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Title: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
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Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $7.85
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| Customer Reviews: |
| World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Three Rivers Press Favorite zombie novel of all time | | This is my favorite zombie novel of all time although the book starts off a little slow. I love all of the short stories from people all over the globe and the slow build up of the zombie invasion and how people try and escape it. It's well thought out and the character development was amazing for how short some of the stories were. Some of the military stories got a bit too into depth with the weapons they used and the termology of zombies, but other than that I loved it! | | World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Three Rivers Press Clever and original, but some minor flaws | Generally I am not a big fan of zombie stories, but I bought this one because I needed something for a long airplane ride and WWZ got good reviews here on Amazon. It starts off slowly, but builds momentum, and the technique of cutting back and forth between various interviews and vignettes is a good one. Brooks demonstrates his versatility as a writer by creating so many different "voices" and many of the scenes he creates are vivid and memorable.
The book's greatest weakness, IMHO, is that the zombies are never really explained. How do they eat and digest food when half their bodies are blown away? Why don't they decay? How do they survive underwater? The notion of a zombie pandemic that lasts for years is basically implausible, but if you are willing to ignore that, this is a good disaster novel.
Also, you have to wonder about Brooks' political agenda, as other reviewers have noted. In his post-apocalyptic world, the leading economic power is ... CUBA. Huh? That makes no sense, given that the zombies function best in warmer climates, and can't take cold.
Such quibbles aside, WWZ is an entertaining book and worth reading if you like well-written disaster novels with vivid descriptions. My plane ride passed quickly, thanks to the zombies. | | World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Three Rivers Press READ THIS BOOK ! | | This book along with the book World War Z by Max Brooks are amazing. They have not only Humor but also drama. I recommend his books to anyone who wants to beak away from the norm and have a good time reading a book. Now I'm a huge fan of Max Brooks and can't wait to read more books by him as they are published. | | World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Three Rivers Press A fun read! | | I read this through in about a day. It's entertaining and action packed. I liked the separate vignettes and how they often wove together. Definitely worth getting or at least checking out from the local library. | | World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Three Rivers Press Fresh concept for the genre and great read! | World War Z differs from other 'zombie apocalypse' books mainly due to it's approach, candid interviews with survivors from all walks of life, all over the globe. We aren't following one lone survivor, we catch a glimpse of the horror from many firsthand accounts.
Brooks covers a gamut of survivors, some tales are gripping blow by blow accounts of survival, while others play on the moral and political aspects of the war against the zombies.
I've heard this is being worked into a movie, if the film loses the journalistic/documentary approach of the book, I'll be disappointed. | | World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Three Rivers Press Product Description | “The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War
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.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
Eyewitness reports from the first truly global war
“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China
“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers
“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
From the Hardcover edition. |
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