World War Z
by Max Brooks
fantasy thriller ?
copyright 2006
read in July 2015
rated 8/10: really quite good
This book is now, also, a movie. When I spotted the book I hesitated... Is it a book which became a movie... or a movie which became a book...?
This is a book which became a movie.
I just cannot imagine that a movie could do it justice.
The story is told as a series of interviews, told after the fact of the zombie apocalypse. A series of anecdotes, each adding to the war history.
And it is a war history... not a novel. There is no hero. Lots of different people doing lots of different things. Each adding to the overall picture. See why I don't believe that a movie could do it justice ?
There are good people and bad people. Overall, however, the history is positive. It is, perhaps, tending towards the old style of "humanity uber alles" of some old science fiction. Still, if the zombies had won -- this history would not have been written :-)
On the down side, the book is a collection of stereotypes, of almost clichés... Each nation plays to its stereotype. Or is that a strength of the book rather than a weakness ?!
This is a history of the world response to the zombie apocalypse. If the Americans acted with a stiff upper lip... the Germans faced zombies with a she'll be right attitude... the Italians marched in lockstep at the enemy... who would believe it ?!
The zombies, too, are stereotypes. Or did Max Brooks invent the now-stereotype ??
Zombies stand or shamble. Till they detect a human... Then it's arms out, stumble at the humans, moaning... Okay, just moaning. Not mumbling, Braaains...
Forget the stereotypes, this book is not about people, nor about zombies. It's about individual and national response to the threat of the end of humanity.
And it is really quite good.
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Though I am left with one problem.
Is that, World War Zed ? Or World War Zee...
"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present." -- Hobbes via Watterson
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