From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Max Brooks

Start date: December 1, 2012

Finish date: January 1, 2013

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

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AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

* What is a good book for AW discussion? (Nominations pool)
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* AW Book Club: what we've read
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What Members Thought

Sep 26, 2010 🥀 Rose 🥀 rated it it was ok

Shelves: dystopian-speculative-fiction, zombies

Conceptually I really like it. The idea of telling the story of a zombie "infection" basically killing off the world and all the folks who were involved in some way and what role they themselves played in the war on the zombies through interview (vingettes) was clever. Besides that, the over all story, or lack of story, was boring.

This story felt told over and over and over again in such a repetitive fashion to me. I felt it could have had so many different variations of how it played out using ...more

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Mar 01, 2008 Christy rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction-and-fantasy, zombies

I enjoyed this book. It is entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking. Ultimately, though, it is good but not great. Its "oral history" format is interesting, especially early on, but sacrifices depth for breadth. Brooks is able to use this technique to provide a view of the war from many, many, many widely varying perspectives, but these short interviews (and most were very short) don't allow the reader to really delve into the experience of any of these characters. I found myself wanting ...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Tabatha rated it liked it

Shelves: horror, sci-fi, zombies, dystopian, post-apocalyptic

I was actually kind of disappointed in this book. I have previously read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and found it amazing, so I thought this one would be too. In fact, World War Z has been quite a popular read. I guess that just goes to show that popular isn’t always the best.

Okay, now you probably think that I really hate this book. Absolutely not. I prefer stories driven by characters, where this one is characters driving a story about war. War books were never really my forte. I ...more

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Jul 13, 2008 Erin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalypse-dystopia

I know that I'm late coming to this book, but it doesn't seem like something I would ever even pick up at a bookstore, much less read. I've seen a ton of good reviews on it though, and it was on sale at the bookstore, so I'll give it a try.

~~~Really interesting. Told through Q&A narrative interviews (which I loved) with various participants in the war. I'm a big fan of apocalypse-fiction, so this was right up my alley. It also works quite well as a thinly-veiled description of early 80's mentali ...more

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May 17, 2010 Mark Rayner rated it liked it

This is one of those times when I really wish there was three and a half stars. I'm half-way between liking it and really liking this book.

First off, it's not a comedy. His previous zombie effort was written in a tongue-in-cheek tone, and sometimes even funny, but this is a work of serious fiction. (I mean, as serious as any book with zombies in the title can be.)

Instead of telling the story with a standard narrative, Brooks goes for an "oral history" -- not even short stories in some cases, bu ...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Stonebender rated it really liked it

If you don't happen to have that particular perverse interest in zombie movies or after disaster stories there is absolutely no reason to read this book, but if you do like this sort of thing. This is a particularly well done zombie story. Mr. Brooks tells the story through a documentarian doing an Oral history after the war is over. So he gets to tell the story through lots of people in lots of circumstances. Much of the book is about how different governments would react to a zombie invasion. ...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Louie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: zombies

Excellent book! I was surprised by how much research and thought the author must have done to put this book together. This wasn't someone writing from different perspectives of what they think would be a character's view. It seems the author took his time to really breakdown how things would breakdown and what difficulties would exist to rebuild.

I hope there are more books to come. ...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Joanna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, favorites

This book is awesome. As the title suggests, the oral history is a series of interviews in chronological order. Fascinating and really well thought out.

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Feb 23, 2009 Cindywho rated it liked it

Shelves: dark, fantasy-sf

As the author himself admits, this is a mashup of Studs Terkel and George Romero. There is something fascinating about taking the horrific/ridiculous idea of a zombie plague and writing war stories. I liked that he finally tried to touch upon what such a holocaust would do to the environment, other animals, how different countries fought and survived - or didn't. It was a great T read, but I'm glad I didn't get the audio version for my bedtime listening.

Ended up listening to the audiobook (only ...more

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Dec 15, 2009 Jason rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, audio-book

This is closer to 4.5 stars. It is an excellent book. I love the post-apocalyptic stuff and this really hits the mark. Like Earth Abides kind of book, but short and only interviews with survivors. But these interviews had great stories. ...more

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