World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
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Book Summary Author: Max Brooks Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2007-10-16 ISBN: 0307346617 Number of pages: 352 Publisher: Three Rivers Press |
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Book Reviews of the World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Customer Review: An excellent historical work.
Summary: 4 Stars
World War Z treads where no zombie book has tread before. It is a bold move from an author who has chosen to examine the entire scope and magnitude of a zombie invasion instead of personalizing it with a single group or individual and their experiences during the initial stages of infection on through to utter annihilation.
Certainly, this book does personalize the war of humanity vs. zombies by telling the individual story of key players in the conflict. From the doctor who sees one of the first cases of infection to the politicians involved in the pre-war failings of most governments to the troops on the battlefield, this book covers a huge amount of ground and does so from beginning to end.
I thoroughly enjoyed the vivid details brought out by the diversity of perspectives. How zombies work, how they react, but more importantly, how we react to them. The cold harsh decisions that would have to be made so that humanity could first survive, hold the lines, and finally turn the tide in the most epic struggle that mankind had ever seen in its history.
My main criticisms of many of the zombie works I have seen, if there is to be any, are the fact that humanity usually fails monumentally and in essence is completely wiped out. There is little hope and usually our failings can be seen with the characters that inhabit these stories on a smaller scale. Humanity rarely shows what has made us the top level animals on this planet when the zombies show their faces. Another complaint I would have with most of the stories is that they usually cut off just when things are getting good. I am always very interested in finding out what is next for the characters, but I left to ponder if they will survive or be obliterated.
In so many stories told, you are almost rooting for the zombies, at least against certain characters. We see humanity at its ugliest and when those evildoers get chomped it seems like twisted justice. Not so in this tale. I wanted to finally see someone who would dive in and show how humanity would face down and defeat its greatest enemy and in that, this story did not disappoint. Down, but not out, we overcome and triumph in the end. It is at great cost on so many levels, but humanity comes out triumphant in the end.
Overall, this is an excellent story. Max Brooks provides such depth to the tactics needed and hard decisions that would have to be made. His alternate universe is extremely well fleshed out and it felt like a very thorough history lesson rather than a piece of fiction. I believe that the author did a tremendous amount research in putting this all together. So much of it felt so very real.
The area of criticism I have has been pointed out by others here. I do not feel as strongly as they do that it has tainted this work. Our narrator states at the outset that he did his best to keep his own commentary limited to questions and not an analysis or judgement of those he is speaking to; he shall remain neutral and apolitical in his reporting. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the author, who very much politicized this work of fiction. With that said, I am not sure something of this scope could have avoided such efforts. Not only would it be necessary for zombies to exist for humanity to be in danger of extinction, but there would have to be monumental failings of goverments the world over. Societies would have to crumble and self destruct. Otherwise, a zombie invasion would stall at one point or another. The author facilitates full blown Apocalyptic mayhem by making not only the United States government make tremendous errors in judgement, but nearly every other government on the planet. Thus I can pass over what appears to be some very particular and pointed comments by the interviewed characters in the book that seem to reinforce a certain political leaning of the author.
In reality, most high quality zombie tales have some sort of political undercurrent to them. Romero invented the modern day zombie and in each of his movies he skewers our society and/or our government with what he percieves to be their failings. Zombies tend to lend themselves to this sort of efforts. I believe at the heart of it, that is what makes zombies so potent in so many stories: they serve not only as tools of terror, but to show us how weak or strong that we as individuals and as a race, can be.
Overall, an excellent and inciteful work that was extremely enjoyable to read.