Review: World War Z

World War Z by Max Brooks
Publication Date: September 12, 2006
Published by Crown
Hardcover: 342 pages

Synopsis from Goodreads:
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

 Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Mini-summary: This book is not at all what I expected. World War Z is a collection of interviews of first hand accounts of interactions with zombies ten years after the outbreak which nearly wiped out mankind.

Why I read this book:  This book has been lost in my to-reads pile for a while now. Really it just comes down to a good old fashioned love of zombies.

Review
World War Z is a collection of interviews of first-hand experiences of the almost zombie apocalypse.  Far from the typical zombie novel, author Max Brooks explores global politics, terrorism and rethinking the role government plays in people's lives, under the guise of a pandemic of the living dead.  As the interviews take place ten years after the zombie outbreak, interactions with the zombies are recounted by survivors, from high ranking military officials and members of political prominence to villagers from remote countries.  Without the immediacy of how to survive in an anarchical world - devoid of electricity and readily available food and medicine - the flesh-eating zombies are a mostly invisible threat.  While certainly the driving force behind the individual and collective reactions in the book, the zombies themselves are relagated to the equivalent of background noise.

As the zombie virus spreads in the first half of the book, becoming more and more of a global threat to mankind, the inevitable collapse of government ensues, leaving the masses of people (the living ones) in an every-man-for-himself dilemma. There are, of course, individuals and organizations whose research and attempts to warn the general population are quelled before the fall out.  Mankind loses faith in the ability of the government to effectively protect them and chaos spreads throughout the globe.  Some interviews captured my interest more than others, but the collection as whole really serve to depict the event on a global scale.

Not surprisingly, the people living in remote villages, already acutely familiar with the struggle to survive, were able to best adapt to a zombie-filled world.  The Americans were another matter entirely.  If not for the blue-collar folks, whose skills of metallurgy, plumbing, carpentry, construction, etc. were now being taught to individuals without a critical skill, the United States may very well have disappeared completely.  And oh the the lengths of denial people achieved to hold on to how things used to be were indeed humorous.  Clutching to their cars, iPods and laptops, as if they would magically turn on at any moment.  This, of course, only applies to those that didn't flee to Canada hoping the harsh winter would freeze the undead into zombie popsicles, but didn't think about the lengths they'd need to go in order to survive the elements themselves.

While definitely not what I expected, World War Z asks questions like, Who would I sacrifice to save the people I love?  Ten? One hundred?  Five hundred?  And, What happens after the zombies are gone?  Thinking about it now, for all of the zombie movies I've watched (and believe me, there've been a lot)  I haven't come across any that actually look at what happens after they are gone.  If you can stomach the politics, World War Z is a different spin on the zombie scene and recommended for those who enjoy post-apocalyptic novels.  If however, you're looking for blood, guts and "brainnnnsss!!", this book may not be for you.

Rating: 3.5

Memorable Quotes
“This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren't just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don't have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don't have a common heritage, we don't have a millennia of history. All we have are the dreams and promises that bind us together. All we have...is what we want to be.”

“Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.” 

“Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they're used.” 

Author's Info
Max Brooks is the New York Times bestselling author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z.  He has been called, "the Studs Terkel of zombie journalism."

Website: http://maxbrooks.com
For Purchase:  Barnes and Noble / Amazon