Bookworms: World War Z (2006) by Max Brooks

A kick-ass, scientific, practical, horrifying, and even political perspective on the potentially looming zombie apocalypse. The text of World War Z by Max Brooks is the post Zombie War reflection on the debilitating mistakes, monumental struggles, and truly human survival that needed to be told.

World War Z is written from a post disaster perspective, with humans doing what they do best by rebuilding society and government after years of survival through a war no one saw coming. This affords a look at how the virus spread, was poorly handled, survived and even cleaned up after, witnessing the foolish as well as the courageous parts.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to see the whole course of the outbreak from points across the entire world. Spanning from the virus’ origins in rural China to black market organ transplants spreading the virus in Brazil. To the refugees who ran to cold weather in the winter in North America to the divers off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands cleaning up the mess. While most zombie apocalypses tend to be locally focused due to a breakdown in communication. Max Brooks’ storyline moves slower, allowing information to spread until the last minute. Highlighting humanity’s tendency towards a need for communication and camaraderie as both a weakness and a strength.

My absolute favorite aspect of this book is that while reading it, there is no one particular character that you love or pull for. With the story jumping around in time, location, and characters, the reader is not following one person’s story of survival. As a result, what you end up caring and cheering for is the story and humanity itself. In the wake of terrible tragedy, mistakes, denial, and lack of communication there is a constant certainty that humanity’s ingenuity and survival instinct is what will pull through since the book is written from the post-war perspective.

There are some other great specific points Max Brooks brings up that spark my zombie-nerdiness and reminds me of many conversations I have had with fellow undead fans. The author mentions how zombies deal with water, where other stories say they generally don’t go there. World War Z says they walk straight to the depths of the oceans, sometimes pulling human snacks down with them. I also loved the ideas of zombies freezing in the winter and the K-9 corps made up of mixed breed dogs like dachshunds, pit bulls, shepherds, Rottweiler, and more, fighting a variety of battles in Nebraska.

Combing through this book gives the best zombie discussion topics and points, which really is the whole point isn’t it? I’m curious to see how the movie adaptation of the same title set for 2013 will incorporate such a plethora of ideas. I highly recommend reading the book first because my most anticipated part of seeing the movie will be to expertly identify details from the book. Impress everyone with your knowledge, tactics, and overall worst-case scenario preparedness by absorbing and analyzing Max Brooks’ account of the last great human war, World War Z.