From the Bookshelf of Discourse in a Digital Age…

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Max Brooks

Start date: June 11, 2015

Finish date: July 8, 2015

Why we're reading this: An amazing geo-political analysis of the Zombie War that ravaged, but did not destroy, humanity.
[close] An amazing geo-political analysis of the Zombie War that ravaged, but did not destroy, humanity.

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Nov 12, 2015 Kenneth Hardcastle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror, fantasy, audiobook, survival, war, apocalypse

“Are you armed?”
“No. Why would I be?”
“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be alright.”

With this unassumingly emotional start, Max Brooks (the author of such venerable works as The Zombie Survival Guide) kicks off the story of how zombies almost destroyed humanity, and how we fought back. The story is told through interviews with major players on the world stage, people who are representative of the experiences of thousands, or people with a particularly interesting story to share. The book’s gre “Are you armed?”
“No. Why would I be?”
“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be alright.”

With this unassumingly emotional start, Max Brooks (the author of such venerable works as The Zombie Survival Guide) kicks off the story of how zombies almost destroyed humanity, and how we fought back. The story is told through interviews with major players on the world stage, people who are representative of the experiences of thousands, or people with a particularly interesting story to share. The book’s great achievements are the masterful approach to speculative fiction on top of the Studs Terkel-inspired oral history approach.

Zombies aren’t the greatest monsters out there. Don’t get me started on the whole “have to destroy the brain” thing. Seriously, I have a whole rant about it. The fact is, though, that zombies are never the villains of these stories. What the genre excels at is holding a mirror up to humanity and showing what we do when things turn ugly. Nowhere is this concept better illustrated than in this book, and I think that’s what I love about it. The best and worst of humanity are on display in leaders, doctors, scientists, soldiers, and the regular people who grow to become all of these.

This book dates itself, in a way I found surprising. World War Z is a product of its time. One recognizes the celebrities and cultures obliquely described from the viewpoint of 2006. Most prominently, it delivers a particularly scathing critique of the invasion of Iraq. Granted, the drastic changes the world would yet undergo aren’t that much more far-fetched than a zombie apocalypse. Nevertheless, the United States at the start of this book seems a very distant country than it is now.

The full-cast audiobook was great to hear the pathos imbued into the stories. The one I had is unfortunately abridged. (I should have been keyed in by “unabridged selections”.) I missed some of the stories I remembered from the book, and I did not develop the same connection to the characters as I did from reading them over multiple chapters. ...more

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Jun 25, 2014 Julia rated it liked it

I'd give this 3.5/5 stars. I listened to the audiobook with the full cast and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. For not being a zombie person at all I thought this was an engaging and interesting book. Brooks did a great job creating the different characters and developing their unique voices. Plus I can only imagine how long it took to get all that detail presented in a coherent manner. Glad I gave this book a try. ...more

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