World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

by Max Brooks

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic.
 
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, 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.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

“Will spook you for real.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Possesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone. . . . It’s Apocalypse Now, pandemic-style. Creepy but fascinating.”—USA Today
 
“Will grab you as tightly as a dead man’s fist. A.”—Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick 
 
“Probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast . . . This is action-packed social-political satire with a global view.”—Dallas Morning News

• ISBN10: 0307346617
• ISBN13: 9780307346612
• Publish Date: 16 October 2007 (first published 1 January 2006)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Three Rivers Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780307346612

Reviews

[jnkay01]

This book should be required reading.

[mbtc]

I never thought I would like a zombie book, but this book was really amazing!

[ibeforem]

I listened to the audio version of this, and I think it was the perfect format for a book subtitled as an “oral history”. It was performed by a full cast, including Alan Alda, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins, John Tuturro, Mark Hamill, and Max Brooks himself. While a few stories just seemed to provide information, others were riveting, especially those of Todd Wainio (a U.S. Army infantryman), Christina Eliopolis (an air force pilot), T. Sean Collins (a mercenary), and Jessika Hendricks (whose family flees to Canada because hey! Zombies freeze!).

Brooks has created a very thorough “what-if” scenario here, that not only deals with the effects in the U.S. but with what happens worldwide. The audio version is abridged and there’s just enough detail of the story left out that I’ll probably read the hard copy as well.