>> hi i'm lisa flempl phlegmer d you're in the stream. connects the dots. our digital producer wajahat ali is here. we're going to get this out of the way right off the top, completely up front with you all. this is a --

>> we run a very serious news organization, all of our "stream" team spent a time making themselves into a zombie. here is sawyer ra, who looks like she belongs in a zombie story. good luck sarah. trefer says i think all the zombie stuff started off as a scary idea, but has become a metaphor of all the monsters we are capable of becoming. all these movies highlight how we treat each other, or animal instincts. then facebook comment from michael, i want to ask max brooks, how does he return from making a zombie survival guide, does he do it to appeal to a wider audience? i'm sure we'll get to it

throughout the show. >> we will be barraging max. could monster fiction prepare us? max brooks thinks so, he's made it a point to flush out a key theme, survivalism. the cdc has applied the zombie narrative for its own comic book. max welcome to our the stream." >> glad to be here. so who is our audience? >> i think it's a pretty broad spectrum. you've got people who are very into zombies, you have people who are very into survivalist culture. you've got people who are into sort of big picture disaster preparedness. i've spoken at the naval war

college, ali khan at the cdc. they have cut their budget by half, thanks guys. zombie culture is a blank slate where we can pour in all our anxieties. >> what did people realize who you were? >> i said i loved you in pretty in pink and two and a half men and i said no john cryer. it's interesting, depending on where i am. >> if you are at comicon -- >> it's dude what happened to the movie? if it's a college environment, it's like dude, you're awesome but i'm even more awesome. there was one time when i was actually at a disaster

preparedness hurricane drill for fema for national guard -- >> down in texas? >> i was at fort sam houston. after i had spoke, talking to a room full of generals, i said what i do, is teach the american people about what you do. i went into that. he came to me afterwards and said i was a think tank, air force 2030, where is the air force going to be in 2030, and he said for the first time in a long time you got me thinking again. no greater compliment. >> nick says, zombie literature and movies is why we fantasize about zombie apo apocalypse. osh a disaster, and we asked you know are certain parts of the world more mentally prepared? she says for sure, those who are

already hit hardest by financial down turn, climate diversity, have a lot more to lose. >> hi max it's mark from new york city. i wanted to ask you what a theme or themes for your new book is going to be. i feel there's lot of rich material out there for science fiction at the moment. we have a lot of massive changes going on in our world, climate change, rapid population growth up to 9 billion by the next century. i was wondering how you would portray these changes as being accepted as mundane in the new normal? >> well, you know going from mark's video comment do you think americans are emotionally prepared? if we lose wifi for like 30 minutes people go crazy. >> that is the whole reason i've written this comic book, extinction parade, is it about

being mentally prepared, are we mentally prepared or not? it is about zombies during a plague. if everything is given to you, you never have to struggles, you never have to fail, you are robbed of the psychological instinct, adversity is coming knocking, and if you don't know what it's like to pick yourself back up owner, you will not be ready for the adversity. >> the son of medical brooks and ann bancroft, raised in hollywood. what was that like? >> i never had to work, yet i was also cursed and blessed with horrific dyslexia. my issue was studying and scraping by with a c plus and my

friends breezed through with a b or an a. it made me comfortable with hard work, i had to dig in and deal with people right next to me, my brain was not build for my world. -- built for my world. that's what i had. >> helen says it's a herd mentality, those following media, without engaging their own brains, they need other brains to survive, literally, and, uncontrollable consequence of our own making that uses ourselves against us. there's a shift, how they were seen in 1968. there has been a rise in the 70s with george r orveghtsmer are the what do you think zombies signify nu? >> i think zombies come almost

as an artistic conference. i have no judgment on that. i use them for something very specific. i like to speak about big adversity coming. some people like to talk about them as warm bodies, a zombie love story. i don't have any problem with that. for me it's like falling in love with the her piecpes virus. i have no trouble about that. didn't robert kirkman the creator of the comic book, say the same thing, there should be room for a zombie soap opera, what's wrong with that, telling different stories using zombies. >> we've mentioned the zombie survival training? is it like real life? we'll find out after the break. when max takes questions from

our google hangout. >> i'm scott hunt and i'm in "the stream."

>> keep moving. keep low, keep quiet, keep alert. escape, evade and live to fight another day. no place is safe. only safer. security is important. but complacency can be deadly. the zombies may be gone but the threat lives on. learn from the past and prepare for the future. >> zombie fiction and lessons on survival. we have world war z creator on

set. we talked a little bit earlier about how you've spoken at the war college, how you went to texas and were speaking to a military group. what does the u.s. military find so interesting and applicable about the zombie survival guide you wrote? >> i think what's interesting about zombie survival, kit, i've had one all my life. it's like an earthquake survival kit. a zombie kit is basic disaster preparedness. bottled water, radio, first aid, things like that. because what i realized when i was writing zombie dispieivel guide, the truth -- survival guide, all the secondary or tertiary problems of any natural disasters,. >> why did the military come

into this with you? >> the military is very big on big picture vision. most zombies tend to be a small group. for the reason i didn't write a small group book, because a lot of people were. i tried to ants the big picture question that not a lot of people were answering. >> speaking of big picture questions, middle eastern politics, a light subject of course. you remember this tweet from jeffrey goldberg, the most pro-israel zombie movie written, loved max's book but way off on israel. and is max brooks willing to relate pa palestinians as zombi?

i know nina wants to talk about how this has real world implication. neen arizona go for it. >> thanks for giving me time and it's good to meet you max. i guess my question is, the zombie metaphor, engenders a human gier generic response, tot in essence is a 21st century problem and by that i mean a nonstate base boundaryless threat. given this is the case does the zombie apocalypse a critique of our old ways of thinking? >> zombies don't respect borders and neither should we in respect to the response. i specifically made world war z an international book because i believe every international problem requires an

international solution. i don't believe there are local problems anymore. what affects one country is sooner or later going to affect us all and we cannot respond in this early 20th century american isolationist attitude. that has to change. that was the message of world war z. i'm a history nerd other than anything. the israelis and palestinians? if i had stood between france and gland, i'd say that would have been incomprehensive at agencourt or waterloo. that's human nature that's history that's not my personal opinion. >> we have another tweet here. stephen harlow, poetic tweet.

all consuming with a black heart. however, zombie literature also shows max a lot of resiliency and optimistic. pop culture zukie wants to ask you a question. >> hi max it's good to talk to you. >> hi zuck. >> i guess my question is despite the fact that it's a horrifying situation that you depict in world war z it's still the aftermath of that situation. so there's a positive notion that human beings can work together and overcome these problems. i guess my question is, since you wrote the book, has your view of humanity changed either in a positive direction or a negative direction? >> no, my view is, is always positive. i believe that we have within us, in every country and every culture, the ability to overcome. i mean let's be honest. from a purely biological standpoint, we don't deserve to be at the top of the food chain.

we're meant to be in the middle, running for our lives from everything else. but the truth is we have overcome that. we have overcome nature, we have overcome our own stupidity over and over again. and we continually tr triumph. there is a reason that yes we can resonates all over the world, the arab spring they were holding up banners saying yes we can too. i don't believe it is easy, guaranteedbut i believe it is possible to triumph. >> let's if get down and dirty, let's talk about conflict and judgment between zombie writers, do you judge them, do they judge you, is there a certain bar you've got to meet? >> yes, basically what happens is every month you have to go through george romero.

that happens all the time. it's zack schneider, it's robert kirkman. all the guys. >> but you've got all your fingers. >> no, that's okay, i've always paid up. but the guys who did zombieland, gone! you have to pay homage to the godfather. >> what about the living dead? >> i think the first season was amazing and then am crfort fired frank g-arabond. during world war ii soviet general crushed hitler, won the war for the soviet union, then they sent him to sie siberia and that's basically what they did to frank. >> we also have vern that says please ask mr. brooks if he feels the walking dead

approaches their version of the zombie outbreak properly. >> i don't think there is properly. i think it's pretty much what are you trying to get across? you know for me, i would never make the zombie virus airborne. because my feeling i based it on aids. >> the book? >> the book. all my zombie books are based on aids. i want the zombie books easy to defeated. if they win it is not because of their strengths but because of our inherent weakness. i want to examine our weaknesses as individuals, literally as a species level they are vampires, they have not had to struggle or work for anything. >> as long as we are getting your impression, what was your impression about the movie world

war z? >> i was so impressed by the title. i think they had the to have a different agenda. >> did you expect that? >> which is why i never would slam the movie. if you have to make a movie with hollywood you have to be open to that risk. sometimes hollywood makes very faithful movies and sometimes they don't. growing up in hollywood knowing the risks involved and if they didn't like what they did, go ahead and say damn them. that's the risk that you take. if you join the military, there's a chance you might get shot. and you have to know that going in. and that's the same thing. >> we don't have to slam the movie but can we still slam the fast zombies? >> the bottom line is, fast zombies are more popular. young people are more are interested by fast zombies.

i'm not. i know i'm in the minority, fast zombies are like a virus, it's too easy to get killed. for me it's about making good choices and about exposing our strengths and our weaknesses and you can do that when you have slow, dumb zombies. >> you just said about airborne viruses. most of these stories are outlandish but most of the time they are necessary to approach difficult topics. alone they may be at a yo tabu. >> check out my screen this is the cdc that has its own zombie preparedness kit and own zombie blog. check it out. actually caring about potential disachts. >> i think it's human nature to not want to deal with very important issues. you know when i was on saturday

night live we call us the class of 9/11. we came on gored about the time that 9/11 happened. a lot of political stuff didn't make it in because we were told it's a downer and ironically the most successful character to come out of that is debbie downer. i don't want to deal with it but if you couch it in a metaphor oh no no no it's zombies. it's easier to digest. if the cdc came out with a major virus quarn teet quarantine, tht going to happen. but if you say kids, do you have a zombie kit? it makes you prepare in a psychological way. >> after the break, what's next for max brooks.

while you were asleep news was happening.

♪ >> we dug deep into the real life parallels of zombies but max, your next project is in complete contrast to that. talk a little bit about it.

>> it's called harlem hell fighters. in the first world war there was a group of american soldiers that were set up to fail, having these guys go into combat in world war i and come out as heroes, and god forbid, have them inspire the country. these american soldiers were sabotaged, humiliated, degreated, given to the french. they were given to the french army and became one of the most dedicated successful units in the french army. >> we look forward to that. we have our twitter community talking about disasters. disasters and movies in pop cultures always have a hero that overcomes it all. these books cannot prepare us.

however, mitra says, outside of zombie killing, keeping a supply of nonperishable and duct tape and not going out alone. here is a video comment. >> i loved world war z, subtle commentary on international commentary and politics. has anything changed in the world that would have really changed the way the world zombie, where it would have gone on that angle any recent development, would the nsa have been able to stop it just wondering, thanks. >> yes i would say one major factor has changed. i don't know if it would affect the outcome. in world war z i had an inept iinineffectual president.

nobody is listening to. >> we talked about this generation that hasn't been allowed to fail and what that means. >> yes. >> is there an antedote in your work? >> you have vampires who are at the top of the food chain. if you are at the top of the food chain you never have to struggle. i believe strengths have to come from compensating for failures. we are humans, we have clawed our way up and compensated for our weaknesses. in a specious like vampires you are robbed of that. the children who are so fragile, tea cups. you have young people going on job interviews with their parents. calling universities, my kid demands a better grade or you hurt my kid's feelings in class.

>> mill ennails are buyings and. are they getting the plns taught by your books? >> i -- lessons taught by your books? >> when i was in my teens i was compensating for my weakness and fear and i was terrified. i didn't learn these lessons until i was older. maybe these are delayed bombs that will go off years later, i hope. you put it out there do the best you can and hope somebody connects with it and that's all you can do. >> we have a comment, what's your favorite antizombie weapon of your own and distinction, antivampire weapon? >> similar to the mill ennails that have never failed who have had the world handed to them, i'm not saying all mill ennails, when you are not loud to fail,

you have kids soccer, and both sides get a trophy, how does that prepare for life? when you don't have to speak harshly, when you want to be politically correct, when we are not getting our feelings hurt, how are they going to survive in the workforce? god forbid, what if their country needs them in a way, step up like the greatest generation did? how are they prepared for that? that's what i'm trying to talk about in extinction parade. the greatest zombie killing weapon, right here. >> the brain? >> yes, use it. >> max thanks for joining us. until next time woj an waj and l see you online. ♪ ...

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