World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

by Max Brooks

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse.

Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of human civilisation.

Read the original cult novel that propelled the zombie genre into the mainstream - now a blockbuster film and game.

• ISBN10: 0715637037
• ISBN13: 9780715637036
• Publish Date: 27 July 2007 (first published 1 January 2006)
• Publish Status: Inactive
• Out of Print: 4 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Prelude
• Imprint: Duckworth
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 334
• Language: English

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.