World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

In WORLD WAR Z, I was prepared for a video-game-syle actioner mutated to the printed page, a perfect, quick thriller for the Halloween Season.

I was NOT expecting the most well-crafted, original and affecting fiction I've come across in some years.

Imagine a supernaturally-inclined Tom Clancy with a better ear for dialogue, a soul and an editor.

Author Max Brooks plays the Zombie Game without breaking any rules, yet attacks the material from an utterly fresh angle. The legions of undead (and they are LEGION; characters frequently describe "Zack swarms" extending seemingly to the horizon) lurch mainly through the background. The focal point here is on the living and how they coped as their world faced an unrelenting apocalypse.

Brooks' extensive research into international military might, zen philosophy, Asian pop culture, middle America, world current events and the psychology of terror creates a tale that bumps again and again into our bubble of everyday existence.

This is a seriously scary read! Also: fantastically realistic, achingly sad and funny as hell...the hell that might be shambling up your street this very night.

Cheers.

Loved it, even more-so than the survival guide.
Would recommend to anyone who likes anything(especially zombies).

This book is alright not many stories stick out of my mind. The details are nice it's just to forgettable. I don't remember most of the book and when you think about it, that doesn't make a good book. If a friend has it borrow it but don't buy it. Get this instead: The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead from same author but better

Fun and more FUN!!! - the dead walk - World War Z is written in a different interview format, all of these interviews are with the survivors from the terrible holocaust. It tells the history right from the beggining, the first outbreaks in China, the Great Panic and so on. You will find different characters from all over the world and their experiences of how they survived the war against ZOMBIES.

Gore? Of Course / Fun? Definetly / Scary? 6 out of 10 / Turning Page average = 97% positive.

It's definetly a great book, a no brainer and will give you tons of laughs and excitement during the reading.

I wont go into plot details, just make sure your get this one, you wont regret it.

Cheers.

The book is written as a historical documentary of the war against the zombies, AKA World War Z. It is made up of perhaps 125-150 stories, each focusing on a particular individual. Thruout the individual tales, the larger narrative becomes clear, but because of the manner in which it is told it conveys a sense of realness I've never experienced in any zombie book or movie.

There are numerous individual stories which would make for quite a good movie, but by focusing on some many people of different ages, backgrounds, careers and opinions, it avoids the typical cliches that all zombie movies are forced by design to include. I think this would make an excellent movie but only if it is filmed as a documentary. As I read the book, I was reminded in particular of of the documentaries we've seen in the past few years about 9/11. Some of them have focused on the plane which crashed in PA and the fight of the passengers with the hijackers, but most focus on the day as a whole. The better ones do more then then rehash what happened, with recreations of the terrorists in hotels in Paterson, NJ, they let people tell what they saw, how they felt, and they reacted. It's more about what happened to all of us, then what happened onboard those planes or inside the twin towers.

This is why this book is so successful. Rather then focus on the specific details, we learn how it affected people personally. I would gladly pay $10 to see this movie.