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: A Survivor of the War
Summary: 5 Stars
As a survivor of the bloody massacare, that is now referred to as World War Z, I highly recomend Max Brooks history of the conflict. It happenend much faster than we could have ever imagined and lost so many people to the rampages of the maurading zombies. It was a total government failure on all levels, that led to an escalating international conflict. With all the conspiracy theories swriling around the government and its actions in the war, its good to hear a voice of reason in Max Brooks. Now I am not trying to be all political here, but we need answers, and Max dug deep and heres the information he dug up.
Now many are accusing Max Brooks of insensitivity, that this book is too soon after the conflict, and many people are still suffering the results of the devastating war, but I say it's not. Max is just trying to keep the masses informed on the conflict, and letting us know the Truth!
I lost several family memebers in the War, including my pet ferret, which was not a preety sight, when I had to decapitate him. I also lost several siblings, and also my lawyer, which, come to think of it wasn't too bad of thing to happen. I am speaking as one who had direct impact from the Zombies, and I see myself as qualified to speak on bahalf of all zombie sufferers.
Max Brooks book is highly recomended, and is possibly one of the greatest and most important realeases on factual history this century, at least since The Da Vinci Code.
Book Review: Wish I'd Thought of It
Summary: 5 Stars
Not the best zombie book I've ever read, but certainly the most original. This takes the view I've always wanted a book or movie to take: the global view. What does a zombie apocalypse look like as a global phenomenon? How does it develop? What are the political and military responses? These were the places where this book went. Whereas most zombie tales focus on a small group of people and only give glimpses of what's going on in the rest of the world, this one is all about the rest of the world. Fantastic. The "oral history" approach is also very original!Book Review: 3.5 stars: Pure waste-of-time pulp will be a fun ride for zombie fans
Summary: 4 Stars
Max Brooks, son of director Mel and author of the Zombie Survival Guide, wrote this follow-up in the form of a series of interviews with survivors of the Zombie War. Influenced (by Brooks' own admission) by Studs Terkel's legendary "Work," there is not a tremendous cohesion in the narrative, but in my opinion about 75-80% of the interviews are good reading form any fan of Romero's zombie world.
I personally would have liked some "historical" filler narration by the author, to paint a bigger picture of how the world dealt with the zombies. However, my main disappointment is that he makes absolutely no effort to tell you where the zombie virus came from in his undead world. Romero, of course, offered outright proven explanation in "Night" that a probe from Venus had accidentally brought a spore back which reanimated the dead. Brooks' novel begins with a person describing the first outbreak as already having become world news, but never tells you how (or where...was it African or China, not sure). I guess I just like explanations for my zombie outbreaks!
Some of the narratives are very neat, particularly ones that describe how people flocked, banded or fought together to fight the scourge. The pilot who went down in Louisiana and had to trudge back to I-10 to get picked up, the mercenary bodyguard who hired himself out to a group of bitchy rich survivors in the Hamptons (apparently, though never named, containing Jon Stewart and Paris Hilton), the story of the Battle of Yonkers and the Chinese nuclear sub that became a time capsule of survivors and watched how the face of the planet's oceans became a new warzone, among others, stand out as great zombie stuff. Towards the end, I thumbed over a couple of entries that seemed to be merely the author's interest in military hardware: the Aussie space station satellite workers (way too full of technical satellite jargon), the combat K-9 entry (boring: just read like a military K-9 program how-to) and a couple of the entries that were riddled with imaginary Army hardware terms and exactly how the scopes on new rifles worked seemed a waste to me.
As far as that ubiquitous zombie aspect: gore. Really none to speak of, short of some blood and some rather ugly decomposed zombies. Don't worry if you're squeamish.
The best part, I think, was Brooks' good handle on current (meaning NOW) world affairs and how they might affect nations' response to an undead apocalypse. He defintely seems (IMO..and I'm in the political prediction field) to have pinned down modern US, Israeli, Russian, Chinese, South African and Mexican foreign and domestic policies. His explanation for why the US was so hard hit and nearly collapsed- the fact that we were so overextended from our terrorism wars and lack of presence of National Guard- seems right on.
Enjoyable zombie fare.
Book Review: Possibly the best Literary Z Fic Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
Having read the Zombie Survival Guide, I dropped this into my Amazon shopping cart before it even hit the shelves. I was pleased as punch when it arrived the other day, and I couldn't put it down.
I've read a lot (a *lot*) of zombie fiction. Frankly, most of it has a good story to tell, but much of the story gets lost in bad grammar and horrible (sometimes nonexistent) editing. Alas, most Z-fic never rises (ha-ha) above the level of fan-fic.
Then along comes Max-- uh, Mister Brooks if you please. Here is a writer worthy of being called "Author." Good enough to be published by a big house, and in hard cover, nonetheless!
As the title of the book says, it is an "oral history" of the zombie war, told to the chronicleer some number of years after the war has been "won" (at a horrible cost of lives). It chronicles the years from the first outbreaks, through the heart of the war and into the cleanup years, all told from different points of view.
Throughout the book, Brooks does an excellent job keeping consistency in his story, and an even better job hopping from character to character in each tale. Each character has a distinct voice and personality.
Mister Brooks doesn't go over the top with respect to gore in this novel, so if you're looking for a munchfest like "Day by Day Armageddon" (another fine book, though not quite on literary par with this one), or "The Rising" this isn't the book for you. If you're looking for an intelligent read within the zombie genre, however . . . this is undoubtedly the book you should buy.
Book Review: I loved this book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Outstanding and gripping. "World War Z" has the most original mode of exposition I've encountered since reading "Time's Arrow", by Martin Amis, but don't let that stop you. At first I was concerned that it might be dry or too episodic for plot development and a decent set of characters, but I've found that the book is filled with good guys, bad guys, heroes, scoundrels, and most of all, human guys (and gals) trying to cope with things gone really, really bad.
It was not my original plan, but I sat down to read it on a Saturday afternoon and did not quit until I reached the end, in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
A minor but charming detail I love is that the cover flaps and the quotes on the back do not deviate from the assertion that the text is "An Oral History of the Zombie War."
I never got around to reading "The Zombie Survival Guide," but I'm going to remedy that as soon as I can find a copy.