Hardcover, 342 pages
English language
Published Nov. 3, 2006 by Crown.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, "Home Front USA", "Around the World, and Above", "Total War", and Good-Byes, and features a collection of individual accounts narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, following the devastating global conflict against a zombie plague. Other passages record a decade-long desperate struggle, as experienced by people of various nationalities. The personal accounts take place all over the world, including Antarctica and even outer space. The "interviews" detail the experiences of the survivors of the crisis, as well as social, political, religious, economic, and environmental changes that have occurred as a result. World War Z is a follow-up to Brooks' fictitious survival manual The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), but its …
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, "Home Front USA", "Around the World, and Above", "Total War", and Good-Byes, and features a collection of individual accounts narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, following the devastating global conflict against a zombie plague. Other passages record a decade-long desperate struggle, as experienced by people of various nationalities. The personal accounts take place all over the world, including Antarctica and even outer space. The "interviews" detail the experiences of the survivors of the crisis, as well as social, political, religious, economic, and environmental changes that have occurred as a result. World War Z is a follow-up to Brooks' fictitious survival manual The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), but its tone is more serious. It was inspired by The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two (1984) by Studs Terkel, and by the zombie films of George A. Romero. Brooks used World War Z to comment on government ineptitude and US isolationism, while also examining survivalism and uncertainty. The novel was a commercial hit and was praised by most critics. Its 2007 audiobook version, performed by a full cast including Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, and John Turturro, won an Audie Award. A loosely-based film adaptation, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, was released in 2013, and a video game of the same name, based on the 2013 film, was released in 2019 by Saber Interactive.
5 stars for the book itself. 3 stars for the audiobook version. All of the voice actors (who are pretty much all big names) phoned it in and sounded as if they were just reading from a script. Yes, they were reading from a script, but actors are supposed to make the roles come to life. The lame acting in the audiobook version was extremely distracting, but the book itself was excellent.
I couldn't put this book down. I checked it out from the library on Wednesday, and by the time I finally forced myself to go to bed, I'd read 130 pages. I finished off the rest on Thursday.
