I just got finished reading “World War Z” by Max Brooks last night. Fantastic book, a Studs Terkel-esque “oral history of the Zombie War”. The author traveled around the world collecting survival stories from the world-wide outbreak of the zombie plague.
Anybody else have a chance to read this?
An extensive wikipedia article is here: World War Z - Wikipedia.
I read it and thought it was absolutely brilliant, though it had a few minor flaws.
On the “brilliant” side - Brooks manages to set up an absolutely believable situation out of the fantastic, and managed to make me feel a mounting sense of fear and horror at the war even when I knew that it was going to be won and the people telling the stories were all going to survive. The stories were well told, and had enough of a different ‘voice’ to them to keep it from feeling like just a single narration throughout. He also took the story in very interesting, though logical, directions; I also like how he would refer to events in shorthand because the characters knew them that way, even though we as the audience had to slowly fill in the pieces from half-statements and inferences.
On the “flaws” side - there was a little more technical-jargon-masturbation akin to Clancy than I was willing to put up with; I nearly fell asleep during the diver’s story because I no longer cared about the neat diving equipment specifications he had.
The other flaw is one that just plain confuses me: the fact that he set up the American politicians to be very specific people but refuses to actually name them. I mean, Jesus - soft-spoken military hero of Jamaican descent and white-haired, raving Vermonter from the other party who had a public “emotional” slip-up? How can any American who even pays a modicum of attention to the evening news not have an immediate and clear idea of who these people are? I’d be more willing to accept this as not ‘dating’ the story or something if it weren’t for the fact that he fills the story with descriptions of military technology which inherently dates the story. Add in to this his refusal to talk about “the Iraq War” but instead references “our previous disastrous brush war” or “the military conflict in the Middle East”, and it feels like he’s trying to be coy, and it’s just stupid.
But, really, those are minor flaws. I recommended this book to all of my friends without reservations.
Was planning on reading it soon, but I’m in the middle of The Zombie Survival Guide and I’m probably just going to give up on it. I’ve laughed maybe twice in the first hundred pages. I get that the humor is funny in the seriousness he takes in such a ridiculous subject, but it’s the sort of thing that could be funny in a much shorter span, but in the span of a mid sized book, yuck. I was expecting the delivery to be much more like the ninja stories on realultimatepower.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting a copy for Xmas. I’m looking forward to it… I’m a bit of Zombie fanatic these days.
Personally, I liked it—all things considered, for this day and age, I think he managed to keep it mostly* apolitical, which was to be commended.
The biggest issue I had with it was technical…namely, a number of his ideas on what would or wouldn’t kill a zombie leave me a little :dubious:. I think a big one was the notion that the only good you could hope that radiation would do against a zombie is that it would be a strong enough dose to cause lots of “instantanious tumors to develop” in the dead creature’s brain. Yeah.
(…)
…Yeah.
(Anyone else want to take that one on?)
There were a few other ones, but I’ll leave them for after I get some sleep. (Or after I get some decent testing done. Anyone know how big an animal leg I could use Galvani’s electric frog process to move?)
*“Mostly.” At least it won’t date it too embarrisingly, for future generations. (“Boy! They’re really sockin’ it to that Spiro Agnew guy again, he must work there or something.”)
Geez, I remember doing that experiment in college. Kill frog. Rip out frog leg muscle. Hook frog leg muscle up to spring scale. Apply voltage to severed frog leg muscle to see how much it contracts. Brrrr.
Oh, the official World War Z website is here:
When I filled out the “calculate risk” questionaire it reported that based on my demographics I had only a 38% of surviving.
Why have I not heard of this book? Is it a stand alone book or do you have to read Zombie Survival Guide first? I’m a big fan of Studs Turkel and of zombies so this is right up my alley.
It’s a standalone. The survival guide gets mentioned in passing a few times but that is it.
And my survival chance is apparently only 34%. 
Just finished it up and I loved it. Some of the stories left me with chills. For example:
When the traffic copter guy was talking about the bumper to bumper traffic and how people were trapped in their cars while the zombies were just coming up the road devouring everything in its path.
32% dammit. I thought it would be better than that.
Well, given your location I’m surprised it’s that high. After all, the army had to pull back to the Rockies and abandon civilians on the east coast. And given that New York City was pretty much 100% zombified, anyone in New Jersey is going to have a tough time.
I also get 38%. I might have to pick this book up. I heard Max Brooks do interviews on NPR about World War Z and the Survival Guide. Very good, very witty, and very entertaining.
Probably the military/police/firearms questions pushed me up a bit. I’ll bow out now in case there are more spoilers.
Well, Yankee fans are pretty much pre-zombified anyways.
I got 34% as well, but then I ran the numbers again giving the “right” answers, and still got only 65%. Let’s just hope that Comet Wormwood stays away for a long, long time.
41%, here. Let’s hear it for high mountains, cold winters, and low population densities!
Now lets hear from a sedentary New York City office worker.
Given the cite in the book of 200 million zombies in North America, your base survival rate is only ~33% anyway.
I can’t complete the calculator, because it’s asking to describe your location in terms of the US only, and there’s no option to say you’re outside of the US. Assholes.
Actually, screw 'em. Based on the map that shows Australia falling halfway off the world, there’s no zombies here anyway so I’ve got a survival rate of 100%. Booyah!
Sure, until your continent slips off into space and you slowly die as you slide out of Earth’s atmosphere. 
-Joe