World War Z by Max Brooks

I’ve always been a zombie movie fan ever since I was just a tyke. And, unlike other horror films, I was always terrified by zombie movies. Even today I’ll often have nightmares after watching or reading a good zombie tale. There’s a couple reasons why I think it has this effect on me and many other people. First is the horror of the dead roaming the earth in swarms and eating people. Then there’s the concept that if it happened the world as we know it would end. It’s that fear of losing everything and being hunted that gets me to my soul.

This is why I jumped on Max Brooks latest Zombie epic, World War Z. The book details from outbreak to all out War to recovery of a world ravaged by a virus that reanimates the dead. The story unfolds from the perspectives of many people in countries all over the world. Meticulously researched, Brooks grounds everything in reality. There are no wild leaps here in logic, no magical happy ending or glossing over of mistakes made by bureaucrats and politicians. World War Z takes an uncompromising look at a disaster and a worldwide scale and how each country deals with and tries to contain the outbreak.

The most interesting thing about World War Z is how you can take out the word “Zombie” and replace it with just about any natural or artificial disaster you can think of and the details of the story wouldn’t change that much. Brooks has captured the unpreparedness of not only our own United States to deal with this disaster but also countries all over the world. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that some type of viral outbreak could in fact occur on a world wide level and World War Z offers a lot of Insight into how unprepared the world is for such a disaster.

While the book goes into some very dark territory telling the story from perspectives and cultures from all over the world it does offer hope. While the world falls apart the human spirit certainly gets to thrive in this book and we see not only the willingness to survive but the willingness to help others. In stark contrast to that we also witness the rise of new dictators, witness the horrors of survivalist militias, and the general BS of the famous politicians.

The parallels from events such as the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, and even terrorism can be drawn from this book. But the must inspiring aspect of it is the simple fact that the world, while divided up by politics, religion and other BS that shouldn’t matter, can come together in the face of a crises. I just hope it doesn’t take the end of the world as we know it to get to that place.

World War Z has already been optioned for a film but I highly recommend any fan of the zombie sub genre to pick this up immediately. Even people who aren’t horror fans can get a lot from this story just from the socioeconomic standpoint. World War Z is by far the best zombie story I’ve ever read.