If not for the unfortunate requirements of a human body to eat and sleep, I'd run through this book like a bullet through a zombie brain.
I have no idea what made me delay reading it for so long, but I finally did it. My only regret is I didn't do it sooner.

Had a lot to do, so I picked up the audiobook (I know, I know!). It was a blessing in disguise.
I was more than pleasantly surprised to hear it was narrated by a full cast! Oh, so hyped up! You don't get to read such a book every day. Even amateur fan fiction of any kind gets +1 charisma when read by multiple people.

I belatedly found out this isn't, in fact, the full book. The audiobook was abridged! :shock: :horror:
I loathe such editions. I hate them with a burning passion!
But that was it. Book's number was up and I was gonna read it, whether full or mangled to pieces.

And so I started.
And time flew by.

Full hour later I realized people in coma move more than I do. I sat in the same, expectant, position as when I just started listening. My whole body cramped up. Stretched, filled my bath and jumped right in with my player! Let me tell you - zombie killing has never been so enjoyable :-)

Book starts at the end of The War. The Great War. World War Z. Call it as you want it.

Some people even called it Z War One, inevitably implying Z War Two. Not so fun. Not in the least, judging by those who survived the first one.

Our host, Max Brooks, is actually the one who wrote the initial post-war report. He got a travel stipend, security access, translators, gear - everything one could possibly need to compile such a report - from United Nation's Postwar Commission Report.

But the final edition of the report was cut in half, being too intimate - too many opinions, too many feelings. Clear facts and figures were required, unclouded by the human factor. Cut-down version was accepted as the official report.

Notes remained, however. Lots of them. Lots of interviews. Technological details, social, economic.
So Max decided to write a book and give voice to the history.

All time while listening to the book I though of it as a unique approach to storytelling. Like watching the History channel. You sit, breathe and listen. It's amazing!

The war was over. But it was not an ordinary war. Thanks to testimonies of many people, we get to know what happened in the cities and settlements, rescue, salvage and supply missions, what was going on in the heads of the people in the fields and military HQs.

Max traveled across the globe to talk to people who played an important part in the discovery and fighting the threat. Many stories were told, mostly from subjective point of view, and each one brought us closer to understanding of what it was like to fight the undead during World War Z.

You'll listen to the stories. You'll care for the people telling them. And you'll imagine yourself trying to survive what they did. The book is a masterpiece of a vivid storytelling.

The only real issue I had with it was Eamonn Walker, playing David Allen Forbes in chapter #31. I just could not listen to him. He did well portraying other characters, but this attempt was just trying too hard and as such fell flat on its face. Accent was forced, reading too loud than immediately too quiet. I simply had to read that part from the actual book. His other two characters were very good, though.

Once I finished the book I, naturally, just sat there in awe for a while. It was like I just re-lived the worst disaster in the history of man kind. I actively looked for friends who read the book so I could have a long, long conversation with them. It was THAT good.

I was also informed there's an addition to this abridged edition! World War Z: The Lost Files: A Companion to the Abridged Edition!
Five more hours of previously unrecorded content! 21 Hollywood A-list actors and sci-fi fan favorites performing stories not included in the original abridged edition.

Narrators are the director of Goodfellas, The Departed and Shutter Island - Martin Scorsese, The Walking Dead creator - Frank Darabont, Dr. Octopus - Alfred Molina, Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg, Hawaii Five-O and Heroes' Masi Oka, and most importantly - Firefly and Castle star - and my personal superhero - Nathan Fillion!
Of course, with Max Brooks again - as The Interviewer.

Son of a b-- gun!
I'm so getting this book!

As for the World War Z rating - Pure 5 stars.
For the fans of zombie-genre I just can't recommend this enough.
A must have for any self-respecting fan.

I had three responses to World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Here they are:

Surprised: I didn’t expect to like World War Z at all. I’m not even sure why. I like Brooks’ parents, so that shouldn’t have negatively impacted my expectations. I’ve loved Zombies since first I saw Return of the Living Dead in the movie theatre, so I was predisposed to like this book. So I dunno. But I had low expectations, and they were thoroughly exceeded.

It is a great idea, and Brooks’ total commitment to his mock history was convincing. There were times when I couldn’t help letting my imagination run to a parallel universe where this War had actually happened.

The best part, though, was the places Brooks took his Zombiepocalypse – places only The Walking Dead has even approached. Most Zombielit is about the outbreak. The Walking Dead takes the next step, letting us see what it would be like to be a survivor of the outbreak, what it would be like to live during the Zombie occupation, but Brooks gives us the aftermath. How he hell does the earth rebuild after something like that? Brooks takes a pretty convincing stab at imagining how, and it isn’t pretty, nor is it even all that inspiring. I buy it, though.

Fulfilled: My low expectations didn’t extend to the Zombie violence. Even with the oral history format, I expected gore and grotesquery and nastiness, and I got exactly what I expected. There were even a couple of kick ass violent – and not so violent – superlatives, like the marine-Zombies attacking divers, the madness of Yonkers (a pretty impressive moment, actually), the greed of Breckenridge Scott and his Phalanx, and the Redeker Plan (along with the Redeker Twist – which was my absolute favourite part of the book).

Disappointed: Once Brooks blew apart my low expectations with some strong writing and brilliant ideas, he created a new expectation – and a very high one that he failed to deliver on.

Brooks attempted to make his book a global chronicle of the Zombie War, and he populated World War Z with characters from nations on every continent. By the end of the book, though, they were homogenous. The Japanese folks didn’t sound Japanese. The Russian folks didn’t sound Russian. Everyone sounded American. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Brooks gave in to the temptation to make America and their “great” President the saviours of the human spirit. Yep, the Yankees led the charge to defeat the Zombies, to take the war to the Zacks rather than hiding in their fortresses and embracing safety.

We bought an antique piano today, and we were comparing middle C on our dreadfully out of tune piano and our electronic keyboard. The warbling shred of the antique piano made the kids sad because they wanted to sit down and play, but they knew they couldn’t until the piano is tuned. That sadness is exactly the way I felt about Brooks’ decision to make the USA the heroes of his War, but there’ll be no chance of a tune up to take away my sadness.

On the menu tonight: n  WORLD WAR Zn

Amuse Bouche
Our rich Tartare à la Homo Sapien will astonish you with its hauntingly familiar flavors, its bright and vivid colors, and the truly gamey taste of terror, tears, and trauma. Fresh kill will never appear so carefully arranged and presented: prepare yourself for a buffet that appeases both the palate and the intellect.

Appetizer
A surprisingly hearty summer soup: tantalizing hints of summer flavors frozen solid, then slowly re-animated to surprise the unwary diner. You will literally gasp in amazement as the flavors you thought had come and passed during the colder months rise again to challenge your taste buds! The stew contains a veritable global village of ingredients: you will taste the inscrutable flavors of the mysterious Orient, the refined and subtle tastes of English manor and European castle, the bold and ruthless tang of Mother Russia, and at its core, the zesty essence of woodsy North Americana will serve to keep this dish firmly anchored in the classic Western tradition. This bold starter will act as a bullet straight into your palate’s head!

Entrée
One could perhaps assume that a multi-course, zombified meal will be centered around a choice cut of rare beef steak; our menu will sorely disappoint such traditional diners. Instead we offer as the centerpiece of our prix fixe meal an array of delights that appease not the base emotional senses, but the higher appetites of the intellect! Never fear, diner, your hunger will be truly satiated – but only if you are able to cast aside your yearnings for an old fashioned cheeseburger and partake in a less sensual but perhaps more fulfilling menu. To that end, we offer a buffet of international flavors: taste the crusty unleavened bread of walled Israel, savor the rainbow flavors of a South African duo of rib and grain, relish the fatty riches of Canadian poutine (we understand that Americans will often flee north simply to indulge in this dish!), enjoy a classic sampling of melancholy Japanese swordfish... the world is yours to consume, in a carefully planned and constructed rejoinder that laughs in the face of undead chaos, and shouts: I Am the Decider!

Dessert
For our last dish, we offer you this stunning plate: a downed, half-mad pilot, communicating with phantoms as she hurtles through dense bog and over abandoned freeway, bravely resisting the hungry hands and teeth of the undead!

Wine Pairing
We are proud to offer a new vintage “Max Brooks”, heretofore enjoyed only by ironic survivalists, now available to the world at large.