Customer Reviews

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is one of the best books that I have read in a long while. Its descriptions of a zombie holocaust and the worldwide response to it is realistic.

The book is a collection of short stories told as a post war interview of survivors.

Stories range from all over the world(including outer space)a young soldier who recounts the disastrous battle of Yonkers where "shock and awe" tactics failed in the face of mindless undead hordes to the actions of the Chinese submarine commander.

What surprised me is the great amount of sympathy the reader gets when he reads some of the heart breaking tales in the book and even some of the ironic and even surprise twists that you get after some of the stories(eg. the twist at the end of the one about the inventor of the Redekker plans leaves a lot of questions and is quite unexpected).

Even after two readings, I was left with the feeling that I would like to know more about the world of world war z...Its a feeling rarely found in many a book...

I was interested in reading World War Z as I love the whole zombie apocalypse idea. I read 100 pages the last 40 pages were forced as I hoped the book would get better. My problem was the books tells a story through probably 100 different peoples accounts of the zombie war. Every 4 pages all the characters and envirnoment are gone, then your on to the next set of characters and enivronment. I found it impossible to feel any emotion or to care about characters that were only around for four pages.

This book is brillant in a way I'll give it that. The author gets into alot of detail about how the zombie war would actually unfold what people would do, what the government would do, the profiteers, the criminals the politics etc things that conventional zombie stories don't get into.

Overall the book is brillant in how it realistically depicts a zombie apocalypse but I wish the author stuck with a few or even several more interesting of the characters in lieu of having hundreds of peoples accounts of the zombie war.

This book is essentially a description of a future war with hordes of zombies told via interviews and news clips. Of course, for the narrative, they all take place well after the event, but the collection is enrapturing. Sometimes, some of the best parts of a movie about zombies, are the news clips and interviews the characters see on TV/hear on the radio, and that's basically what this book is all about.

From the interviews with soldiers fighting drug lords in Central Asia and doctors trying to stem the 'disease' in China, to action reports from the front lines of troops fighting the zombies to average citizens telling their tales of survival, it is a collection of anecdotes that are sometimes humourous, terrifying, or just plain intriguing.

A good solid read that kept me turning the pages until late into the night.

I was very excited to read World War Z as I had heard many positive reviews from people I know. I had even over heard multiple strangers talking about it and recommending it to their friends. When I went to read it Season 2 of The Walking Dead had finished recently, bath salts face eating events were occurring - I was stoked for a good apocalyptic zombie book! I am currently 88% done this book according to my Kindle and I am forcing myself to finish it for the mere purpose of finishing it.

There is no question that Max Brooks is a talented writer - World War Z is written beautifully with vivid imagery and great variety of topics that seem well researched. However, that is all that I find enjoyable about this book, and it becomes old and mundane when there is nothing else to keep you engaged.

I find the format in which this book is written to be very distracting, scattered, and disruptive. For those who haven't read this yet, the book is written in a series of "Events." Within these "Events" are a handful of people's recollections regarding that specific event. No person (that I have noticed) occurs in the book more than once. It is essentially a collection of random people's experiences regarding World War Z. There is no single character, or even set of characters, that the plot follows and allows you to connect with. There is basically no character development as each 'interaction' with each character lasts no more than 10-20 pages, then they are gone and never to be heard from again. The lack of solid character development doesn't allow for any character bonding that helps lead to reader's empathy with the problems faced. Consequently, the book had little emotional impact for me and left me feeling unsympathetic to the eloquently portrayed catastrophes. Perhaps if it had followed the same handful of people through each "Event" I would have been more captivated with the book.

This novel seems to have made quite an impact on many people, however, I was overall very disappointed with the way the story was presented and found World War Z to be lackluster. I believe it has tons of potential, but the execution of the plot was unappealing to me and as such I just could not 'get into' this book and did not find it to be an enjoyable read.

I am not giving you spoilers but read this one and Max Brooks other hit "The Zombie Survival guide" both before you see the movie

While I've had a passing interest in the recent Zombie popularity I never read a Zombie book or saw more than one episode of Walking Dead. The only experience I've had was the original Romero Night of the Living Dead film.
I'd seen World War Z on Amazon before and always considered picking it up, but when the movie came out and the price dropped to $9.99 I decided to pick it up not even sure what to expect. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. The narrative of interviewing participants in the war was a little tough to follow at the beginning, but once you got used to the fact that this was a story of the war and not the people I came to really appreciate this form of story telling.
It was one of those books I was anxious to read and was sorry to see end.

Ok ... I LOVED this book. I didn't think I would. I figured it was probably going to be highly violent and ridiculous. And then ... I picked it up, flipped to the first page and was hooked. Line and sinker. It reads like a non-fiction, historical account of a world war. Because Max Brooks includes so many details from previous world events (WWII, the Great War, Cuban American relations, Russian history, etc) I kept thinking ... "did I miss out on a zombie war?" The book is written as a compilation of oral interviews between the reporter and people who have survived the war. Everyone talks about their own personal experiences, and through these interviews we get a real idea of what it felt like - you even have enough background detail that you can imagine the battle at Yonkers, you can picture yourself in a Chinese rebel submarine, or you can believe a pilot's account of having to survive a plane crash and a zombie attack. This book is full of vivid imagination, facts and figures, it takes itself seriously ... and I think it's pretty brilliant. I highly recommend it.

This book surprised me. I was expecting your typical zombie tale. World War Z viewed it from a fresh prospective. I had a problem following the chapters at first but once I realized the concept of the book it was easy. A great read.

Got book for 14 year old grandson and he thought it was pretty good.
Seems to be quite popular at this moment in time.

Sorry I just can't get into a book that changes characters every 5 seconds. You can't get to know anyone or feel anything as well! Zombie just ate that dude's head across the street... Mehhh