World Famous Comics: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
By: Max Brooks Publisher: Three Rivers Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Three Rivers Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: October 16, 2007 Release Date: October 16, 2007
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
More like World War Zzzzzzzzz For what started off very unique and intelligent, this book quickly turned into a snore fest. If you're looking for a socio-economic/political breakdown and loose, disjointed story concerning the aftermath of a theoretical zombie war then this is your book! Want a good horror/action novel? Keep browsing.This is like reading the Warren Report but with less likable characters and poor pacing. Too bad, I couldn't have been more disappointed :(
A Tedious Read I found this book to be a very tedious read. (So much so, that I read two other books, in-between) While The Zombie Survival Guide was a funny read, this book was completely opposite. It had its moments, such as what was happening, down in a submarine and up in a space station, however they were few and far between. This may be one of the exceptions where the movie turns out better than the book. . .
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I loved it but it doesn't stop you buying Deathday does it! This is original writing at its best - yes it jumps from one scenario to another without explanation but it does what it says on the tin - And i really liked it - unlike DEATHDAY BY EUGENE BRUCE (No. 23 in the list if you type my name in)which i don't just like I LOVE and you should buy it right now - please - I love you America!
Good 'historical' book on a Zombie outbreak As others have said, this book is written from the point of view of a reporter interviewing survivors of "World War Z" which was a battle of zombies vs humans. Unlike many/most Zombie movies which focus on a few people trying to survive such an outbreak, this book covers just about every location on earth to some extent in the stories related.
For the most part, the book is well done. The interviews are arranged chronologically so that it creates a coherent narrative of the events. One minor issue I had was that since I read this over the course of a week, I didn't realize that some earlier interviews were broken into multiple sections throughout the book. It would have been nice to have a '... Interview continued with " type of comment to help the reader reconnect with the previous interview.
One other niggle I had is that the various people interviewed didn't really stand out from each other much. One or two had 'memorable' voices, but most of the rest 'sounded' pretty much the same. It's certainly not easy to create separate voices for characters, and when they primarily speak in 'monologoue' I'm sure it's even harder to do.
That said, it's a very good book. It feels as though it's a historical record, and provides enough details in cases to satisfy those who want a touch of the grisly and disturbing, but usually these moments are brief and certainly not horribly graphic most of the time.
Recommended.
Solid Let me start by saying that anyone who writes a fiction piece that deals with zombies in a serious way is a champion in my book.
With that said, World War Z was a solid sci-fi piece. I liked the medium he used to tell his story, which was a series of first hand accounts from zombpocolypse survivors. It sort of had the feel and flow of similar (non-fiction though) accounts from people who took part/survived the Vietnam War and World War 2. In that the accounts dealt not only with combating the enemy, but also with the politics/social situations that lead to/resulted from the conflict. I also like the fact that WWZ wasn't American-centric and dealt with other nationalities pretty extensively.
What bugged me about WWZ though is that many of his "interviewies" spoke in a very similar way to one another so that it was hard for me to suspend disbelief that they all weren't written by the same person. Also, and this is a totally subjective thing, I'm just not convinced that "slow-zombies" could produce the type of chaos WWZ describes. I've thought about this long and hard as a zombie fan and I seriously doubt that they could bite enough people to turn 99% of the world into zombies. Now, if the zombie-virus was an airborne thing or if the zombies were fast, now thats a different story!
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