List Price: $14.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)as of 11/21/2009 19:23 EST
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780307346612
ISBN: 0307346617
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: October 16, 2007
Studio: Three Rivers Press
Features:
Related Items:
Alternate Versions: Click to Display
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This as we know is a work of fiction. But after reading what the reaction of the many governments of the world were in this story...it kind of chilled me because I really DO believe that this is what their reaction would be. Our own government letting us be basically on our own as they retreated to make their final stand was a little upsetting. However, the book does prove that the regular foot soldier knows more about how to fight a war, than most damn generals do.
I listened to the author speak about this book on the radio show "Coast to Coast AM" and it was a very entertaining interview. It reminded me of the War Of The Worlds, because Max Brooks and the host of the show were acting as though World War Z had actually taken place.
All in all the book is a really good read. I would have liked to have the book gone into a little more detail about the virus itself. Maybe devoted a chapter at the end to study or something. Max Brooks is a talented writer, but being a offspring of the great Mel Brooks, this should not come as a shock. I do recommend this book to anyone who like science fiction. Enjoy!!
Rating:  -
The Zombie fan in me definitely couldn't resist when I saw "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War" at the bookstore back in the Spring. I, for one, am a huge fan of the uber-gory zombie fiction that involves survival and what have you. I love "The Evil Dead" movies, Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" and a lot others. Even further, Max Brooks, the man who wrote "The Zombie Survival Guide" had written it. I loved that book, so again, I couldn't resist.
World War Z is not your typical zombie book: It's done in the mockumentary style of writing that has been done back in the past. It's sort of a play on Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", and brilliantly so! I really ended up liking this book, especially in unique style and in substance. You can tell that Max Brooks is a horror buff, as am I. And most of all, it's very convincing! There's also supposed to be a movie of this later in the year.
A virus has out-broken across the world, thus causing people to turn into zombies. Max Brooks, a specialist in Zombie Fiction, is one of the survivors, and travels around the world talking to people who were there when it happened. The so-called "Zombie War" is referential to the point when almost half the world has turned to the living dead! Max interviews several people around the world, including people who fought in the war, people who lost their homes to the virus, people who lost friends to the virus, and more. Even more frightening, all this happens while the living dead still roam the streets.
I absolutely loved this book. Be it the documentary style or the zombie content, this book manages to thrill and entertain throughout the whole book. There are plenty of pop culture references to older zombie movies like "The Evil Dead", even an odd Iron Maiden reference, and lots of action. This book is really funny too! There's tons of dark humor underlying the story, and people worrying about being scared will have nothing to worry about, there's plenty of humor here.
So In short, I really loved this book, and recommend it to horror buffs and fans of Zombie fiction!
Rating:  -
This is the apotheosis of escapist fiction. Almost completely devoid of character development and style, World War Z is nonetheless an entertaining exposition of the effects of a worldwide zombie outbreak. And no one is better qualified to write such an account than Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide.
The novel consists of snippets of interviews with "survivors," through which the reader learns how the outbreak began and how humans organized themselves to fight the zombies. Obviously, reading this book is not an intellectual enterprise, but you have to be impressed by the thought that Brooks has put into the psychological, technological, and economic implications of zombie war. The zombies themselves are a mystery: Brooks never reveals how they reanimate from the dead or how they "work." Still, he reveals enough icky details about zombie ecology to make them the best-developed "character" in the book.
Brooks displays great competence within his specialty of zombie fiction, presenting a fully imagined scenario and maintaining enough suspense to keep the reader turning the pages.
Rating:  -
As with many others here, I am a huge fan of Brooks' "Survival Guide", and looked forward to reading this book. I assumed he'd take the same funny over-the-top-serious approach to World War Z, and gladly bought it. I was very, very wrong. This book is not funny. It is serious. It spends at least as much time talking (mostly incorrectly) about history and politics as it does about zombies. He has the "bad guy" nations, like many middle-eastern countries, China, Russia, etc., get pretty thoroughly destroyed by the zombies, while "good-guy" nations like the US (despite the meddling of that Evil President Bush) survive. If this were done in a lighter, sillier, or even more action filled fashion, this could work. Unfortunately, the mash-up of cartoon good-guys win and bad-guys lose with Brooks' apparent need to lecture us on his world-view turns this book into a boring waste of time. If you don't mind wading through a lot of modern history make believe to get a few admitted good zombie scenes, go ahead and pick this up. If you consider yourself a student of history, don't read this or you will claw your eyes out before the zombies ever get a chance.
If you've never read the Zombie Survival Guide, don't let this book put you off it. The Guide is well worth picking up. World War Z, on the other hand, mixes preachy with absurd, a poor combination if I ever heard one. If you want to go to the other end of the spectrum of zombie literature, I recommend "Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains" by Ryan Mecum. It's twistedly good fun.
Rating: -
Best book I've read this year -- grabbed me from the first page and didn't let go until the end. And I'm not even a zombie fan.
|
