeless crushes. 
* BigEater: TC and Stavis are implied to be this by Pete. 
* CharacterBlog - Zombie character Tommy Williams' website at http://www.mysocalledundeath.com actually exists as a real-world Blogger site, and yes, you can post and apparently have "him" respond. 
* CharacterDevelopment: Arguably Pete to some extent. It's fairly obvious Book 1 Pete and end of Book 3 Pete aren't the same person. 
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve - not actually supported in the book ''per se'', but Tommy certainly seems to think that [[spoiler:love is the reason he and Karen are so high-functioning while other zombie kids like Colette aren't]].
* CliffHanger - The first book to a some extent, and the second book to an almost ''maddening'' extent, particularly when you consider how slow the first half the second book seemed compared to its climax.
* DeadpanSnarker - Tommy and some of the other zombies have this tendency, ironically, as does to a lesser extent Phoebe.
* FantasticRacism - society is unsure how to handle the "living impaired" kids, and some of them are freaked enough (or religious enough in a fundamentalist vein) to exhibit this, with the primary antagonist even deciding at one point to ''re-kill'' some of them.
* FridgeLogic - The differently biotic teens are not allowed to get/keep driver's licenses or to vote (because they're dead in the eyes of the law), but they do attend school.
** ...though the only place we ''do'' see them attending school, in fairness, is in Oakvale, which is either in Oregon or Washington state, which lean relatively progressive in the real world. It's worth noting that at one point in the second book, [[spoiler: they're ''banned'' from attending school, something a certain protagonist decides he's not going to take sitting down.]] They're also generally forced to take remedial classes (not specially-adjusted-for-zombies classes, mind you; ''regular'' classes, only ''remedial''), because their "differently biotic" state makes them so slow to respond to questions in class. Which really sucks for kids like Colette, who were previously honor students.
* FridgeBrilliance - The "differently biotic" thing works as a metaphor for about a million different things... oh sure, this being a YA novel series, you probably figured out "being a teenager, where the world treats you like something between a monster and an idiot, even when you feel you're neither" was one of them, since it's blatantly obvious. You probably also picked up on the fact that it mimics learning disorders or other mental or physical handicaps, and if you didn't catch the "zombie becomes the fantasy equivalent of the n-word" connection that makes it verge on looking like a metaphor for flat-out racism, you should be drinking more coffee. But did anybody else suddenly have it hit them that [[spoiler:Adam Layman, who unlike many of the other zombie kids, was considered an all-American white bread Good Kid and pillar of the community, and died saving the life of another person]] is virtually the perfect fantasy analogue for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White Ryan White]]? Yes, you read that right: '''zombies can be a metaphor for AIDS sufferers now'''. Oh, and let's not forget all the talk of people like Karen, who can "pass" for normal humans (and do, in order to get and keep a job for instance), which can be interpreted as going along with the "racism" metaphor (in the real world many Jews, Hispanics, etc. can and have "passed" for "white")... or, you know, closeted homosexuality (especially given that [[spoiler:Karen's pretty much openly admitted to [[LesYay having a crush on Phoebe]]]] and as of Passing Strange, [[spoiler:is canonically gay. She was in love with a girl named Monica before she died and came back.]])..
* HeroicSacrifice - when it looks like Phoebe's going to [[spoiler:get shot in the head, Adam takes the bullet instead]].
* Gaynst: [[spoiler: Karen]] gayngst + clinical depression + zombie-ism
* IncompatibleOrientation: Popeye and Tak
* JerkJock: This trope might as well be called the Pete Martinsburg, he shot and killed [[spoiler: Adam]] and showed no remorse up until the end of Book 3. 
* LovableJock: Adam is this trope personified. 
* LipstickLesbian: [[spoiler: Karen]]
* LoveDodecahedron - Phoebe likes Tommy and Adam, and they both like her back. Margi has a thing for Adam, and Karen pretty much has a crush on [[spoiler: Phoebe, Collete, Sylvia,]] Tommy (who also likes her as well), and Tak. Tak likes her, but he's being crushed on by Popeye. 
* OurZombiesAreDifferent - They're basically like ordinary people with certain impediments and a few odd quirks, such as having no body heat or pulse and, oh yes, having come BackFromTheDead.
* PerkyGoth - Phoebe and Margi both fit this trope to a T. 
* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad - flirted with a tiny bit, with "zombie" being close to the equivalent of a certain d-word and the n-word (i.e. it's mostly the members of the group themselves that feel comfortable using it, otherwise it's seen as politically incorrect and offensive), and with terms like "living impaired" and "differently biotic" (the latter of which is a play on "differently-abled") coming into use.
* ReplacementGoldfish - a very ''odd'' variation of the Replacement Goldfish theme, actually: antagonist Pete is so against the DB kids partly because [[spoiler: he lost his first love Julie right before the phenomenon started so that every time he sees one, he remembers how she's ''not'' back from the dead]], and his increasing anti-zombie sentiment? Oh, that's largely because [[spoiler: he keeps associating Phoebe with Julie, to the point where he eventually starts hallucinating she ''is'' Julie, and referring to her by that name, and, being naturally overprotective of "Julie"...]].
* UnluckyChildhoodFriend - Adam, who spends a good portion of the book either pining over the (clueless) Phoebe, or being really jealous of she and Tommy's burgeoning relationship. [[spoiler:As of Kiss of Life, Pheobe has broken up with Tommy, feeling that he only dates a traditionally biotic girl to push the envelope, and begins a relationship with a now-zombified Adam.]]
* WhamEpisode - arguably, the end of each book has functioned as this, especially with the second book, ''Kiss of Life'', being a tad less light-hearted. 
* WoundThatWillNotHeal- If the zombies got a wound during death, they keep it after they come back. Which often means that zombies that got burned to death or had the skin from their faces scraped off somehow [[{{Squick}} stay that way.]] Also, the zombies cannot heal from any wounds they receive as zombies.
** As of the third book, Passing Strange, [[spoiler:Karen [=DeSonne=] is shown to have the ability to heal, at a rapid pace, even from serious injuries like getting ''shot in the face'', with no medical assistance.]]

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26th Nov '12 4:07:25 PM Aiguille

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19th Sep '12 8:12:12 PM mapleman555

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19th Aug '11 9:58:30 PM wuggles

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** ...though the only place we ''do'' see them attending school, in fairness, is in Oakvale, which if this Troper recalls correctly, is either in Oregon or Washington state, which lean relatively progressive in the real world. It's worth noting that at one point in the second book, [[spoiler: they're ''banned'' from attending school, something a certain protagonist decides he's not going to take sitting down.]] They're also generally forced to take remedial classes (not specially-adjusted-for-zombies classes, mind you; ''regular'' classes, only ''remedial''), because their "differently biotic" state makes them so slow to respond to questions in class. Which really sucks for kids like Colette, who were previously honor students.
** I think they said Oakvale was in New England
* FridgeBrilliance - The "differently biotic" thing works as a metaphor for about a million different things... oh sure, this being a YA novel series, you probably figured out "being a teenager, where the world treats you like something between a monster and an idiot, even when you feel you're neither" was one of them, since it's blatantly obvious. You probably also picked up on the fact that it mimics learning disorders or other mental or physical handicaps, and if you didn't catch the "zombie becomes the fantasy equivalent of the n-word" connection that makes it verge on looking like a metaphor for flat-out racism, you should be drinking more coffee. But did anybody else suddenly have it hit them that [[spoiler:Adam Layman, who unlike many of the other zombie kids, was considered an all-American white bread Good Kid and pillar of the community, and died saving the life of another person]] is virtually the perfect fantasy analogue for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White Ryan White]]? Yes, you read that right: '''zombies can be a metaphor for AIDS sufferers now'''. Oh, and let's not forget all the talk of people like Karen, who can "pass" for normal humans (and do, in order to get and keep a job for instance), which can be interpreted as going along with the "racism" metaphor (in the real world many Jews, Hispanics, etc. can and have "passed" for "white")... or, you know, closeted homosexuality (especially given that [[spoiler:Karen's pretty much openly admitted to [[LesYay having a crush on Phoebe]]]] and as of Passing Strange, [[spoiler:is canonically gay. She was in love with a girl named Monica before she died and came back.]]). The fact that you can in fact interpret the condition within the books as being metaphors for potentially ''all'' of those things, possibly even all at the same time, makes it in this Troper's opinion surprisingly complex for a zombie story.

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** ...though the only place we ''do'' see them attending school, in fairness, is in Oakvale, which is either in Oregon or Washington state, which lean relatively progressive in the real world. It's worth noting that at one point in the second book, [[spoiler: they're ''banned'' from attending school, something a certain protagonist decides he's not going to take sitting down.]] They're also generally forced to take remedial classes (not specially-adjusted-for-zombies classes, mind you; ''regular'' classes, only ''remedial''), because their "differently biotic" state makes them so slow to respond to questions in class. Which really sucks for kids like Colette, who were previously honor students.
* FridgeBrilliance - The "differently biotic" thing works as a metaphor for about a million different things... oh sure, this being a YA novel series, you probably figured out "being a teenager, where the world treats you like something between a monster and an idiot, even when you feel you're neither" was one of them, since it's blatantly obvious. You probably also picked up on the fact that it mimics learning disorders or other mental or physical handicaps, and if you didn't catch the "zombie becomes the fantasy equivalent of the n-word" connection that makes it verge on looking like a metaphor for flat-out racism, you should be drinking more coffee. But did anybody else suddenly have it hit them that [[spoiler:Adam Layman, who unlike many of the other zombie kids, was considered an all-American white bread Good Kid and pillar of the community, and died saving the life of another person]] is virtually the perfect fantasy analogue for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White Ryan White]]? Yes, you read that right: '''zombies can be a metaphor for AIDS sufferers now'''. Oh, and let's not forget all the talk of people like Karen, who can "pass" for normal humans (and do, in order to get and keep a job for instance), which can be interpreted as going along with the "racism" metaphor (in the real world many Jews, Hispanics, etc. can and have "passed" for "white")... or, you know, closeted homosexuality (especially given that [[spoiler:Karen's pretty much openly admitted to [[LesYay having a crush on Phoebe]]]] and as of Passing Strange, [[spoiler:is canonically gay. She was in love with a girl named Monica before she died and came back.]])..

8th Sep '10 2:31:57 PM readergurl6

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