Pacy, racy and so, so much fun! A must-read for zombie fans

THIS IS not Max Brooks’ first ode to the zombies, he’s been there and done it with The Zombie Survival Guide. With World War Z, he writes this addictively readable oral history—basically a collection of interviews—with people involved in the great ‘human-zombie war’. The conflict starts in China with a virus which spreads around the globe until the undead are everywhere. First step; panic and hide and afterwards, the fight back. Rather than a grand overview or narrative, World War Z is a collection of individual accounts, wherein Brooks plays the role of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission 10 years after the story’s Zombie War. Passages record a decade-long war against zombies, as experienced by people of various nationalities. The personal accounts also describe the religious, geo-political, and environmental changes that resulted from the Zombie War. The best bit of the book is that it feels truly global—thanks to the sheer number of voices (Russian priests, blind Japanese warriors, American grunts). And there are movie-ready scenes. But World War Z is more than just an endless succession of filmable pieces. With his surprisingly realistic takes on government inadequacy, disaster preparedness, and public panic, Brooks refers to worldwide crises from 9/11 to tribal civil wars to Hurricane Katrina, producing a book that will grab you as tightly as a dead man’s fist. Brooks’ acknowledgments conclude with thanks to historian Studs Terkel, zombie visionary George Romero, and John Hackett, who in 1978 wrote a book called The Third World War: August 1985. And one gets the feeling that he takes all three influences seriously. However, this is a fun book at the end of the day. The writer’s zombie fixation is as strong and scary as the zombies themselves. Brooks commits to detail in a way that makes his nightmare world seem plausible. Whether chronicling the inhuman military measures needed to ensure human survival or the experiences of a feral child found in the ruins of Wichita, his survivors’ accounts sound authentic. The format, however involving, keeps World War Z from developing much momentum, but the individual episodes are gripping—particularly the account of a downed Air Force officer’s struggle to survive in rural Louisiana. They are sometimes even moving: one lengthy chapter focusing on the military’s anti-zombie canine forces could bring tears to a ghoul. It is far more affecting than anything involving zombies really has any right to be. The same could be said for the whole book, which opens in blood and guts, turns the world into an oversized vision of hell, then ends with an affirmation of humanity’s ability to survive the worst the world has to offer. It feels like the right book for the times, and that is the eeriest detail of all. If one had to nitpick, the only problem with World War Z becomes apparent near its end. In the final chapter, Good-Byes, for the first time Brooks reintroduces characters who have had their say earlier in the book. Unfortunately, there are so many characters and they have so few distinguishing characteristics, it is not always obvious what their earlier stories were, though in most of the cases it is not really necessary to remember. World War Z is a much better book and novel than it has any right to be given the premise. In fact, Brooks’ world building and story-telling ability makes the novel an easy one to become immersed into. While his characters may be a little flat, this is a novel more of ideas than about characterisation. The book is an enjoyable novel that has an uncanny ability to draw the reader into the near future apocalyptic world Brooks has invented. Similar in style to Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, World War Z was inspired by The Good War, an oral history of World War II by Studs Terkel, and by the zombie films of George A. Romero. Critics have praised the novel for reinventing the zombie genre; the audiobook version, performed by a full cast including Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, and John Turturro, won an Audie Award in 2007.