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World War Z

An Oral History of the Zombie War

By Max Brooks

(152)

| Hardcover | 9780307346605

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Book Description

“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War

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

“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China

“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers

“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe

Critics

WORLD WAR Z

WORLD WAR Z is about zombies, and naturally --- inevitably --- it was written by Max Brooks. Brooks knows zombies the way that Mariano Rivera knows the ninth inning, the way that Merle Haggard knows honky-tonks. He knows their foul breath, their sham ... (read full critics)

teenreads published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

WORLD WAR Z

WORLD WAR Z is about zombies, and naturally --- inevitably --- it was written by Max Brooks. Brooks knows zombies the way that Mariano Rivera knows the ninth inning, the way that Merle Haggard knows honky-tonks. He knows their foul breath, their sham ... (read full critics)

teenreads published on Mon, 13 Sep 2010

See all critics

15 Reviews

2 people find this helpful

One critic used the word "literate" to describe this novel, and I think it is a fair compliment. Brooks's familiarity with our world and the lack of many common scare tactics (except for in the opening) made this book strangely plausible once you accepted its premise. My disbelief was suspended co ... (continue)

One critic used the word "literate" to describe this novel, and I think it is a fair compliment. Brooks's familiarity with our world and the lack of many common scare tactics (except for in the opening) made this book strangely plausible once you accepted its premise. My disbelief was suspended completely and since I'm a military man, that's something for a book about politics and military response to disaster.

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WingmanX said on Feb 20, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Best zombie novel EVER! The format is genius! I love that Brooks wrote this as oral histories of the survivors of the zombie war. The story unravels very slowly, as the reader starts to put together the scattered pieces of the narrative. I love how Brooks used current events to create a plausibl ... (continue)

Best zombie novel EVER! The format is genius! I love that Brooks wrote this as oral histories of the survivors of the zombie war. The story unravels very slowly, as the reader starts to put together the scattered pieces of the narrative. I love how Brooks used current events to create a plausible scenario for the outbreak. This is HANDS DOWN the best novel, period.

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Serena Freewomyn said on Nov 1, 2010 | Add your feedback

If you like to read meanwhile you poo, this book is so for you. And I absolutely don't mean it in a bad way! The thing is structured as a sort of mock investigation with interviews to the main protagonists of the zombie war. Each interview/chapter is completely independent from the rest, so it is ju ... (continue)

If you like to read meanwhile you poo, this book is so for you. And I absolutely don't mean it in a bad way! The thing is structured as a sort of mock investigation with interviews to the main protagonists of the zombie war. Each interview/chapter is completely independent from the rest, so it is just perfect for those 10-15 minute quiet readings in the comfort of your bathroom. Very entertaining and fairly well written, with even a handful of genuinely good "interviews".

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Isam said on Aug 30, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

This was so not what I was expecting, but I found myself getting caught up in the story. The interweaving of history with alternative near-future was surprisingly believable. The full cast recording was packed with familiar voices and lent the audio version the feel of a documentary.

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SeanaMO said on Mar 6, 2010 about the Audio CD edition | Add your feedback

A great follow-up.

This is one of the finest reads I've had the pleasure of finding in the last few years. Max Brooks writes characters we can all associate with even if the situation seems unbelievable. I look forward to seeing his next works.

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Stubob72556 said on Dec 16, 2009 | Add your feedback

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

Seriously, this book is sometimes a bit too realistic to be scary, so I might not even categorize it as Horror.
At first I thought, ok, this is so typical American, that values democracy, thinks that every nation should embrace it unconditionally. Russia becomes an empire, China collapses, Isr ... (continue)

Seriously, this book is sometimes a bit too realistic to be scary, so I might not even categorize it as Horror.
At first I thought, ok, this is so typical American, that values democracy, thinks that every nation should embrace it unconditionally. Russia becomes an empire, China collapses, Israeli-Palestinian grudge simply fades. However, there soon appears that our author also knows that limit, where totalitarian regimes can mobilize more efficiently their people to fight.
And there, on its language, the author surely tried hard to produce different patterns of speeches, yet a certain familiarity still haunts the whole book. And above all, everybody speaks English all too well. lol

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八足 said on Aug 21, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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Book Details

Rating:
(152)
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English Books
Hardcover 352 Pages
Edition: 1
ISBN-10: 0307346609
ISBN-13: 9780307346605
Publisher: Crown
Pub date: Sep 12, 2006
Dimensions: 1548 mm x 968 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
Also available as: Paperback, Audio CD, Library Binding and Others
In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, Libri Italiani, Česká kniha