World War Z by Max Brooks
Published in 2006
Published by Three Rivers Publishing a subsidiary of Random House
Score 3 out of 5 stars
Boy, this one is kind of hard for me to talk about. See World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a very popular book; one that has ushered in the zombie craze of the past few years. Zombies themselves have always had a cult following. I mean what is scarier than trying to defeat the one thing that you can’t escape? Death. Most of us think of zombies and they automatically think of the films of the legendary George A Remero, such as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead but in the past decade we’ve be inundated with both remakes of the first two films, as well as films like 28 Days Later, and 28 Weeks Later, both of which I love.
The book itself acknowledges these films, as well as many other as the authors other work, The Zombie Survival Guide, it is done in the way of a periodical interview; where Brooks showcases his talent to write in many voices, truth be told I would love to see more from this author; flaws of the book aside. The fictitious account ranges from the funny to the disturbing leaving the breath laughing at the stupidity of some of these people and appalled at some of the actions the characters take to just survive, I truly can tell you, that if you read this you will have to look at yourself in the mirror and go: “would it be worth it, could I do that to my fellow man?” I did this many times during the book especially during the scenes of cannibalism and filicide. Then again I cringe at the harm of a child so, yeah it’s a rather touchy thing for me.
The book is also a satire of sorts, pointing out just how isolated we in America actually are. The book shows a stark contrast of the fact that many other countries help each other out and yet we seem to be the only ones doing anything by ourselves. One of the most stinging scenes takes place in the interview of a Cuban who describes the mass exodus of not only former Cubans, but a lot of American citizens during the great panic, which were the first few months of the ordeal. The curious thing about this book is the fact that the first cases that are reported are actually in Asia (China and Japan to be exact). As a matter of fact I was rather surprised at how the book handled the Japanese solution, though in truth I shouldn’t of been.
So you may be asking me; if you’re giving this book such praise why the score of a three? Simple really, while the plot is good, the writing is above par, and it is over all enjoyable, it seems to reach a dead stop in the last third of the book. During the section called Around
the World and Above; it seems to crawl for pages and pages when in actuality it’s only about one or two pages. Then, it seems to rush towards its conclusion. It feels like Brooks was reaching the end of his contracted time and decided to just scrawl an ending to the book where as he really wanted to carry it on or something. Also it has some major plot holes, like never really explaining how a blind man can become a person who cuts trees, now you may say I’m being nit picky but in truth it seems like he wants us to believe it’s all done because of the heightened senses one can have with being blind. Maybe if he had been born blind that would work, but he discusses that he wasn’t and so I just can’t see it. There is also no explanation of what the disease actually is, or why and how it operates in the human body. Granted the book is only set a decade after the ordeal but you would figure they would have a few scientists to discuss what they’ve found. All we get in that vein is a man who creates a placebo drug and the government going ‘we don’t know’, I was a little dissatisfied with that aspect.
All in all, would I suggest it? Yeah, it is entertaining and brings to light some things about zombies we might not know, it’s just you have to bear through a crunching halt in the midst of the book. Which can very well kill it for you; it almost did for me and a friend who read it. Flaws aside, I would recommend it especially for those curious about how zombies got so damned popular. Many say it was the film Shaun of the Dead, which I think was the spark, but this was the book that just set it ablaze.
