World War Z

Thought I'd do a book review today and since I recently finished reading World War Z I figured that would be as good a place to start as any. Although the book was published in 2006 I didn't give it any thought until about a month ago when I saw a documentary about zombie culture; one of the people interviewed was the author Max Brooks who, as we all know, also wrote The Zombie Survival Guide. I put the show on in the background for noise while I was working but found myself actually watching it by the time Max came on and started talking about the Survival Guide.

The Survival Guide was one of those books that I had often thought I should read but never got around to so that's what dragged me in. What really got me watching the show is when I heard him talking about doing the lecture tour after releasing the guide, not because I think these are necessary life skills, I'm a geek not an idiot, but because of his attitude. He basically said that he thought the lectures were a joke to fill some time but then he saw the numbers of people showing up and he figured he may as well play it up and make it worth their time; I can respect that attitude. I thought he was going to be all serious and sanctimonious about it but he set out to entertain and from what I can tell that's exactly what he delivered. So, a couple of minutes later when he started talking about World War Z I was willing to check it out. However, I have to say that what truly clinched it for me was when I found out his dad was Mel Brooks. That dude has been making me laugh for as long as I can remember, seriously, one of my earliest memories is watching Blazing Saddles at the drive in and who among us hasn't seen Spaceballs almost as many times as Star Wars itself.

Which brings us to our book review for World War Z. This was a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed, not a groundbreaking piece of artsy literature, I can't read that crap, but a really solid story that drew me in and kept me reading. The full title of the book is actually World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and that is exactly what it was, a series of interview done by one man about 10 years after the War that almost destroyed the human race. Each story is short, I read it on my Palm so it's hard for me to be exact, but the longest story couldn't be more than 7 or 8 pages. However, due to the nature of these stories, they draw you in and enthrall you quickly. I believe my favorite one was fairly early in the book, a woman telling the story of the first night that they faced the zombies, torn from their normal everyday lifestyle into a living horror story, or possibly the one told by a girl who was four or five when the zombies attacked and how she was almost killed when the horde attacked the church she and some other survivors were inside.

The thing that makes these stories truly work are the fact that you can empathize with most of the people, you can see the characters taken from a cross section of every day modern life, no matter what country they came from or escaped to in order to survive the war. You understand the choices these people make because they are the same ones you would make in that situation, or at least hope you would make. The zombies are there and while they are the "bad guys" in the story, they rarely play a large part; they serve as more of a backdrop, a common theme that united the people.

There was only one thing I would have liked to have seen different about the book. Each person only tells one story and I would have liked to have heard some of them tell a story from a different part of the war; for example the woman I mentioned earlier, I would have liked to have found out if her family survived, and if so, how. Other than that small complaint I wouldn't have changed anything, it was a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone, not just zombie nerds.

The movie comes out next year and I hate the fact that I'm looking forward to it, you know it's going to get butchered in the translation.