World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War | 
| Author: Max Brooks
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  383 reviews
Sales Rank: 765
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307346617
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780307346612
ASIN: 0307346617
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
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Product Description
“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War
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.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
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
“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers
“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
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 378 more reviews...
 Where Were You When the Zombies Attacked? May 15, 2008
I understand why so many people loved this book, but it didn't entirely work for me. The central conceit - that the book is a series of interviews with key survivors of the Zombie Wars - is good, but it makes for a very episodic read.
In it's effect, the book is more like a collection of short stories than a single coherent narrative. Yes, all the interviews are telling the same "story," but the characters and settings never overlap - you get scores of unrelated narrators sharing their own tales of horror.
Thus, there's no build up of suspense or tension over the three-hundred plus pages of this book. Each "short story" has its own dramatic arc. Some work better than others. But, with rare exception, you could delete any one of the chapters in this book without affecting the others, or, conversely, you could add twenty more chapters without changing the outcome. A lot if it is interesting, but it all feels kind of arbitrary.
Lastly, without continuing characters, there's really no one to root for or against. You never get emotionally connected to anyone - the stories can involve you, but they almost never move or inspire or touch you. Compare this with a book like Stephen King's The Stand - which also told dozens of apocalyptic stories, but linked them together in one coherent narrative with consistent characters, and you'll see how much less emotionally involving Brook's book is.
Still, this is a good, gory read. If you like horror, a lot of these stories are morbidly fun with nightmarishly memorable moments. Just keep your expectations low-to-moderate. Max Brooks definitely has talent, and I look forward to reading what he does next.
 Warning.. May 15, 2008
Warning.. if you read or listen to audio of this book, you may accidentally think all that is written really happened! That is how well this is all written and 'documented'. A very good edition to any undead lovers collection.
Nearly Perfect May 12, 2008
This book is nothing short of brilliant. Told as an oral history very reminiscent of many history books I have read, it recounts the raise of the zombies, their taking over of the world, and the various ways in which the living push the zombies back and reclaim their countries. The one thing about this book I like is that it is, for the most part, believable. In many books dealing with alternate history, historical fiction, or fictitious history the biggest downfall is their overall premise or supposition on how events would occur are for the most part in-congruent with what would most likely take place, or at least implausible with the setting they describe. World War Z doesn't suffer from this, and while it takes the world and turns in in ways I wouldn't see coming, I kept thinking "yea, that seems right". For example, the way the chaplains turned zombie occupied Russia into a religious based country reminiscent of Tzarsist Russia I found fascinating and completely believable.
The book doesn't stay with any one character or place, and instead jumps from person to person covering all levels of the conflict from Geo-political, tactical, strategic, personal, with the characters being as varied as they could possibly be. Some are unlikable others you root for, much as you would with any random selection of people. The book also ends with a follow-up on a majority of the characters introduced giving you a "where are they now" look back.
The thing that amazed me most is that this book is written by Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks. He also wrote The Survivalists Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypses, which is more tongue and cheek then World War Z and would seem more the Brooks style. I say that not to take anything away from Max. He is a talented writer, very creative, and has written the best zombie fiction I have read yet, and being the connoisseur of zombie fiction I have read a lot.
 Interesting idea, well produced May 9, 2008
Overall very good, great narrations, I'd suggest it to anyone who liked Night of the Living Dead or 28 Days Later.
A unique approach to horror, thus very compelling May 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Seems the horror genre has been bereft of writing talent for the past 20 years. There has not been much I've found compelling. I haven't finished the majority of horror books I've picked up....and most of the ones I did read completely I finished begrudgingly.
Not World War Z. Structuring the book as a series of unconnected interviews, Max Brooks weaves together an engrossing picture of a world infested with Zombies and how individuals coped with the growing horror. Brooks use of the unconnected interview works well for this type of storytelling. An example is the beach in India packed with people scrambling to get out to the boats and away from the terror among them. The chaos and desperation is painted so vividly that one can imagine the horror of standing on that beach.
I do agree that because the book is a series of short interviews, each character is done in a shallow manner...and thus Brooks falls back on the occasional stereotype in order set each character apart in a distinct manner. There is also the occasional clanger, as when the Italian starts using football references.
Another drawback is the politically correct slants to much of the characters. We hear much of sexism, racism, stupid Americans, glorious Cubans, etc. This approach starts to weigh down the narrative after a while with it's sophomoric Freshman Comp 101 style faux-intellectualism.
This is an interesting book. A great format coupled with good writing. Would have been much better if he ditched the snotty socio-political agenda.
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