World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
I’m not quite sure why people call this a “humor” book. I didn’t think it was especially humorous. It was, however, very, very good. I suppose anything with zombies is supposed to be a joke, in spite of the very real and present danger they represent.
In the near future, there was a war with zombies. This book is an oral history that will be conducted a few years after the main hostilities will have ended (although there are still several dangerous “white zones”, most significantly Iceland). Brooks travels the globe interviewing people about where they were when things started, what they did during the war, what was their role, what were their impressions. It’s done fantastically well.
He manages to track down the doctor that dealt with “Patient Zero”, a Chinese boy in a remote village, who was bitten while illegally diving for treasure in the newly flooded Three Gorges Dam with his father. What’s fascinating is the progress of the zombie plague is entirely plausible and easy to believe. The Chinese government wants to cover things up which only exacerbates the problem. A similar course is followed by other governments until things can no longer be ignored, then other equally believable courses of action are taken. (Ignored scientific reports, military campaigns run by politicians, religious fervor, &c &c.) Humanity was almost ended. In the US alone, out of 300 million people, 200 million were zombies. Scary!
The one thing I though was missing, though, was an examination of a US religious response. There was a brief mention or two of some doomsday cults, but how did the Robertson/Falwell/Roberts/Van Impe types react? Did they set up a camp in Ghana or something?
I didn’t know it until after I finished, but Max Brooks is a former writer for Saturday Night Live and is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, and is also the author of Zombie Survival Guide
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Huh? Who said that it was supposed to be a humor book?
I’ve been wanting to read this one for a while, but other things keep creeping up on me.
Jawn
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Oh, damn you, HTML formatting!
I meant to say: Jawn <3 Zombies
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Well, the MBLN link (the Boston Public Library) has it classified as
War — Humor
Some of the amazon reviewer also thought it was supposed to be a humor book and downgraded their stars because it wasn’t.
It’s a great book. It moves fast and is quite broken up, so you can pick it up and set it down without being in the middle of a long story line. Just the thing for daddy with a late night fidgety baby.
This is way more George Romero than it is Simon Pegg.