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World War Z

Discussion in 'Zombie Books' started by fatbrett2, Oct 29, 2011.

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  1. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (by Max Brooks, 2006)

    Anyone who is even remotely interested in zombies MUST read this book. It is a NY Times Bestseller, it won all kinds of awards, and it might be the best peice of zombie media (with the possible exception of TWD) ever produced.

    The book is written in a fictional-journalism style, and set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse that nearly drove humanity to extinction; only a small fraction of the population have survived. Ten years after the last major global power declared their countries clean of zombies, the author is commissioned by what remains of the UN to write a comprehensive report on the entire crisis. What he comes up with is a number of interviews with survivors from around the world, documenting their experiences and their part in fighting back. The UN edits out most of his work, because the report was supposed to be facts, figures, and statistics, not personal histories. The author takes his interiews, compiles them into a book, and publishes it as World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

    The people he interviews come from all walks of life and all corners of the globe. The first is the chinese doctor who tried to treat the first known case of the virus (which is called "Solanum"). There are others with soldiers from the US, Germany, Russia, and Pakistan, mercenaries, a blind ninja, men stranded on the space station for years, random civilians trying to survive, a con man who got rich selling a phony 'cure', political and military leaders from all around the world, etc.

    If you are one of the ones who thinks that zombies could never overwhelm the military, this book may change your mind. Aside from the existence of zombies, everything in WWZ seems plausible. It addresses every aspect of the crisis and it's solution, from military technology to civilian resettlement, from intense combat to restructuring the economy, from international diplomacy to individual perseverance.

    Brooks gives the book tremendous depth and realism by drawing on real-world issues - the environment; the history of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East; Arab-Israeli relations; Indian-Pakistani relations; Chinese-US relations; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and so on.

    While Brooks gives a much more detailed (and slightly different) description of the Solanum virus and its effects in his Zombie Survival Guide, WWZ still gives enough reasonable-sounding information, based on real biology, to make the idea as plasuible as a zombie virus can be.

    Whether or not you have already read the book, you should also consider the audiobook. I know, audiobooks are generally boring, but this one is different. It is done with a full cast, many of whom are great actors, some of whom are just cool to hear - Henry Rollins, Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill, Alan Alda, Rob Reiner, John Turturro, among others. Unfortunately, the audiobook is abridged, but it is still worth hearing. If you don't feel like buying it or finding a pirated copy, it is even available on Youtube, broken into small chunks.

    Available in hardcover, paperback, digital/e-reader, or abridged audiobook.
     
    #1 fatbrett2, Oct 29, 2011
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2011
  2. AVC

    AVC Member

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    I've read about half of this book so far, and i must say I'm not a big fan. It tends to jump all over the place in the early parts, and the journalism-style pretty much prevents any sort of story line, or character building. Sort of a fictional non-fiction.

    Care to give us a quick precis on the ZSG?
     
  3. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    ZSG is up now. WWZ doesn't have an individual story line, it is a compilation of individual stories. The characters are not very important, because all that matters is what they did when the shit hit the fan. The book is inspired by Studs Turkle's Oral History of WWII, and this is how that book reads. The sequence of events is the story, and we do get to follow the arc of that larger story from start to finish. This happened to the whole world, not one little group of people, and he chose to show that by giving a series of individual histories. If you want to follow one group of people, read the TWD comics. This is just its own genre, and it is written in its own style.
     
  4. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    A few words on the plot of WWZ. The book is divided into 8 parts, each dealing with a different stage of the crisis. SOME
     
    #4 fatbrett2, Nov 6, 2011
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2011
  5. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    SOME
     
    #5 fatbrett2, Nov 6, 2011
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2011
  6. Felicia

    Felicia Active Member

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    I loved this book and was so happy when I found out it was being made into a movie. A little leary of Brad Pitt...but whatever, I don't expect it to be as good as the book.
     
  7. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    Agreed. I heard the story follows the lead around the worl trying to get the word out or something, not just a series of flashbacke like it should be.
     
  8. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    I copied and pasted the whole Amazon.com reviews section on this book:

    Editorial Reviews


    From Publishers Weekly
    Brooks, the author of the determinedly straight-faced parody The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), returns in all seriousness to the zombie theme for his second outing, a future history in the style of Theodore Judson's Fitzpatrick's War. Brooks tells the story of the world's desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts "as told to the author" by various characters around the world. A Chinese doctor encounters one of the earliest zombie cases at a time when the Chinese government is ruthlessly suppressing any information about the outbreak that will soon spread across the globe. The tale then follows the outbreak via testimony of smugglers, intelligence officials, military personnel and many others who struggle to defeat the zombie menace. Despite its implausible premise and choppy delivery, the novel is surprisingly hard to put down. The subtle, and not so subtle, jabs at various contemporary politicians and policies are an added bonus. (Sept.)
    Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


    From Booklist
    "The Crisis" nearly wiped out humanity. Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and author of The Zombie Survival Guide, 2003) has taken it upon himself to document the "first hand" experiences and testimonies of those lucky to survive 10 years after the fictitious zombie war. Like a horror fan's version of Studs Terkel's The Good War (1984), the "historical account" format gives Brooks room to explore the zombie plague from numerous different views and characters. In a deadpan voice, Brooks exhaustively details zombie incidents from isolated attacks to full-scale military combat: "what if the enemy can't be shocked and awed? Not just won't, but biologically can't!" With the exception of a weak BAT-21 story in the second act, the "interviews" and personal accounts capture the universal fear of the collapse of society--a living nightmare in which anyone can become a mindless, insatiable predator at a moment's notice. Alas, Brad Pitt's production company has purchased the film rights to the book--while it does have a chronological element, it's more similar to a collection of short stories: it would make for an excellent 24-style TV series or an animated serial. Regardless, horror fans won't be disappointed: like George Romero's Dead trilogy, World War Z is another milestone in the zombie mythos. Carlos Orellana
    Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
    Review


    “An ‘oral history’ of the global war the evil brain-chewers came within a hair of winning. Zombies are among us—turn on your television if you don’t believe it. But, Brooks reassures us, even today, human fighters are hunting down the leftovers, and we’re winning. [His] iron-jaw narrative is studded with practical advice on what to do when the zombies come, as they surely will. A literate, ironic, strangely tasty treat.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)


    “Max Brooks has charted the folly of a disaster response based solely on advanced technologies and brute force in this step-by-step guide to what happened in the Zombie War. He details with extraordinary insight how in the face of institutional missteps and greed, people in unexpected ways achieve unique, creative, and effective strategies to survive and fight back. Brooks’s account of the path to recovery and reconstruction after the war is fascinating, too. World War Z provides us with a starting point, at least, a basic blueprint from which to build a popular understanding of how, when, and why such a disaster came to be, and how small groups and individuals survived.” —Jeb Weisman, Ph.D.,Director of Strategic Technologies, National Center for Disaster Preparedness


    “Possesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone . . . It’s Apocalypse Now, pandemic-style. Creepy but fascinating.”
    - USA TODAY


    “Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies. . . . Will grab you as tightly as a dead man’s fist. Grade: A.”
    - Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick


    “Probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. . . . This is action-packed social-political satire with a global view.”
    - Dallas Morning News


    “Brooks [is] America’s most prominent maven on the living dead. . . . Chilling. . . . It is gripping reading and a scathing indictment of weak responses to crises real and over-hyped.”
    - Hartford Courant


    “A sober, frequently horrifying and even moving account. . . . Brooks has delivered a full-blown horror novel, laced with sharp social and political observations and loads of macabre, gruesome imagery. . . . The real horror of World War Z comes from the all-too-plausible responses of human beings and governments to the menace.”
    - Fangoria

    “A horror fan’s version of Studs Terkel’s The Good War. . . . Like George Romero’s Dead trilogy, World War Z is another milestone in the zombie mythology.”
    - Booklist


    “Brooks commits to detail in a way that makes his nightmare world creepily plausible. . . . Far more affecting than anything involving zombies really has any right to be. . . . The book . . . opens in blood and guts, turns the world into an oversized version of hell, then ends with and affirmation of humanity’s ability to survive the worst the world has to offer. It feels like the right book for the right times, and that’s the eeriest detail of all.”
    - A.V. Club, The Onion


    “The best science fiction has traditionally been steeped in social commentary. World War Z continues that legacy. . . . We haven’t been this excited about a book without pictures since–well, since ever.”
    - Metro


    “Each story locks together perfectly to create a wonderful, giddy suspense. Brooks also has the political savvy to take advantage of any paranoia a modern reader might feel. . . . The perfect book for all us zombie junkies.”
    - Paste


    “This infectious and compelling book will have nervous readers watching the streets for zombies. Recommended.”
    - Library Journal


    From AudioFile
    Zombies are among us. In a series of journalistic-style interviews and monologues, Max Brooks tracks the institutional and geopolitical missteps that led to the collapse of civilization and follows the intrepid survivors as they tell the story of fighting their way back against a zombie horde of 200 million. Alan Alda, Carl Reiner, Mark Hamill, and a host of others lend their considerable vocal talents to give these interviews a solid realism. China secretly developed a deadly virus. Israel closed its borders. Cuba plotted. And in the United States the Battle of Yonkers was a devastating rout for the U.S. Army. It's all very much in the grand tradition of War of the Worlds. B.P. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
     
  9. Duzy

    Duzy Active Member

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    What I liked the most about the book was him hitting some, but not all of the questions I've considered while contemplating the ZA. I like how he addressed the ISS, a nuclear sub and battle tactics used to fight the non-living. I found it an enjoyable read to say the least.
     
  10. Felicia

    Felicia Active Member

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    He really got in depth with it. The new architecture once the worst of it was over, the affect of having American's cross over into Cuba and become the hired help of cubans and encourage revolution from within. How the high population, poorer areas were basically ... culled from the herd... and our worlds leaders chose who would die so that the areas they felt were valuable could live. The entire thing was just really deeply thought out and I found it superbly written.
     
  11. Duzy

    Duzy Active Member

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    Showing how it became a world epidemic quickly took some thought and insight as well. He didn't cop out with something lame like; "It went airborne and the world fell apart". You're right, it was really thought out well. I think we could all go on, but I don't want to spoil anything from what I consider to be a must read for ZA fans and fans of stories about shit hitting the fan.
     
  12. fatbrett2

    fatbrett2 Member

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    It is a brilliant book, to be sure. I would love to see him write other books in the WWZ 'universe'... I have a fantasy wish list of ideas for spin-offs:

    - The war journals/memoir of Todd Wainio (the veteran of the Battle of Yonkers and the March to New York)

    - The war journals/memoirs of Admiral Xu and/or Captain Chen (Xu was the subordinate of Capt. Chen on the Chinese submarine, but was an Admiral by the time he told his story to Brooks in WWZ)

    - The full story of Tomonaga Ijiro (the blind Hibakusha) and his warrior apprentice, Kondo Tatsumi.

    - The full text of the "Warbrunn-Knight Report"
     
  13. Duzy

    Duzy Active Member

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    Those are some great ideas.

    Wonder if he is considering anything like that.
     
  14. Felicia

    Felicia Active Member

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    Man! Do I hope so.
     
  15. Zambi

    Zambi Active Member

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    I've read the book and it was okay, not the greatest thing but okay. It did jump around and in some parts was confusing enough that I still don't get what was being said.

    At times I was hoping to see more survival stories from typical families rather than one right after the other of military style sources.

    I preferred the zombie survival guide over this book.
     
  16. youngjohn12

    youngjohn12 New Member

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    I've study about 50 % of this publication so far, and i must say I'm not a big fan. It tends to leap all over the position in the beginning components, and the journalism-style very much stops any kind of tale, or personality developing. Type of a fantastic non-fiction.
     
  17. Felicia

    Felicia Active Member

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    It started so inconspicuously. Some poor kid in China got bit by something while wading in a creek. Again, you never know what really happened, only that it spun out of control and had such far reaching consequences.
     
  18. Felicia

    Felicia Active Member

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    If I had a left nut...I would give it for this story. This guy... he's sitting on a gold mine. I wish he would mine it!
     
  19. Felicia

    Felicia Active Member

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    I need to read this book. One of my kids got it for me but then promptly took it to read and then leant it out to all of their friends (which I highly approve of.... AFTER I have read it) I just need to buy it again and read it.
     
  20. Walker Bait

    Walker Bait Well-Known Member

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    Don't hold your breath. The rumor is they are SIGNIFICANTLY changing the structure. Apparently Brad Pitt plays the narrator character of the book, but they're changing it so that he's the protagonist and it follows around during the outbreak and crisis, as opposed to him just being the UN official who compiles the report. What they're doing is like if they had tried to make Christian Slater's character from Interview with the Vampire the central character in the movie.

    I was REALLY excited about the WWZ film adaptation until I heard this. Now I think they're going to destroy Brooks' vision. Then again, Pitt did an excellent job adapting Moneyball, so I'm going to reserve judgement. Expect the worst and hope for the best I guess.
     

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