World War Z

Cafe Society
41

It is entirely ignorance that causes a scenario about WWZ. People don’t know how to kill them; they don’t know that bites are 100% fatal and zombie-ism irreversible. They believe Phalanx can protect them; they don’t think it’ll come to their corner of the world.

However, even if you knew all that, and you were caught in an indefensibile position, ill-equipped, or mobbed, you’d be done. As Brooks pointed out, the zombie war is Total War. Billy Sherman had no idea, right?

Well, that was a titantic clusterfuck for all the reasons you said. It was inexcusable. China being overrun, not the same thing. Those people did not know what was going on, so they didn’t have the option to be prepared. The American government did, but chose to prioritize the TV coverage.

Can you not imagine how such a plague would spread, when the majority of the world has no idea what’s going on? I can.

I disagree. I would say, “unless we lack the information to protect ourselves.” The poor Chinese peasants “allowed” themselves to be overtaken? I think the book was full of examples of people who were not given any options, who did not know what was coming, who were betrayed and abandoned by the authorities who were supposed to care for them. The didn’t allow themselves to die-- their governments did.

And those things, like zombies, victimize those who are defenseless, who should be protected by those who enjoy power over them. They are disregarded at the peril of those who take them for granted.

Good question. I think maybe it had something to do with their cold climate not being sufficient the protection they had though it would be.

I found that scenario a little hard to believe as well.

42

Eh, apparently I’ve already been bitten. In a few hours I’ll be reduced to typing out stuff like “ummmmhhhrrrrrruuunnnnmmmmrrrruuuuuu…”. :smiley:

43

My point is that the makers of Phalanx, and the Chinese government, and the American government, and all the other organizations and authorites, are also people. Some of those people decided to conceal the initial Chinese outbreak. Other people decided to market a bogus vaccine solely to make a profit. Still other people decided that suppressing information about the threat was to their political advantage. If these people had behaved responsibly, the zombie threat would never have materialized. The general public wouldn’t have been caught unprepared if some of us weren’t actively working to exploit the situation for our own benefit.

They can’t climb. They always move toward sound. They can easily be outwalked, or even out-wheelchaired. They can’t climb. They can’t operate even a simple doorknob. They don’t recognize danger of any kind. They can’t climb.

Zombies are purely reactionary creatures, the simplest of automatons. Their actions are invariable and are always a response to ours. If you don’t let one bite you, they can’t multiply. If you destroy the brain, they die. A zombie attack is not like a battle or even an animal attack: you can’t defeat them by being more fearsome or violent than they are, any more than you can fight off a thunderstorm.

Zombies turn many of humanity’s everyday strategies for success-- selfish behavior, deception, exploitation of fears-- into a recipe for failure. Against a zombie attack, people survive only through clear thinking and cooperation.

44

Yes, those people had a choice. Their choices prevented the rest of the world from having choices. In ignorance, the world was a sitting duck.

Wait, what are you saying? That they can’t climb? :wink:

If I were in my home and a bunch of zombies attacked, we’d all be severely screwed. I have no firearm (and if I did, I wouldn’t have enough, I’m sure). I cannot secure my house-- it’s all ground-floor windows, no second floor I could make inaccessible. Even if I got into the attic, I don’t have a ton of food saved up, no generator, no way of eliminating a swarm of them to escape, no way of contacting the authorities if my phone wasn’t handy. I would die. Period. It wouldn’t save me that zombies can’t climb. They also don’t stop until you take off their heads. Unless you have firearms, you have to close melee with them. I would eventually get bitten and die, or get trapped and starve to death unless I had enough information before that happened to make choices that would save me. A hell of a lot of people didn’t have that information, and so… 200 million zombies in North America.

They never stop coming. They cannot be scared, or discouraged, and are very hard to disable. They are truly relentless. Regular people just living their lives are not prepared to fend of hordes of zombies. To say otherwise is really absurd. Now, well-informed, well-equipped people? Sure. But it’s the choice of people in power to provide that information. If they don’t, then the world would be screwed just as it was in the book.

And proper information. I am a clear-thinking person who would happily cooperate with anyone rather than be eaten by a zombie. But if I get caught out here unawares, unprepared, unequipped, I think I’d be dispatched in the end. Sure, I might take a few of them out on my way, but against a mob? Nope. Not here. Not now. Not fair to expect better from the rest of the world than I could hope for for myself in that situation.

45

Well, granted, if a swarm were to descend upon your rambler-style house at this instant, your survival prospects might not look so great. Ideally, the whole ‘communication/cooperation’ strategy is best employed before zombies outnumber humans by 80 to 1. I freely acknowledge that the situation becomes somewhat more complex once the open swarming phase has been reached.

46

And HERE’S the guy who will lead the Zombies into battle: Ghost Saddam!

:smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:

47

Sadly, it takes a crisis of epic proportions to make some people cooperate rather than profiteer in situations like these. This is why I think Brooks’ depiction of a worldwide zombie outbreak is pretty believable in most ways.

I also had a problem with zombies being able to survive in deep seas, brains unaffected by pressure. As for the moaning, I didn’t think it was described as being really loud, just that other zombies seemed able to hear it from very far away. Could the virus have caused heightened senses somehow? Maybe.

48

I think the Iceland disaster was caused by too many people thinking Iceland would be a perfect place to avoid the zombie plague. Isolated, lightly populated, freezing cold winters, largely self-sufficient.

And so you have hundreds of thousands of boat people heading for Iceland. And if a couple of those people are infected you get a total zombification of the island, as well as all the boat people who tried to take refuge there.

One of the most horrible parts of the zombie plague is that any refugees from infected zones are pretty much guaranteed to have some infected carriers with them. And so, zombies pop up in refugee camps which are filled with disorganized, hungry, confused, traumatized people. An area will pretty quickly become either 99% clear (with the occasional trapped zombie (An especially creepy part were the descriptions of highways clogged with cars, each car with a zombie who couldn’t figure out how to unfasten a seatbelt)) or 99% zombified (with the occasional guy in a water tower). Either the humans will wipe out the zombies, or the zombies will eat the humans.

I enjoyed the parts of the book where the military finally puts some thought into anti-zombie tactics. And as others have pointed out, killing any number of zombies is not difficult if you’re prepared and organized. The standard military tactics that work against humans are largely ineffective against zombies. Their morale never breaks. They can’t be stopped by disabling wounds. They can’t be pinned down by covering fire. But they don’t shoot back, they don’t improvise, they act as automatons. So you stand shoulder to shoulder, you don’t take cover, and you just shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot until every zombie is gone for however long it takes. At that point, zombie extermination is just an especially nasty and dangerous job, like cleaning a sewer.

49

So you’re saying that ten years after World War Z, “Zombie Hunter” will be one of the professions featured on Dirty Jobs? :smiley:

50

I bought the audio book from iTunes yesterday and it is phenomenal. The Battle of Yonkers section is read by Mark Hamill and is truly horrific.

Other actors who provide voices:

Alan Alda
Carl Reiner
Rob Reiner
John Turturro
Jurgen Prochnow
Henry Rollins

Prochnow and Rollins are both very good. Carl Reiner was a bit too Ocean’s 11 for me. The others I have yet to hear.

51

Unfortunately, as noted previously, it’s hugely abridged and much of the good stuff is left out.

52

I am reanimating this zombie thread (nyuck, nyuck, nyuck) now that I’ve read the book in order to ask whether others noticed a relative dearth of female interviewees.

53

Why would that be surprising? Those most likely to survive would be people with military or para-military (police, etc.) training, excellent physical conditioning, survival skills, and the ability and willingness to kill. That means, mostly male.

54

The ability to walk quickly and a willingness to bash in heads seems more germaine.

55

I disagree there are several females. The pilot, the emergency radio operator, the housewife who now runs a suburban fortress community, the wild child, the Russian soldier, the park ranger- There may be more, that’s just off the top of my head.

56

True, not many females interviewed, but Brooks makes up for this lack with the pilot who was “guided” through the swamps.

My vote for filming would be the two Japanese men, especially if they waited awhile to reveal that one of them was blind.

57

Willingness to bash heads = ability and willingness to kill. Zombies are just as tough, if not tougher to kill than a live human.

The ability to walk quickly (for long periods of time, under constant threat of attack, without the comforts of modern civilization to come home to) = military or para-military (police, etc.) training, excellent physical conditioning, survival skills

Glad we agree.

58

Not in Brooks’s world. They are easy to deal with. I repeat: bash their heads in. By the way, I kill all manner of animals as needed, but have yet to kill a person. I don’t think your argument is sound.

59

Where in the world did you get that? In Shaun of the Dead all it took was a bash to the head. In his book, you had to destroy the brain. A little bop on the head ain’t gonna cut it! “Bash their heads in” is also a way to kill a live person, you know? And zombies don’t feel pain, so they can’t just be disabled. They won’t fall down, grabbing their head in pain if the first blow isn’t a deadly one, like a live human. Like I said, they are just as tough to kill, if not tougher, than a living person.

And you personally may be able to kill all the animals you want. You may even be able to kill a human, if it came to that. But aren’t men a much larger percentage of hunters than women? It takes a certain physical and mental state to kill, one that is more common to men. I maintain that it would be psychologically harder to kill a zombie than a deer, because of the knowledge that it was once human. “Bash their heads in” would work, but that takes the physical and emotional ability to do so.

60

From the wikipedia article, apparently I’ll do ok out of the whole thing;

:slight_smile:

I was put off the book for the reasons noted by iamthewalrus, when I had tokens to buy it.