World War Z

An Oral History of the Zombie War

Hardcover, 602 pages

English language

Published March 7, 2007 by Thorndike Press.

ISBN:
978-0-7862-9348-3
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4 stars (275 reviews)

“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 …

33 editions

One for US military enthusiasts

2 stars

Some time in the 2000s I remember stumbling on a lengthy set of Reddit posts asking "what if a force of modern US Marines found themselves stranded in Ancient Rome?". Much of this book is that, but for the zombie apocalypse. If you enjoyed that Reddit series then you'll probably enjoy this in the same way.

At other points in this fictional "oral history" I found myself thinking fondly of the late Studs Terkel's engrossing (real) oral history book Hard Times. I noticed Studs was thanked in the Afterword (along with George Romero, obvs). Hard Times is a classic because it captures different overlapping experiences of the Great Depression in people's own words, recorded by the author with dignity and respect. I think Max Brooks aimed for a fictional form of this, but missed the heart and soul of it - overlapping accounts of the same experience told by real, …

A really engaging read

4 stars

The last quarter of the book felt a little slow, but the novel had such a great mix of action-packed accounts and cryptic backstories that I had a hard time putting it down. I find zombie movies boring and samey, but the level of detail and the variety of stories written in this book added a layer of interest I’ve never seen before in any zombie creative work.

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Me encantan los falsos documentales, y esto lo parece mucho.
Reconstrucción de la infección, casi aniquilación de la humanidad, guerra mundial y victoria sobre los zombies, mediante una serie de entrevistas a testigos de semejante carnicería. Muy buen ritmo, no se puede soltar.
Un poco desasosegante para leer durante la cuarentena, eso sí.

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

Written like a historical narrative, this book is giving me the satisfaction of knowing that come the zombie attack, I'll be ready. Or a nuclear winter. Or anything else horrible that can happen. Like Angie said, I own an axe and can knit everyone sweaters.

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

After watching the wonderful World War Z movie, I looked up the book on wikipedia to get additional information on the story. I discovered that the movie is actually totally different from the book, but it sounded fascinating so I decided to check it out. Great decision.

A true movie of the book would be like a Ken Burns documentary. WWZ is essentially a series of first-person short stories on a common theme telling a chronological history of the zombie apocalypse. Some stories are a couple of paragraphs, others go on for a while, but each feels essential.

This is a wonderfully imaginative book, and remarkably well thought out. It is a very believable story; the author really thought about realistic scenarios for a strange plague that must be fought not with medical treatment but with guns and swords.

The book is surprisingly affecting. I'd felt moved by the overwhelming …

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This was an excellent read! I can certainly understand why critics have compared Max Brooks with Studs Terkel. World War Z is probably one of my all-time favorites in the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction. Brooks eschews a conventional narrative to tell the story of the Zombie Apocalypse—and for those who watched the film before reading the book (as I did) will be shocked at the stark differences between the on-screen adaptation and the original work. Instead, Brooks frames the book around a series of interviews conducted by the narrator—an assistant for creating the postwar official history of the conflict—that allows the reader to get a global portrait of the conflict as it erupted in places as diverse as South Africa, China, India, the West Indies, North America, and the Pacific Isles. If you have read Stud Terkel's Hard Times or The Good War you will already be familiar with how …

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

4.5 stars.

Quick question: are zombies fantasy or Scifi? Or both?

Commute audiobook; it was a great one: sufficiently simple to divide my attention with driving, sufficiently engaging to keep me awake on a long drive.

The book:
The gist of WORLD WAR Z, if you aren't familiar, is this: in the not-too-distant future, the relatively few remaining humans are beginning to recover from the recent global zombie war. A government researcher collects a series of personal histories of various events during the war and presents them mostly chronologically w/r/t the war.

As a book that people want to read for purposes of enjoyment, this probably works better as an audiobook than it does in print. As other reviewers have noted, one failing (the only failing?) of WORLD WAR Z is a lack of differentiation of voice between the different characters, which seems a shame given that the characters are …

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this book. It was recommended to me so I thought I'd give it a go, I had already seen the movie but very little in the movie is in the book.

This book is just a collection of interviews of people who survived the War, sounds pretty dull but it makes for a brilliantly gripping book.

Best book I've read in 2013.

Review of 'World War Z' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book was recommended to me by no one, and yet somehow it's the 3rd post-apocalypse story I've read in a row.

I thought it was terrific; the narrative conceit is basically a semi-official recounting of the zombie war through interviews. Each interview is brief, telling stories of death and survival from a completely different point of view, gradually revealing the bigger picture.

The end result is a high quality set of parables that will stick with me for a long time. I haven't seen the film, but now I intend to, I can't imagine how they accomplish telling this story.

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Subjects

  • American Horror Fiction
  • Fiction
  • Fiction - Men's Adventure
  • Horror
  • Fantasy - General
  • War & Military
  • Horror - General
  • Large type books
  • Zombies