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World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War | 
| Author: Max Brooks
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $8.22
You Save: $6.73 (45%)
Rating:  470 reviews
Sales Rank: 331
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307346617
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780307346612
ASIN: 0307346617
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Normal wear. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
Eyewitness reports from the first truly global war
“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China
“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers
“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 465 more reviews...
 Cool!! December 21, 2008
E. Wind
This book was very creative and imaginative. It keeps you interested from cover to cover.
World War Z December 21, 2008
Steven J. Crounse (buffalo)
Anybody who gives this less than 5 stars needs to have his/her head examined. Wonderfully original spin on the zombie genre. While not overly heavy on the gore, Brooks thoughtfully leaves this to the reader's imagination. Amazing character development for what is essentially a collection of short stories. I've heard there is a movie in the works; it will undoubtedly be a disappointment.
Everything You Wanted To Know December 20, 2008
Claire Murphy (NJ United States)
Max Brooks' "World War Z" is an amazing book. Fantastic writing, excellent pacing and absorbing characters all make for a great read. The best part, for me anyway, were the points of view that Brooks decides to write from. Whenever I watch a movie where Zombies or some incarnation thereof are a focal point, I always find myself wondering about the bigger picture. The films tend to focus on the small group of survivors or the brave family or town defending themselves against the monsters. They're also almost always set in the United States or Great Britian. Brooks' novel takes a look at all the aspects of the Zombie plague you never get to see in the movies. The government's reaction, the military, and most especially, international points of view.
He also answers some of the niggling questions some of us may have developed while watching the old Zombie flicks. What happens when the Zombies reach water? How about winter? Brooks manages to answer these questions and more in a writing style that, while informative, still manages to pack an emotional punch.
 Breaking the rules is okay if you know the rules December 18, 2008
James Roy Daley (Toronto, On, Canada)
This is a great book. You should buy it and read it. But the book has some built-in flaws, such as:
This is a story without a hero, without character arcs, without relationships and a whole lot of other basic things that most stories possess.
Having said that, the book is so well thought out, well written, engaging and original that it works. Problem is, the end of the book has no climax. No hero's journey equals no climax. A truly great story has a hero and climax.
Of course, Max Brooks knows this. And breaking the rules is okay if you know the rules, which he does.
James Roy Daley
Author of The Dead Parade
The Dead Parade
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