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Science Fiction & Fantasy |
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World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
written by Max Brooks
Studio : Three Rivers Press
by Three Rivers Press
Release Date : 2007-10-16
Publisher : Three Rivers Press
Released : 2007-10-16
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780307346612
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 409 reviews)
List Price : $14.95
Our Price : $5.26
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Product Description |
“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
Eyewitness reports from the first truly global war
“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China
“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers
“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
From the Hardcover edition. |
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Good 'historical' book on a Zombie outbreak |
As others have said, this book is written from the point of view of a reporter interviewing survivors of "World War Z" which was a battle of zombies vs humans. Unlike many/most Zombie movies which focus on a few people trying to survive such an outbreak, this book covers just about every location on earth to some extent in the stories related.
For the most part, the book is well done. The interviews are arranged chronologically so that it creates a coherent narrative of the events. One minor issue I had was that since I read this over the course of a week, I didn't realize that some earlier interviews were broken into multiple sections throughout the book. It would have been nice to have a '... Interview continued with " type of comment to help the reader reconnect with the previous interview.
One other niggle I had is that the various people interviewed didn't really stand out from each other much. One or two had 'memorable' voices, but most of the rest 'sounded' pretty much the same. It's certainly not easy to create separate voices for characters, and when they primarily speak in 'monologoue' I'm sure it's even harder to do.
That said, it's a very good book. It feels as though it's a historical record, and provides enough details in cases to satisfy those who want a touch of the grisly and disturbing, but usually these moments are brief and certainly not horribly graphic most of the time.
Recommended. |
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Solid |
Let me start by saying that anyone who writes a fiction piece that deals with zombies in a serious way is a champion in my book.
With that said, World War Z was a solid sci-fi piece. I liked the medium he used to tell his story, which was a series of first hand accounts from zombpocolypse survivors. It sort of had the feel and flow of similar (non-fiction though) accounts from people who took part/survived the Vietnam War and World War 2. In that the accounts dealt not only with combating the enemy, but also with the politics/social situations that lead to/resulted from the conflict. I also like the fact that WWZ wasn't American-centric and dealt with other nationalities pretty extensively.
What bugged me about WWZ though is that many of his "interviewies" spoke in a very similar way to one another so that it was hard for me to suspend disbelief that they all weren't written by the same person. Also, and this is a totally subjective thing, I'm just not convinced that "slow-zombies" could produce the type of chaos WWZ describes. I've thought about this long and hard as a zombie fan and I seriously doubt that they could bite enough people to turn 99% of the world into zombies. Now, if the zombie-virus was an airborne thing or if the zombies were fast, now thats a different story! |
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Disappointing and just plain boring... |
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Easily the most disappointing book I've read in the past 5 years. I struggled just to get through it. If you like to pick up your favorite AP story and read a good interview in your USA today, then you'll love this book. For me, where is the thrill? The story line? The intrigue? At least give me some central character to root for or against!! And the the nerve of Brooks to attempt to invade Romero-style political comments relating to todays headlines...it just falls plain flat and childlike in his efforts. Not good... |
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Very entertaining. |
This book is not really a horror book filled with gore, but it is a fascinating page turner nonetheless. Through the multiple first person accounts of the battle for survival in a post apocalyptic zombie ruled world, Brooks is able to emerge the reader into a world that has been consumed by the living dead. His references to contemporary foreign policy and his accurate accounting of and maneuvering through the contemporary military mindset and lingo (at least American, according to this former Marine) gives his book a, "Wow, I could see this actually happening!" feel.
And rather than exploring the "LaMOE" (Last Man on Earth) perspective commonly found in zombie media, this delves into every reasonable facet of culture. If there were a WWZ, this book goes very far into encompassing all the elements that would make up contemporary policy and life on this little blue planet. |
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Brilliance shadowed by bias |
What can I say about Max Brooks that hasn't been said already? On many levels this is an absolutely brilliant book that not only complements the zombie/post apocalyptic genre but actually transcends it. Max may well have surpassed George Romero as the authority of the Zombie genre. While George had inserted social commentary into a then new but often maligned genre and had elevated that genre to a more thoughtful and substantive level than the more conventional avenues of the general horror genre (i.e. the -YAWN--vampire, supernatural or slasher flicks), Max has brought it to a new level. To me, you might say that he's the Tom Clancy of the zombie genre. His take one the apocalyptic siege addresses both the individual and society in ways that Romero never did.
I must admit that I didn't buy this novel for more than a year because it was framed as a compilation of individual historical accounts of a zombie apocalypse. I was originally uninterested because I don't think there would be the possibility of a society to survive and tell their accounts.
I'm going to keep this short though I could go off for pages... and that is what Max had done. He made me think. Society has many levels to it and, in Max's book, many of them are addressed. This book is a fabricated account of not just individual's surviving but how societies survived only after difficult choices. And the plan to follow came from South Africa of all places and not the USA or another first world country. Cold and merciless pragmatism was the key and the individual who conceived of such a plan of survival was personally doomed from unrealized personal morals. Necessity and cold sacrifice decided by third parties and geographical advantage.
The scope of this novel is grand. It touches upon individual, national and global concerns. It features the perspective of everyday survivors, soldiers, leaders, beaurocrats (can we ever ditch them?) and head of states. Regret, shame, loyalty, madness and peace are all represented in accounts that are uniquely personal and yet cohesive in how they all worked together.
This is a thinking man's take on the zombie genre. And yet, how it plays out in each interview, it is a realistic template of how we as individuals and a society would react to any extreme situation. Again, it transcends.
In many ways, this is my favorite zombie related book. But it is so much more. It is a well done comprehensive analysis of us as individuals and as a society. Again, I could go off for pages and that's why I didn't go into details.... Or else I'd get trapped into describing each account in their glory (though one or two didn't ring... nothing's perfect.)
Max has accomplished, for the second time, something so unique and remarkable within the zombie genre. Except, this second time, he's gone further and has successfully described why the zombie genre is so appealing. It's not really about zombies, it's about us... more to the point, it's a hard look at us on all levels when presented with the extreme test.
Now a book of this level is impossible to write without the author's personal political perspective becoming obvious. Max thinly veils the Gulf/current war as the Brush war. I gather that I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum to his view of current/real events.) For me, that doesn't take away from what he's crafted. This book is brilliant.
I've actually listened to the audio version many times and read the book once. Though the audio version is abridged (wish it wasn't,) I'd recommend getting both. Each version is satisfying in different ways.
I understand that there is a movie in the making. I am doubtful that any two hour movie would capture this book's brilliance... even though an equally brilliant screenwriter, J. Michael Stravensky is writing said screen play. He's uniquely qualified but I don't know how he'd condense it into two hours for mass consumption. To do this book justice would take a six hour movie. I'd even go with a no frills 6 or 8 part documentary format on the history channel. This book is that good and so comprehensive... you don't need theater or special effects. Just having actors narrate the written word would be powerful enough. But then again, what do I know? I'm just another worthless opinion. |
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