by Max Brooks.
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. 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. “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.
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Someone told me that I couldn’t watch Shaun of the Dead until I read other Zombie-related works and saw the original George Romero films. I watched it anyway, and I really enjoyed the use of the zombie metaphor. However, World War Z can stand alone. The book has many levels of meaning.
I have always been a persistent fan of Zombie flicks ever since I saw the, original, 1974: Night of the Living Dead when I was but a wee-lad. It scared me half to death, but forevermore, I have always loved to watch them in hopes of getting a scare. It was three Christmas’ ago when my cousin advised, out of knowledge of my passion, that I read World War Z. I was instantly thrilled to hear of a book all about zombies! when I first started reading it, I felt a little disappointed… mostly in the style; but that soon changed. I fell in love with World War Z, especially in the way that it is written (funny huh?). The book is broken up into small short stories, if you will, that all take place from the start of the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’. On a side note, the book states that it starts in China within a small village which is an interesting twist to modern depictions of it starting in large cities. I really enjoyed that it took a different angle at where they originated the infection. From there, all the short stories overlap and occur in similar time frames from each other and give you a bunch of different perspectives from all around the world. One situation that comes to mind is where an airplane pilot crashes and she must survive, on her own, through this cold, wet, ‘hostile’ territory (by hostile, it is full of zombies, of course)…and there are many more situations like this; the book is filled with horrific scenarios where the characters come in contact with hundreds of zombies. The way World War Z is written is very… journalistic. You hear the stories from these people as a ‘journalist’ asks them questions about it. Often they have hard times remembering certain events and even become emotional recalling them, only increasing the feeling of reality that the book instills in you. Another really neat aspect of the book is how the sections go: the first is (after the Intro) ‘Warnings’ followed by, Blame… etc. Max Brooks writes it in a way that you go through the feelings that the world felt during this time. You hear from CIA specialists, even people that were face to face with the G’s (what Brooks calls zombies in World War Z). However, there are instances where you aren’t terrified, certain sections go over why countries did or did not do certain things; there is a political side to the book, not just horror. All in all, World War Z is filled with everything that Zombie Apocalypse fanatic would love… pure horror, great detail, and a variety of different scenarios and locations; I would recommend it to anyone, even if they don’t like zombies, for a different sort of read.
This book was easily the most entertaining read I’ve ever had as an assignment! I’m not what you would call a zombie afficionado & was pleasantly surprised. The way it’s written, as a series of interviews with the survivors, is excellent and I fully intend on checking out The Good War by Studs Terkel, the book which was Brooks inspiration for the format of WWZ. I will definitely read anything else Max writes, and I wish this book was longer because I’m not sure he’ll be able to recapture my attention quite like this with anything else. His use of irony to make valid points about real life situations was excellent throughout. I love almost everything his dad was involved in & I guess in this case the apple did not fall far from the tree.
Max Brooks also wrote The Zombie Survival Guide, which is liberally laced with irony and so subtle in being tongue in cheek that I am sure that aspect is lost on some readers. A friend just loaned me Night of the Living Trekkies. Having never, before Max Brooks, read much zombie lit, I would recommend it, especially to all SF fans. This is a whole new world for me!
I like the interview style that Brooks uses to gather information from those who survived the sickness and the aftermath of the “renabled” (Zombies). Each interviewee has a little something different to relate. I can visualize the interviewer scratching down his notes while the victims, filthy and exhausted, relate their horror stories. The victims struggle with their emotions and the interviewer struggles to remain calm in the midst of unseen Zombies whose groaning reveals their presence. I find myself wondering what the surrounding environment of each interview meeting is like and find myself visualizing further. Totally engrossing! Makes your palms sweat holding the book.
I will have to check those out Ms. Ray. I just read some reviews of both and they sound fun, especially Night of the Living Trekkies. I am a SF fan & familiar enough with Star Trek to get the jokes. When I went to Amazon just now to see what other people said about those books, they listed other books along the same lines & I saw some funny titles in there. I didn’t realize there were quite that many zombie/horror themed spoofs of classic lit on the market. They had Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Slayre and even a biography titled Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.
I have been a big fan of the zombie apocalypse for a while and that is the reason I chose this book over the other. I was fascinated by this book and the many aspects it brought as a story. Agent Brooks, by interviewing many people, brought the views of many different people and cultures that were affected by the zombie war. The zombie war occurred all over the world, and I liked how each country was responded differently and the outcomes were all different as well. I also liked how for the United States, the military was brought in to defeat the zombies, while I am very supportive of our troops, I think it’s so funny how they are always responsible for saving us and assumed to be resistant to zombies. The only disadvantage of this book was there were so many characters, it was a little hard to keep track of who was who.