World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.33 You Save: $6.62 (44%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $7.50 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Book Review: A good romp through a world of zombie carnage.
Summary: 4 Stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's written as a collection of interviews with key players from a fictional previous global zombie pandemic. The stories range from sources all over the planet so there should be something to wet the taste of any English reader. There are links between the accounts and lots of plot hooks left open, great food for thought for any budding zombie genre writers or story tellers. I especially liked what happens in Korea, but I'll let you read about that. The writing style is easy to read and contains small cultural references to give the 'foreign' interviews an authentic feel, although whether they are correct I could not say. As it is not a traditional, 'follow the protagonist', story the pace is not terribly fast, but this is made up for by the scope and depth of tales which give you good rounded vision of the war from initial infections to final resolution. I'm no expert on the zombie genre but this was an excellent horror apocalypse story and well worth a read by those who like to immerse themselves in that sort of world.Book Review: Zombies Rise, Humanity Endures
Summary: 5 Stars
Readers of Max Brooks' first Zombie Book 'The Zombie Survivial Guide' was a masterclass in writing. A book that dealt with such an absurd topic in such a serious subject that you bought it, hook and line. The 'joke' as it was, lied in the ability of the author to retain his serious approach to the subject. Within the pages of 'The Zombie Survival Guide' Max Brooks approaches the 'what if' scenario of the living dead roaming the Earth. Packed with survival tips it was a brilliant parody of survival texts, with just enough detail to make you wonder about whether Max Brooks had a screw loose and genuinely believed it.
World War Z is the follow-up, there is no 'what if' scenario in this book, the dead have risen, humanity was brought to the brink of destruction and now, living in an undisclosed future, Max Brooks is talking to the survivors, documenting the Zombie War from the eye witnesses. Again, Max is totally serious, it's a sometimes insprirational tale of the struggle for survival, sometimes horrifying look into the terror of what might be. It is always thrilling and engaging.
Some people are saying Max is taking a political stand in places, commenting on areas like the Middle East and American policy. But Max is merely extrapolating today's present into tomorrow's future. The book is grounded in reality, and Max has extrapolated the present into the near-future.
Read this book.
Book Review: there are coming (get a Umbrella)
Summary: 5 Stars
this is the best book in the world if you want to know how to defeat a oncoming Zombie hord. ok so maby there are not that many of us but for those who are enlightend but still for thse who arnt it is still a amazingly story. I can just hope thast he bings out more of the sameBook Review: Gripping and compelling and utterly believable
Summary: 5 Stars
The premise of the book is that the author has written the official UN report on the Zombie War, but complained that the facts and figures presented were just too large and too horrific for people to grasp. They needed to read the human story that made up this vast array of horror, but this wasn't allowed in an official report. It was suggested that he go and write a book of his own, and World War Z is the result.
This back story is only the first indication of the thought that's gone into this; from the first infections in rural China, through the global panic, the turning of the tide and the final resolution, the story is told through personal interviews with people who were `there'. This means ordinary people, camping in northern Canada or escaping from their flat in Kyoto, Japan; through military personnel, US pilots or Chinese sub-mariners; to the people making the decisions such as the new Director of Strategic Resources in the US, or the author of the infamous Orange Plan in South Africa, which provided the blueprint for the survival of the species.
As there would be under the circumstances, people refer to other incidents around the world, some of which we have already read an account of, so the whole thing hangs together far better than a series of disparate accounts might indicate, and they're ordered to reflect the overarching progress of the war.
But it's the detail that really makes this so utterly compelling. Brooks has obviously done most of the groundwork in his The Zombie Survival Guide, but this is a brilliant realisation of that theory. The progression of what happens, what people try, what works and what doesn't; such as the failure of cutting-edge weapons technology, leading to the mothballing of the US's combat aircraft (which cost too much money for too few kills) and people adopting tried and tested medieval weapons, walking around with Samurai swords or claymores at their sides; all is brilliantly laid out here in fascinating and utterly absorbing detail.
If one suspends disbelief and accepts the premise that the dead can actually rise up from the grave, everything in this book is completely and utterly, frighteningly believable.
Of course, we know the dead can't rise up from the grave. . . can they?!
Book Review: Real People
Summary: 5 Stars
At first I was a little wary at the idea of a "real" Zombie story but my fears were completely assuaged. This book was just fantastic.
It may sound strange but this book doesn't read as a Zombie War book. Okay it does... but it doesn't... Ugh. Basically these are stories about people, the horror they face and how they deal (or don't deal). Yes there is real world commentary but there isn't a huge amount and you can ignore it. You're reading a work of fiction after all. There are all kinds of stories about people from all walks of life. Some bits are longer than others and some you wish would just go on forever. There's so much potential to pick just one of the many characters and write an entire novel based on their stories... and I hope he does. It's a zombie war story with something for everyone.
Also... dude... there's a warrior nun.