this book is about zombies the same way the bible is about god. they are mostly background actors who are the reason other characters do what they do and occasionally they will rarrrr in and kill a bunch of people because they cant help it, but mostly they are an invisible presence, always to be feared but never given a voice.

this whole book takes place after the zombies have already destroyed most of the world and is a collection of the testimonials of hundreds (?) of different characters detailing their experiences with the zombie outbreak, and how they have survived. because of this, there arent really any action scenes, or any immediate terror. this book is more about politics and global concerns and human nature and dissatisfaction with the way the government handles natural disasters and (im gonna say it, im gonna say it) the zeitgeist (woohoo) than it is about man-eating corpses. it takes into account so many different aspects of post-zombie experience that i never would have considered like what will the actors do now? and what happens if a zombie gets on board your boat? and how will this affect the rest of the food chain? very multi-faceted, if not what i was expecting.

also interesting: the role of castles in a zombie holocaust, and the underground tunnels in paris: unsafe. so for people like alfonso, who do not enter a room without first considering their escape routes should zombies attack, this could give some interesting perspectives about what may have been overlooked, and provide some good food for thought. brains are for thought. brains are zombie food. you do the math.

uh-oh - book avalanche... maybe more later...

come to my blog!

This book is not a novel. You learn very little about the characters (even the narrator) and cannot follow them from story to story. There's no common thread, no arc, etc. It's a hodgepodge. For many of you, this is all you need to know about this book.

If you're looking for a great zombie NOVEL, my favorite is Cryonic: A Zombie Novel

I suppose there are parallels between the book and the movie in the sense that both are disjointed. It's too big a story to tell and to be done properly Brooks should have written a door stopper of a novel.

That said, he did piece together an interesting scenario: a world where humans have fought back against the zombies and won. This aspect is shown at the end of the film, as they elude to the inevitable sequel, and it's actually the most interesting part of the book, that is:

- how did they fight and how'd they win
- what challenges did they face
- in what ways were they no match for the zombies

That third bullet is an aspect I have the most difficulty with as there's so much of "bombs didn't work on the zombies" type of statements from those the narrators interviewed. Call me crazy, but if you drop a big 'ole bomb on a zombie hord there aren't going to be many "walking" dead around after that.

I suppose this book's format will appeal to some people, as many seem to be OK with what he's done, but it's such a huge disappointment when you were expecting a novel and don't get one.

The book actually has a decent start with the story of patient zero and the images of zombies grabbing ankles from beneath the depths of a flooded city, but it goes downhill quickly from there.

It's really a chore to read because the stories are so short that they don't allow you to connect with the characters. I have a feeling if Brooks hadn't had so much success with his Zombie Survival Guide that publishers would have turned their nose up at the structure of this book and made him rewrite it.

At the same time, Brooks and his publisher have made quit a bit of coin on this one so who can blame them?

Some stories provide enough detail to suck you in and get good (that is just before the end on you abruptly), but others are what I call Brooks' bastards because he gives them so little attention you wonder why they are in there at all.

There's also one story that despite being long is incredibly boring about a stolen Chinese submarine that takes up enough pages to account for several other stories. Definitely an err in judgment there.

With no one to root for and no characters to follow, you'll find yourself not caring whether you open the book back up or not. To me, this is the ultimate sin any book can commit. To call this the best zombie book ever written, etc. etc. is so far off the mark I can't even tell you.

If any of what I'm saying is speaking to you I wouldn't spend your money on the book as it will surely disappoint.

ZOMG!

The first time I ever saw that chat acronym my brain immediately registered zombie. Is that weird? I mean, I figured out pretty quickly that the acronym is nothing more than a joke, a mere play on words (so to speak) made at the expense of lazy n00bs whose left fingers slip off the shift key in an attempt to type, “OMG!” But somehow that initial association has stuck with me, as even now when I see someone type it (and usually it’s Ceridwen, Queen of Internet Memes, doing it ironically), I think of the undead. Or when I’m walking alone at night and hear a scraping shuffle and a familiar guttural moan, and some cold, rotting fingers fall lazily onto my left shoulder, my immediate reaction is never anything short of an instinctually exclaimed, “ZOMG!”

Shudder.

So yeah, this rating is no accidental slip of the Apple trackpad; World War Z really is 4-star material. Instead of presenting a been-there-done-that narrative wherein a group of protagonists fall prey to a zombie epidemic, whose lives change with shifting priorities, whose outlook becomes fundamentally survivalist, and who ultimately learn to cope with their situation and depend on themselves and each other to combat the swarms of undead infesting their world, Max Brooks takes a different tack. Here, we get Bolaño-style interviews with key political and military figures from across the globe who are involved in the conflict, along with individual accounts of those who have survived the epidemic. It is a cross-sectional human-interest look at what occurred at the onset of the epidemic, who failed to heed the warning signs and why, who was responsible for its spread and how, and what the world did—both on a grand scale as well as in Joe the Plumber’s backyard—to tackle it.

And tackle it they do. Essentially a “current events” book, this is not meant to project the possibilities of a distant future. It is the here and now of a planetary disaster with painstaking attention paid to the details of not only the epidemic’s spread, but also to the practical logistics encountered on the path to its defeat. The stories are short, but effective. And like Bolaño’s interviews, there is a uniformity in their voice (even with interviewees hailing from different countries), which could be seen as a failure on Brooks’s part, but it nonetheless worked for me. Brooks has a lot to say in this novel, from opinions on American foreign policy to a belief in the indefatigable spirit of humanity, and—ZOMG!—he says it well.

Four and a half stars.

There was a time when I was saturated with the subject of zombies. Apparently, everything was about the same thing: books, comics, series and TV... but seen in perspective, I realize that I have read little on the subject. Recently my reading friends (to whom I am very grateful for the suggestion) insisted that this novel that I just finished was really worth it. I had seen the movie and I liked it, but they told me that it covers only a small part of the novel.

So I got to work and... what a magnificent novel! Truly fascinating how it addresses the issue on a global level, without overlooking any human aspect about how such an incredible thing should be faced if it were to happen. This is one of the things I like most about science fiction - or the fantasy genre if you prefer -: that the author offers us a great imaginative and speculative display about something that will never happen; that is, in principle the only real purpose of it is the enjoyment of the reader, something that of course the author achieves amply.

Max Brooks offers us an outstanding novel on the theme popularized by the film "The Night of the Living Dead" by George A. Romero (there were previous movies but without the apocalyptic tone such as I Walked with a Zombie by Jacques Tourneur, to say one that I have already watched).

So, if it needed to be said because I assume most of you have already read it, WWZ is a very good read, a book with great evocative power about how we human beings could react to a global catastrophe.

Note: consulting Max Brooks' biography, I was surprised to learn that he is the son of great Mel Brooks himself (Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs).

Zombies don't feature prominently in my reading life. Why, I'm not sure. You would think that someone who adores vampires would like zombies, too, wouldn't you? I find them creepier for some reason, perhaps because they can't be reasoned with. I mean, zombies and vampires are both animated corpses, but you can talk with a vampire and make a deal. No relationship is possible with a zombie.

This is an interesting book because of its structure: a series of “eye witness accounts,” arranged chronologically through the war and from all around the world. Living in pandemic times as we do, it is easy to identify lots of the behaviours demonstrated here. It's a clear eyed commentary about our seeming human inability to get along with one another and to cooperate. The situation has to be very extreme to overcome our long-held prejudices and bigotries. It might have felt choppy, but the consistency of the interviewer keeps things on track. I could identify with him. There's also a fundamental reorganization of work life. Executives, consultants, motion picture makers, and their ilk are suddenly worthless and new and/or undocumented immigrants who can fix things and know valuable skills are now on the top of the heap. It's a shock to the system for those who used to run things.

There were some particularly well realized entries, I thought. I particularly enjoyed the Japanese submarine crew who finagled their families onto the submarine and hid out at sea, dodging their own government as well as zombies. Then there were the dog trainers and their canine partners. True devotion to duty and each other. The female resupply pilot who goes down in zombie territory and makes it out with support from a woman on her radio (was she real?).

Much more enjoyable than I expected. Poor Iceland, here's hoping they got stabilized eventually!

Book Number 467 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project

This book was initially recommended to me by several people in the office and since I love zombies and apocalyptic themes, well, I was pretty excited. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations and I struggled to finish it. (I'm going to write this review under the assumption that the reader has some inkling about the story and how it's constructed.)

There are two issues that killed it for me. Firstly, most of the characters had the same--or similar--voice. Of course this is partly to do with the fact that the voices all originate from the mind of one individual, the author. Also, the more journalistic/interview approach to constructing the narrative limits how much color the author can impart on any given character. Q and A is inherently dry, no matter how exciting the events described are intended to be. This is a minor gripe, though, and one that can be lived with.

A more serious complaint, however, is that this book can be seen as completely lacking any and all dramatic tension that a person (or, me) expects from a survival horror-themed story. The primary draw--the zombie war and how humanity survived--is such a compelling hook, but it's told...by the people who survived. As in, past tense, as in we are left with their impressions of things that happened to them. Basically, then, the story devolves into an excercise in basic exposition: "And then this happened, and then that happened." And so the author is free to weave his story without any pesky things like character development, story arcs, plotting, and personal details that are shown and not told. It seems to me like an extraordinarily easy (maybe even lazy) way to tell a story.

One other minor point: For me, accounts of survival when the victims are real have meaning that allows them to transcend the limitations described above. WW2 Holocaust survivors' accounts, for example, can take your breath away. The difference is, of course, that they were real events that happened to real people.

Since all the classic storytelling elements are dispensed with, we're basically left with the author's views on our current world, particularly and naturally, the wars and our culture(s). However, it's my view that there are dozens of books written about these subjects already; books that haven't needed to sex the discussion up with a horde of shambling undead.

So, in summary, if I'm going to read an apocalyptic recounting of the end of civilization as we know it, I want to read about people in real time, struggling to survive, not being told how people surivived after it was over.

(I realize, though, that it's all a matter of taste, as I know half a dozen people whose views I respect that absolutely loved this book.) :D

Why do I keep devouring this ?

The world-building carries a delicious Cold War flavour, with Russia harking back to a mixture of an Orthodox Empire & the Soviet Union, while the USA re-launches the "Arsenal of Democracy".

Every sentence carries a human tragedy, once you start picturing it. The spectrum of experiences from both high & low are carefully crafted from analog reactions to civil war, famine & pandemics: the naked profiteering, the political cover-ups & border closings... offset by sacrifice & altruism.

The cast of characters is well-chosen ; their experiences partly overlap across the war. To show not only the military counterattack which would tilt the balance to victory (still followed by decades of sweeping) ... but also the continued helplessness of isolated civilian populations, which seems to have been forgotten post-war, such as the Catacombs of Paris or the 100% suicide rate among radio-operators who kept hearing the transmitted screams from overrun outposts. Some of the 'bad guys', such as the developper of a bogus vaccine or a disgraced CIA agent, survive beyond the reach of justice.

The military dimension stirs the blood with its "the Blue vs the Gray" throwback: a square of riflemen blasting away the zombie hordes to an Iron Maiden soundtrack..WHYYY is this not in the movie, next to 500 bare-chested Maoris charging with Taiahas at the ready & the besiegers of flame-spewing Windsor Castle yielding their battle-axes ?

The deadly epidemic started in China. This time it’s ... zombies.

4.5 stars, rounding up because sheer brilliance.

I'm not, generally speaking, a fan of horror fiction in general or zombie tales in particular, but World War Z popped up on my radar so many times that I finally decided to give it a go. (I checked it out from the library; I wasn't going to stick my neck that far out for this book that I'd pay actual money for it.)

Anyway. World War Z takes the quasi-historical documentary approach to the zombie apocalypse, as a set of loosely-connected interviews gradually builds a picture of humanity's reaction to the zombie infection that quickly spreads around the world. Max Brooks examines the many ways this kind of a disaster would affect us: socially, militarily, psychologically, and more. The lies that government leaders tell their citizens. The lies that people tell themselves. The determination and heroism of some characters that infuses this otherwise depressing story with hope.

It's definitely not your standard zombie-flavored horror story. The horror is as much in the way some people react to the catastrophe (e.g., profiteering) as in the moaning, grasping and biting (a 100% death sentence if you get bit) of the zombie hordes.

Recommended if you're interested in a more analytical approach to the genre. I thought it was fascinating. VERY different from the movie that it inspired.

A wonderful book that I only came across thanks to a dear friend - I would have never imagined that I like a book about zombies! Now, I know that a lot of people would dismiss such a topic as nonsense (I don't, I just expected this topic to be realized better in a movie than in a book), but the way the author told the story was absolutely realistic, thrilling and simply great.
Together with The Zombie Survival Guide a so-called must-read. *thumbs up*
By the way: this is the third time I read the book and it is still exciting. :-)

So I definitely missed the boat on this - both novel and film. i have had a copy of the book in my shelf for a year or so, but wasn't drawn to it. Holiday was an opportunity to read it and leave somewhere or trade it in on a new book.

There is no doubt it is topical, with Covid 19 going nuts in the weeks since I returned. There are some interesting parallels, but none too far beyond expectation. (Think origin: China; think the rich barricading themselves in, and trying to impress everyone on SocMed; think widespread panic and fights to buy such inane objects as toilet paper, or cans of tomatoes). The crazy preppers are having a field day proving how right they were, although hopefully the guns and ammo prove unnecessary!

Written in a series of interviews (the oral history part of the title), and loosely categorised into chapters to outline the story. These are titled Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, Home Front USA, Around the World + Above, Total War, and Goodbyes.

Didn't really do it for me, I found the style repetitive, and the bravado and tough talk was not compelling reading for me. I am also not a huge zombie fan, so it isn't a huge surprise.

2.5 stars, rounded to 3.

Isolation in NZ (shutting down non-essential businesses, closing schools, restrictions on travel, restrictions on contact with other people) starts Wednesday, tomorrow being allocated to planning and logistics.
Hope everyone stays safe out there.

I really enjoyed the movie based on this book. However, after reading the book, I have to say that I don’t think the movie IS based on the book! It was a totally different story, presented in the form of a collection of interviews.

I loved the format, especially seeing the new names of countries and regions postwar. The author manages to tell some harrowing stories, maintain a high level of excitement, and even get you a little emotional about the interviewees. The book was definitely so much better this time!

This book was mostly a five-star read, thrilling and well-written. It did get a little slow toward the end, so four stars. Fun read.

Whenever I watch or read an apocalyptic drama I am always really intrigued with what is going on in the rest of the world... well Max Brooks has finally told that story with his oral history of the Zombie War World War Z
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In interviews with survivors a few years after most of the fighting is over the reader gets detailed recollections from around the world of the rise of the Zombies, the 'Great Panic and the fall and rise of humanity. What makes this book even more interesting is Brooks' view on how different countries would react. A truly saga-like endeavour to which he makes an admirable go at. The stories themselves are pretty entertaining with a fair amount new ideas around dealing with and being Zombies. A cracker of a book - 9 out of 12.
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