World War Z (review)

[Bob Randell]

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

by Max Brooks

This is a new book, just came out in 2006. I always like to keep an eye out for new and interesting books and this is one of the few that I found surprising.

Unless you're really into zombies, I'm guessing the title might scare you off, but the fact is it's not like that. This isn't some literary attempt to make a book out of Night of the Living Dead. For one thing, there isn't even a protagonist.

The book is comprised of a bunch of stories of various people from all over the world as if they were written down by a journalist after the war was over. They each tell their tale and through this the reader sees the global history of what happened. Everything from black marketeers in Beijing to doctors in Haiti, to soccer moms in Indiana. It isn't about blood and gore, it is about economics, military strategies, medical plagues, politics and societies struggle to deal quickly with the unexpected and unbelievable.

There are some exciting stories, but really it is a "what if" novel told by an author that really appears to know an enormous amount of detailed information about a surprisingly wide array of topics. The author really came up with some very entertaining scenarios and some rather disturbing ones as well.

The fact is the book is really about what might happen to society if something very unexpected and very disruptive occurred. It could just as easily be a what if story about what might happen if fossil fuels disappeared, or if electricity stopped working one day.

It is a light read with many nice stopping spots and a very different type of book. You also learn quite a bit about a wide range of things. That is something I really did not expect from a book with this title. As a bonus, it is set just a bit forward int he future and there are a number of characters in it that are not named but you can have fun guessing who the author means.

I would rate this definitely above average, with points for original form.

I also heard a rumor they planned to make a movie out of this.

[Biblioklept]

I was looking at this the last time I stepped into a book store but got distracted. Perhaps I should have paid more attention. it sounds interesting.

[magborg]

What a book WHAT A BOOK! I just finished reading it. It was great. what a unique approach. I loved it. I do not know what else to say . I highly recommend this book. It is as the thread owner wrote. I cannot think of what else I can add. The thread owner pretty much summed it up on the subject and details of the book. It is as described and written well. It is the fastest book I have ever read through because of how well it was written and easy to read. To bad there is not much posts in this thread. I would have loved to talk about the book with someone. I am new to this website and to this forum. I am not sure if this is the only place to talk about books with someone else. This thread is for this book, so I presume we talk about this book in this thread only. I will figure it out. I also heard that this book will be made into a movie. I can see how it can be done. I believe it can be done very well and be a blockbuster movie. I love the Lobo weapon mentioned in the book. Great idea. Where can I go and purchase one? I notice they don't sell it at my nearest Walmart . I live in Canada and I loved the Canadian parts. North Korea, China, Japan, oh my! So many more countries are mentioned. I loved what they did in the United States. I loved the idea of what the North Koreans might have done (who knows for sure). I loved the stories from Japan and from China. It was great reading! Lets not forget about the space station. Now that is a view! The book never slowed down, never felt boring and the pace was kept up all the way to the end. The later part of the book could have been stretched another three hundred pages easily, because of the current situation the world was getting into. The book is great as is but if the author wanted to stretch it out even more, I would have been game. I would have kept reading and loving it .

[piratepenguin]

I loved this book. I went into reading it thinking it I would laugh it off as a zombie story, but I was drawn in by the detail and thought Brooks put in to how life would change. The book also managed to frighten me at several points and many of those moments were more social commentary than zombie related (the young girl recounting the incident at the church, the family living in their car by the lake). the spare narrative style only intensified the frightening moments by allowing me to imagine the scene rather than using gory detail.

excellent book.