Book info

• Title World War Z
• Author Max Brooks
• Year 2006
• Genre Horror

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse. Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of human civilisation.

Thoughts

I don’t think I would have heard of this if it hadn’t been for the film, but I enjoyed the movie and wanted to see what the book was like. They were quite different - where the film has to tell a story and focuses on one man, the book is a mish-mash of stories from a huge variety of people.

Posed as the interviews and research behind a post-war report, the book winds through the story of the epic battle between humanity and the undead. Starting from the very beginning, with eyewitness reports of some of the first to suffer the disease, through those who fought off wave after wave of zombies, to those trying to put life back together again, there is a startling array of viewpoints on offer.

I really enjoyed the book. With so many different walks of life getting their say, it was a comprehensive look at how a war like this could really happen. It was totally believable, and thus quite scary in places, but mostly it was just fascinating. The only downside was, to me, it felt like the build up outweighed the payoff. I would have liked more of the afterwards, of putting life back together again. Perhaps that can be saved for the sequel.

Rating: 4 / 5