World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Although I had not yet heard about this particular title before reading it, I did find it quite curious that a book with the theme of a zombie apocalypse could get mentioned on NPR (National Public Radio – in the US). That fact is mentioned on the book’s jacket and it proves to be an incredibly apt way of explaining that old cliche of horror novels, “This is not your average tale of terror.” In this case, it’s not so much cliche as the flat out truth. Max Brooks is the author of The Zombie Survival Guide, another big hit even outside the hardcore horror fans. This man knows how to write from a fascinating and innovative angle, that much is a given, but what he has done with this World War Z is truly amazing. The whole book is written in the form of fiction “interviews” with people who survived an apocalypse of zombies. Normally, in this type of tale we’d be given a song and dance about a barely believable disease that turned everyone into zombies – not in this case. No, Brooks delves a lot deeper into the human psyche and puts a laser guided missile directly into the primal fear processing cortex of our brains. This book isn’t so much creepy as downright unnerving. The situations Brooks describes are a kind of hell that anyone would hope never happens on Earth.
The beauty of Brooks’ style in this particular title is that he goes the distance to keep it truly global in perspective. The sheer amount of detail is quite amazing because he covers the tale from every culture on the globe, nearly all countries given at least a passing mention. He “interviews” people from all walks of life and gives the story a truly interesting mass media feel that sets this story apart from anything else of its kind. While this lets the book pack one hell of a punch, it will also most likely date it which is sad. Twenty years from now the book won’t carry the sheer immediacy that it does now – but that could be wrong. At any rate, reading World War Z right now is a brilliant idea!