Just finished World War Z. Brilliant.
Don’t really have much else to say about it. Just wanted to get that out.
Indeed. Particularly the Battle of Yonkers, “Die m’f’er die!”, - in the audiobook this guy is voiced by Mark Hamill - and the start of the push back across the to the east. Iron Maiden! \m/ And the blind Japanese Hiroshima survivor who dispatches them with a spade, or the girl who goes north to Canada and finds nothing but a cannibalistic hell…well, it’s just crowning moment of awesome after crowning moment of awesome. They’re making a film of it, they’d better not screw it up.
The Zombie Survival Guide is good stuff too. Keep you head, take off theirs.
I can’t imagine a good film from it - the whole point of the book is “Studs Terkel after the zombie apocalypse” and how can you make that come across in a film unless you went whole hog cheap documentary and then you wouldn’t be showing anything? Unless that’s what they’re doing, which is genius.
I still don’t understand his weird-ass dated Colin Powell/Howard Dean thing, though. But I was just thinking about this book a few weeks ago only to find out that my boyfriend lent it to his business partner a few years ago… and that ended in lawsuits. Guess I won’t be seeing that one again.
Ah yes, this is one of my favorite zombie books. There’s something about the entire premise of the book that you can almost believe, the way it’s presented as documented fact, and just the very human reactions to a very unhuman menace that tickles me in just the right way.
I loved the whole US storyline, mainly Yonkers, but also the entire transformation of the country into a ruthless and extremely efficient machine in the end.
My favorite parts have to be the feral child, the catacombs of Paris (especially!) and the part where they talk about the dog trainers.
I genuinely felt conflicted about the people left behind as bait. Yeah, it had to be done, but I couldn’t say that I’d welcome back the U.S. with open arms.
I like the idea of this book more than the execution of it. There’s some great stories in it, but listening to the audio book of it really brought home to me that Max Brooks wasn’t able to distinguish his character voices from each other. Every one of his characters tells a story in exactly the same way. If it’s a novel, that’s not a problem because the author’s voice is all there is. But when you’re trying to tell a story from multiple viewpoints, it kind of torpedoes you.
I don’t think it torpedoed him, but your complaint is valid. I was losing track of who was who by the end of it. Almost every book has some detracting quality, though. Overall WWZ was a heck a lot more enjoyable than almost anything else in recent fiction.
I thought it was supposed to be McCain who was The Old Man, not Powell- but now that I think of “The Old Man” being a unit’s nickname for their General, it make sense.
McCain is not very black. Quite the opposite, in fact.
That’s what I get for skimming.
I didn’t particularly care for it. I was interested in reading it initially, but it just never sparked that “can’t put it down” fever for me. So I put it down and never picked it back up. I think it was a matter of no character that you can really feel for, no character development. But its hardly fair for me to critique it too much, since I didn’t get very far in before I got bored.
I somewhat enjoyed the zombie survival guide, but it was also pretty easy to put down.
All in all - my expectations were higher than my resulting opinion. But I haven’t read any other recent fiction, so can’t make any comparisons there.
Can’t disagree more. I thought there were very distinct voices for each ‘character.’ The soldier didn’t tell the story the same as the former feral kid who didn’t tell the story the same as “Karl Rove” who didn’t tell the story the same as the security guy, etc. etc.
Brooks wrote a new chapter set in the WWZ world for a zombie anthology called New Dead. I think it’s called Closure. Limited. It’s about a company that is hired to find specific zombies so their families can kill them in order to get closure. Everyone knows they aren’t finding the actual zombie but they make the effort to make the zombies they do capture look enough like the person that families are okay.
I liked his description about how boats had to be careful leaving their anchors down, because submerged zombies and climb up the rope or chain attached to the anchor.
I just finished this. On the whole I enjoyed it, in particular his imaginative ideas around how social impulses and habits are so embedded that people struggle to adapt, even in the face of flesh-eating zombies. But I also agree that a lot of the voices were similar, and in particular a lot of them were too literary in quality.
I’m curious about what the movie’s structure will be.
“Zombie zombie threads for $400, Alex.”
Not much to add to the thread except a question (that probably can’t be answered):
[QUOTE=Mr. Kobayashi]
- in the audiobook this guy is voiced by Mark Hamill - and the
[/QUOTE]
I have the audio book of the novel, but for some reason the only one I can find is abridged. Why isn’t there an unabridged production of the book (or if there is, where can I get it)?
Other than that, I loved the book and even the abridged audio production. I’m a pretty big fan of zombie apocalypse type books (just finished the Ex-Hero’s Ex-Patriots series).
-XT
I’m already disappointed with the movie based on what I’ve read so far.
Since my first response in the thread I’ve read it again and I have realized I also loved the part about all the radio operators who have committed suicide. I don’t think the movie will be able to capture all the heartbreak that is shown in the book.
What they should have done is just have the movie follow the soldier around from the lead-up, fall, and retaking.
One of my favorite touches was the mystery of what happened to North Korea. One of the theories floated is that they withdrew into vast, subterranean cities and locked them away to protect themselves from the zombies, and the possibility that the vaults didn’t work, and are now vast zombie repositories, just waiting from some archaeologist or explorer to open them up and start the war all over.
The thing I liked about the book is that it’s almost like human societies are the main characters. Almost all other zombie stories deal with the outbreak from the point of view of a very small group of people. World War Z still had some great character stories too, but I really loved reading a zombie outbreak story from a wider perspective. I doubt the film can really capture that, but it could still be a decent regular zombie story.
I, too looked for an unabridged audiobook and I don’t think there is one.
As far as the movie goes, I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen it. From what I’ve heard Max Brooks is pleased with it so I will check that box in the “pro” column.