20 Questions with Sean T. Page

Sean Page is a zombie survival expert and has provided consultancy to private industry and governments around the world on what to do in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Admittedly, few of them actually asked for the advice in the first place.

Sean founded the Ministry of Zombies in 2009 to raise awareness of the zombie threat and stop the uninformed becoming cheap meat snacks and published The Official Zombie Handbook UK, War Against the Walking Dead and The Haynes Zombie Survival Owners Apocalypse Manual. He is banned from most government buildings and some people think he's a bit weird.

Here at Zombie Shop, on the other hand, we think of Sean as the unrecognised guardian angel savior of mankind and all round badass.

We've battled the undead horde by Mr Page's side in the deep park depths of military bunkers, and witnesses him fight back against the walking dead on more than one occasion and can attest to his skills, knowledge... and maybe just a little bit of that weirdness.

So when we recently had a chance to get inside the head of UK's leading zombie expert, we'd be brain-dead to refuse.

Sean Page with his most recent bestseller.

1 Why Zombies and how did you become the expert you are?

Zombies are the best monsters for writing. They’re a blank canvas & you can pretty much do anything with them. My time hanging around morgues & cemeteries has made me an expert at all things ‘undead’. I wouldn’t say it’s done me much favours in other areas as I am a bit weird now. But, zombies I know about.

2 Do you mostly write in the morning, daytime or the witching hour?

Evenings mostly. I like to be quiet & locked down. Also, during the day I’m grafting so the any writing needs to be done in the evening & at night. I probably don’t produce as much work as other authors.

3 Which author has had a major influence on your work and why?

David Moody & Max Brooks for sure. Both cool dudes. Different kinds of writer but both kings of entertaining readers. That’s what I like. I think most folks to be entertained. They work hard & they want something to relax or scare them!

4 Which book do you think everyone should read?

I like 1984. I mean it’s not a laugh a minute read but it’s one of those stories that will stay with you. One day I’d like to try a mash up & ruin it with some teenage vampires or zombies.

5 Do you think non-fiction is finally getting the recognition it deserves?

Not really. I read Pippa Middleton’s party book & it was shit. However, the SAS survival handbook was good. It’s a strange world like that. I’d like to have of combination of Pippa Middleton & the SAS handbook – now that would be a good read.

There is no combination of Pippa Middleton's party book and the SAS Survival Manual, so here's the next best thing.

6 Zombies – slow or fast and can some really fly?

Must be slow for me. I loved 28 DaysLater but for me in books & movies, I like em slow & menacing. I love the build of thousand of walking corpses – that really helps build the tension.

7 Blunt instrument, firearm or blade?

Blunt instrument every time – unless you are trained in the use of firearms, they’re more of a danger than a help. I say a trusty cricket or baseball bat is best. Blade wise, a cleaving sword might do as well.

8 If you could save just one luxury, what would it be?

Coffee for me. I need it to live. I know I have a problem & I’m dealing with it. But, that’s what I’d save. Coffee for sure.

9 What do you think is most likely to cause a zombie outbreak?

Mutated virus for sure. We’ve had a few close misses but it’ll be a virus which causes the big one.

10 What is your number one piece of advice for surviving a zombie apocalypse?

Preparation. With just a few hours of zombie training per week, you can drastically increase your chances of survival. So, get organising your 90 day survival plan with rations & stores now.

11 If you were a character in someone’s work of fiction, what would be your opening line?

Mmmm....good question. My last words, just as I’m dying, would be “It must’ve been the pate” I’d then keel over in a comic death scene.

"It must've been the pate!"

12 How much does music play a part in your creativity?

Not much. I like STEPS & they’re crap. I don’t get much done to music.

13 If you had to live in a clichéd alternate reality would you choose medieval fantasy or futuristic sci-fi?

Futuristic sci-fi. I’d love a hover car. I’ve always wanted one. I tried to make one out of an old Toyota Prius. It didn’t end well & a lot of people got hurt. I can’t say too much as there’s still legal action pending.

14 If you had a super power, what would it be?

Invisibility – but not the kind where you have to run round starkers. I want to be fully-clothed when I go snooping.I’d also like to be able to cause mischief when invisible. Nothing serious, just dropping an orange on people’s heads – that kind of thing.

15 Star Wars, Star Trek or Sci-Fi curious?

I came out as Sci-Fi curious a few years ago. Up to then I was all Star Wars. Now I’m out & proud I can say that I like both, with a bit of Babylon 5 mixed in. You used to get put in prison for that kind of stuff.

"You used to get put in prison for that kind of stuff."

16 Do you think roleplaying and video games are good practice for the impending zombie apocalypse?

The ones where you have to gather resources & fortify are best. The ones where you are constantly battling with a team with an average age of 9 & more ammunition than a regiment is not so good. You gotta get out there & learn some real survival skills.

17 Do you see the influx in zombies in entertainment as good thing or will it simply dilute the serious message you need to get across?

I gotta admit I love it. I try to write to entertain people. Many of my readers are young & they don’t want preaching. If there is a message in my books it’s bloody well hidden. Nah, joking aside – it’s brilliant to have so many books, movies & games out there.

18 Dead Island, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty Zombies or ‘They just haven’t made one quite right yet’?

For me, Dead Island came as close as you can. What a game – I love it & the expansion Riptide. I just liked the whole scenario, the missions & how the level of difficulty increased. The range of weapons was great as well. Ideally, I’d like a more open, free-play world but this game was brilliant.

19 Do you have a guilty pleasure you are willing to share? An interest completely unrelated to zombies?

I love trekking & travel. It’s a great chance to try out those survival skills. I’ve been all over the world climbing things but I love the desert the best. Zombies would just crumble & die there...it would be a great place to hide out.

20 What’s next for Sean Page?

The last six months have all been about aliens. I am preparing an Alien Invasion Manual for Haynes (the car people). I now wear a tin foil hat everywhere & am always on the lookout for clones or implants. David Icke was right – it’s a scary world.

The Truth is out there... somewhere.

Sean isn't kidding when he says he loves trekking and travelling. He's just spent 7 days surviving in the Sinai desert, exploring haunted ruins and dancing... mentally as a continuation of his Omega Man adventures!

You can see Sean's video blogs of this and his previous Omega Men escapades over at the Ministry of Zombies website.

When the apocalypse goes down. We want Sean T. Page on our Zombie Survival team!

zombieshop.co.uk

It's the apocalypse... let's play!

Win a FREE copy of the new Haynes Zombie Survival Manual from Sean Page

Want a chance to win a free copy of the awesome new Haynes manual from Sean Page?

Zombie Shop is giving away a free copy of the brand new Haynes - Zombie Survival Owner's Apocalypse Manual.

Yup, it's a Haynes Zombie Survival Manual

The competition is running over on our facebook page, for a chance to win, all you have to do is go visit the Zombie Shop facebook page and finish this sentence:

"The best thing to wear so that everyone knows you are a Zombie Slaying Survival Badass is..."

The competition will run until Halloween, Thursday 31st October 2013. A winner will be picked at random.

Want to now more? Check out our Haynes Zombie Survival Manual Review.

Product reviews... what not to use!

We'll ship the book to anywhere in the world, assuming it is legal to be sent a copy of a zombie survival book there.)

Win a copy and then try out your skills during a live action Zombie Survival Experience.

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Zombie Gifts, Gaming and Entertainment

Zombie Survival: Owners Apocalypse Manual

If you’ve had a 1973 Ford Cortina or 1967 VW Beetle, they’ve had  you covered for quite some time, but until now, you just couldn’t learn to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse whilst carrying out an oil service in your own garage. You can now!

Ministry of Zombies

Sean T. Page, founder and figurehead of the world renowned Ministry of Zombies, brings his expert knowledge to this comprehensive and clearly illustrated zombie survival manual.

Sean T. Page is fully committed to the cause of educating the masses on the tools and techniques required to survive the zombie apocalypse. His previous educational works include The Official Zombie Handbook UK and War Against the Walking Dead and he recently even spent seven nights alone in a disused Nuclear Bunker as an N=1 Experiment to get a feel for the physical and emotional impact of living as an 'Omega Man'.

Zombie Survival Owners' Apocalypse Manual is crammed with over 100 pages of superbly useful advice and packed to the gills with Sean’s deadpan humour. Often subtle, often both barrels up close and personal and there’s plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Zombie Survival Advice

There’s advice on preparation, bug-out plans, zombie profiling and self-sufficient living. My personal favourites include the Becoming a Zombie Survivalist (fashion advice), the Zombie Home Preparation Audit and Combat for the Elderly - we owe it to our physically less capable elders to make them read this book!

Zombie Survival Owners' Apocalypse Manual is full-colour and richly illustrated on every single page, by Ian Moores, and there’s a chance (if you think you’ve got what it takes) to earn yourself a zombie survival qualification, so that you can become a self-certified Zombie survivalist. Be sure to put that on your CV!

If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, Max Brooks or enjoy a bit of zombie gaming, it is time to get yourself ready to survive the apocalypse. This really is a must-have for any Zombie fan.

Want to win a free copy of the Zombie Survival Owners' Apocalypse Manual? Join Zombie Shop on facebook.

ZombieShop.co.uk

Zombie Gaming and Entertainment

Zombie Boot Camp - After Action Report

These are dark days. Chaos has fallen across the land. The plague has spread and the news reports are true; the dead walk among us. Zombies are real. We drew straws, we're not sure if we're the lucky ones, finally getting to do something positive or just fodder, sent into the jaws of the monster.

"Snack on this dead-head!"

We arrived on site amid a flurry of activity. The whir of the inflatable decontamination chamber as the staccato crackle of emergency instructions blare out over a tannoy - Welcome to Zombie Boot Camp.

Quarantine first, a health check to see if we have any of 'the signs' and then decontamination, thorough and precise. Renowned zombie expert Sean T. Page is among us, he reassures us they are checking for all the right signs.

We kit up: boots, fatigues, body armour, helmet and eye protection and then cold utilitarian burden of an M4 carbine. We exchange nervous looks, crack jokes to break the ice as a thought occurs - This is the real deal; we're being trained to fight the undead, and fast.

Dr Uden explains the magnitude of the threat.

Zombie 101 then weapon familiarisation, training, drill and we hit the range.

Run, kneel, safety off, engage target, stand, safety on. Hand signals, vehicle debussing, patrolling "Target front!", bounding firing line.

Do as he says, it just might save you from the ghouls.

Volunteer needed for squad leader? Someone has to do it. My hand goes up involuntarily. What have I done? A volunteer for someone to go first into the breech? Sean steps forward, a braver man than I.

The pace picks up. We patrol the compound. "Targets front." Drop to one knee, safety off, open fire.

Room clearance. "Standby... Go!" pushing into the dark, clattering bulk of our gear jostles with heavy breathing. We fire, scan the room and give the nod. "Clear!" comes the shout and in the next team comes. Terrifying, and this is just an empty room.

Safety's off, at ease, return to the mess tent. Rest, eat, talk and wait. And then the call comes.

Perimeters have been breached, the infected are everywhere, headed this way. We're needed.

"I say we nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

We reload, weapons check and then go.

The darkness is broken by flaming detritus, smoke fills the air and drifts across the compound, we press forward, move in bounds, shadows dance in the dark beyond. We reach the compound entrance.

Zombies ambush the squad - "Let's Rock!"

This is it, I'm leading the first entry. In goes the flash-bang, seconds pass like an age, dull boom and my boots hit a concrete floor, I head right and the under slung flashlight on my M4 sweeps the dark recesses of the interior. "Clear!"

On we press, a relay of shouted commands, grenades and shots fires, room after room, relentless moans cut short only by the reports of semi-automatic gunfire.

We rotate. I'm stacked up first again. There's something in that room, I can hear it, taste it -smell it.

Things didn't look so good.

No more grenades, we're going in old school, safety's off, ready to go loud.

The signal comes, we enter. Every move punctuated by a heartbeat.

Out of the darkness a shape rears, groaning, moaning and shambling. It happens so fast. Without thinking I'm looking onto the soulless eyes of an inhuman abomination across iron sights. Bang, head-shot and again, blam!... just to be sure. Sweep and scan, another gnashing and growling, inches from tearing me limb from limb. It's too late. The crack of an M4 and the walking corpse jerks and sprawls at my feet.

Page gives me the nod and shouts "Clear!" as he chews on a Cuban cigar... or is it a flash-bang? It'd hard to tell in the half light.

"Don't be a cheap meat snack!"

In this War Against the Walking Dead we're going to need more than guns, ammo and guts to prevail. Without our training we would have been toast.

We need teamwork, co-operation and someone to watch our six.

And most of all we need Zombie Boot Camp.

Zombie Boot Camp is a mix of Paintball, Live Action Role Playing and Scare attraction. If you're looking for an EPIC day out in Worcestershire. Zombie Boot Camp needs you!

Get Yer Zomb On

zombieshop.co.uk

War Against the Walking Dead

We’re read our survival guides, played our zombie killing first person shooters and we think we have an idea of what to do. In fact, those who are clued-up and have followed Sean’s advice in The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) have their 90 day survival plan well and truly sorted. But what happens once we stumble out of our fortresses after the initial 90 days?

Somehow we’ve got to take this country back from the flesh-eaters and in the chaotic collapse of the world as we know it we need an orderly roadmap to get us back in control. Zombie survival expert Sean T. Page's War Against the Walking Dead is just that roadmap.

More than just a survival guide it explores the research of many esteemed scientists, supported by historical examples, to provide infallible advice on the practical application of military doctrine against an enemy without fear, remorse or a heartbeat. It teaches us how to take back our world, house by house, street by street and shire by shire - to free ourselves from an occupation of the undead.

From communing with the spirits of the recently deceased to understand what makes them tick, small and large-scale combat maneuvers and the terrifying discovery of the devastating phenomenon of the ghoul meta-horde, to the practical application of the microlight. This book is encyclopedic.

War Against the WalkingDead yields a very British brand of dark comedy, laughing in the very face of fear, to lift a text with otherwise deadly serious undertones. It is an essay in the exploration of traditional methods of warfare, coup and insurrection in the context of a world overrun by the undead. It is a crowning achievement that should be in every zombie survivalist’s library and its text might mark what could just possibly be our finest, or last, hour.

Get Yer Zomb On!

zombieshop.co.uk

The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) by Sean T. Page

We've read the books, played the games and even acted out our survival simulation. But, do we really, and I mean REALLY, know what to do when a zombie attack turns this green and pleasant land into planet terror?

The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) is the Ministry of Zombies answer to this worrysome question.

Read this book and avoid becoming a cheap meat-snack for the zombies!

There is no escaping immediate comparisons with Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide. Whilst Brook’s guide is best enjoyed washed down with a beer and some pretzels, Page’s work is the perfect accompaniment to a nice cup of tea and a packet of custard creams.

Split into easy to digest sections, The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) brings the prospect of surviving an onslaught of flesh-eating undead very much into our rather British world of double-decker buses, the welfare state, cricket on the green and a distinct lack of easily obtainable firearms.

The only thing missing is a section on how to queue during the zombie apocalypse.

The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) is a must read alongside the deeds to your Victorian sea fort (so obvious I don’t know why we never thought of it).

It skirts a very fine line between meticulously researched detail laced with subtly dark humour and a paranoid survivalist mantra. Which is, in our opinion, exactly the way any guide to surviving a zombie apocalypse should be.

You can WIN a FREE copy of The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) signed by author Sean T. Page over at the Zombie Shop facebook page. Competition ends 6th November 2011.

Get Yer Zombie On!

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Zombie Boot Camp

The world as we know it has changed. Ever since the rise of the undead the ever-present menace of a single mistake, a needless error or a moment of carelessness hangs over us like Damocles' blade.

Governments have fallen, military order has been wiped from the face of the globe. Now we, the people, must take up arms and join the fight against the shambling horde.

Destroy the shambling horde.

Zombie Boot Camp
Based on the success of their legendary SWAT Team Package and their wickedly over-active imaginations Ram Training are now offering a truly unique Zombie themed experience.

Ram Training's Facility - Apocalypse... Now.

At their 'secret' training facility in Worcestershire you are issued with genuine Kevlar Body Armour and a Kevlar Ballistic Helmet. You get to handle an unbelievably realistic feeling M4 Carbine Paint Marker and semi-automatic airsoft pistols. To supplement your unlimited ammo you are also be issued and instructed in the use of pyrotechnic anti-personnel hand grenades.

"Lock and Load people!"

Zombie Response Training
Room clearance, patrolling and vehicle entry and exit drills are all part of the Zombie Boot Camp experience.

Do as he says. You're in safe hands.

Can 3 hours of basic training prepare you to take the fight to the undead?

Will you laugh in the face of danger, throw your pyrotechnic grenade into the midst of the zombie horde then follow up with a rapid burst of rifle fire?

Zulu down!

With Zombie Boot Camp's training you too can stride effortlessly over the bodies of the fallen, through the smoke and carnage, confident that one less zombie roams this planet.

Want to hear more about Zombie Shop's experience at Zombie Boot Camp, our fight alongside the legendary Sean T. Page?

Watch this space for Zombie Ad's full after action report.

Stay frosty, watch your six and get ready to go loud.

Get Yer Zomb On!

zombieshop.co.uk