Publication: September 12th 2006 by Crown
Source: Library Book
Goodreads Summary: 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.
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My Thoughts:
I read this long after I saw the movie. I really enjoyed the movie and always meant to read the book and finally I got around to it after finding this at the library. I already knew that it wasn't anything like the movie from a friend telling me about it so I tried to go into it with an open mind, interested to see what inspired the movie.
This book is basically eye witness accounts pieced together about "the Zombie War." It's very realistic and intriguing. You can tell that Brooks really researched everything before writing this book. There are names of locations given and technical military terms and lots of acronyms of organizations that could potentially form if we were ever actually to have a zombie war. Not once does Brooks ever break away from character. The entire book feels like it could be a legitimate file of eye witness accounts instead of just a fiction book. It really puts into perspective what could happen if we were ever faced with something like this. It depicts what America and the rest of the world would become without our conveniences such as gasoline and electricity and even basic things we take for granted like clean water and a safe place to live. What it would be like to have to live day-to-day, fighting an enemy much more powerful than you, and going back to just basic survival we've come so far from.
It was very interesting to be able to read a broad range of point of views from people high in the military trying to make plans to recapture the world all the way to ordinary, every day people who just got in their cars and drove until they were as safe as they could be. Each person had a different voice and a different perspective and very believable. It was just a little frustrating when you would get invested into someone's story only to have it cut off and jump to another person's story. It was amazing to read and think about how all of this was written by one person. A very well-written book overall.
Likes: Interesting. Realistic. Each person had their own voice and pov. Lots of detail.
Dislikes: I wish there had been more civilian accounts given than so many high-up, military type of people.
Overall:
Recommend? Yes.
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