World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Book Review: The Zombies Have Arrived!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading (and loving) the Zombie Survival Guide, I didn't think that there was any way Brooks could outdo himself. For the first time in my life, I was wrong. World War Z is a wonderful combination of horror, fantasy, and even a little political satire. For me, the best parts of the "Survival Guide" were the historical accounts of the zombie risings. Now Brooks correctly focuses on this strength and gives us an entire account of a zombie world war through the eyes of ordinary people. My only complaint is that the damn thing was too short! Book Review: Out-Romeros Romero
Summary: 5 Stars
I love zombie movies - specifically, the Old Testament of zombie movies, the original Romero trilogy. Zach Snyder's Dawn remake was pretty awesome too, 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead were worthy additions to the canon, not to mention the ongoing excellence of Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead graphic novel series.
Now we can add Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks) to the pantheon of great zombie contributors. Actually, Brooks already had the credit for penning the Zombie Survival Guide a few years back, which instructs you where to go, what to do and how to deal with the undead in the event of a zombie plague. In World War Z, Brooks takes the post-Romero procedures he outlined there and fleshes them out into a full history book, written sometime in the future in the aftermath of a full zombie apocalypse. And it is a stunning piece of work.
This isn't just a piece of pulp fiction, splatter or horror - it's part history book, part sociological study, part political science piece, and part military history geekfest, all wrapped up in the kind of post-civilization numbness that makes the aforementioned works so compelling, so terrifying and ultimately, so human.
Written from the perspective of a world-roving journalist, we hear about the initial outbreak in China and the failure of the world's political bodies to prevent its spread. Then it blooms into a full worldwide epidemic, first as rumors and then as your neighbors eating each other in the streets. After the book's Great Panic - featuring epic set pieces that are just mind-boggling in their chaos - we read how individuals around the world survived the end of the world, whether as part of military groups, teeming crowds of refugees, or even on their own.
I could go on and on about how fascinating this book was, how many jaw-dropping moments and ancedotes and stories he's crafted, how may brilliant and intriguing details, buzzwords and unique cultural ripple effects Brooks has created and worked in, but I won't. All I'll say is that here, he's made the single biggest contribution to zombie fantasy (even more enduring than ever, the genre that simply won't die) since Romero created this world with the original Night of the Living Dead.
Book Review: World War Zzzzzzzzzz....
Summary: 2 Stars
I wanted to enjoy this book, I really did. I purchased it along with Cormac Mccarthy's "The Road" (an infinitely superior novel.) - it was offered as a package deal.
My main complaint regarding the novel - the interviewees all speak with the same voice, that is to say, the Cuban character sounds like the American character sounds like the Japanese character sounds like the Australian character sounds like....
There is very little, if any, use of the individual speakers native tongue, no phrasing, no regional dialect, no idiomatic flavor or any variation to the characters "voices." They all "sound" the same.
I assume that all the interviewees speak English as a first or second language (the interviewer never mentions the services of an interpreter.) - yet, the voice of an Indian character is indecipherable from that of an American.
To be fair, I should mention that I am not particularly fond of the horror genre, my tastes run more along the lines of - David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac Mccarthy, Jonathan Lethem, Richard Powers, Don DeLillo, post and post post-modern fiction.
I also did not find the book to be creepy or scary in any way. I would highly recommend Mccarthy's, "The Road" if you are interested in apocalyptic fiction. The writing is stunning, lyrical and incredibly bleak and much more horrifying than anything to be found within the pages of "World War Z"
The Road is as brilliant and important as it is bleak and depressing. It should be required reading for anyone concerned with our increasingly periled existence. Mccarthy has done such an amazing job of envisioning such a nightmare that at times I felt compelled to put the book down, pick up my beautiful little three month old, Lily, and step outside to reinstill in my mind a sense of life and color. It is that bleak and depressing at times, but underneath all the detritus lies an oddly uplifting parable. At it's core is a heartbreaking love story between parent and child - and who cannot relate to that?
Book Review: irreverent satire
Summary: 5 Stars
This tome serves two purposes as a cautionary book for humans in future encounters against the Zombie horde and to provide an "oral history" of the global war on terrorism in which the insurgent living dead came within a bite or two of winning. The CIA offers a slam dunk proof that the Zombie revival started in China as a result of the government campaign of "health and safety" sweeps. Other nations either built great wailing or "Berlin" walls to hide behind or were overwhelmed. Though London was overrun, intrepid Queen Elizabeth remained in the city as a rallying point insisting to bring it on from inside the safe green zone walls of Windsor Castle. In North America, the president used the Zombie invasion as proof that if you don't stop them over there, you will have to stop them here (impeccable logic as where else could you stop them). Keep in mind they are slow so look into their eyes, but not too close; for it they cannot blink due to desiccated or is that desecrated eyelids, then off with their heads.
WORLD WAR Z is irreverent and satirizes the pompous stands of politicians as much as the Zombie movie moment. Fans of both will enjoy this fun oral history that lampoons anything and everything from "bird flu" denial to the Bush Effect (formerly known as the Pygmalion Effect) in which you make a claim, take action, and when your original assumption proves false insure the only option is to stay the course to prevent Zombies from ironically being the last living left standing.
Harriet Klausner
Book Review: very good, but he forgot the PRC !
Summary: 5 Stars
As a vet of the zed wars I freally enjoyed this book. he seems to have acess to a lot of interesting people. Each interview made me want to have an entire book on the subject's story. I was really interested in seeing what otghers had done.
I am disapointed that he seems to have totally forgotten the stand of the Boston Colleges in the People's Republic of Cambridge. I know evryone thinks the great eastern cleasing was so cool (probably due to that darn mini-series about it) but there is nothing to compare about the evacuation of Boston and the organization of the Harvard/MIT/BU brigade that kept the PRC safe, and operating at a high level of civilization until "relieved" years later. No mention that we pushed out and cleared the area out to the 128 corridor by ourselves- using the road network as 'firebreaks."
And by the way, I was there when the army drove up the old Mass Pike and good old professor Halle made his famous statement "Welcome to civilization." he actually continued with "did you miss us?" but no one every quotes that.
But I guess in such a big event, some stories, no matter how important, will fall by the wayside.
but still, a very good and important book. Highly recomended.