World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

This is a solid and riveting read. For those of us already into the zombie-genre, WWZ doesn't disappoint. This book also has enough to capture the imaginations of readers into medical thrillers, military history, environmental concerns, political dramas and anyone who enjoys good story telling.

WWZ is a winner because it takes a very fantastical premise, that zombies are real and almost wiped out the human race, and goes through a spectrum of experiences confronting and overcoming the zombie threat in chronological order. In the beginning there is patient zero, a rural Chinese twelve year-old locked away in a remote village is discovered when a doctor is called in to investigate this strange outbreak.

Through individual interviews, we get accounts from all over the world from real individuals in realistic circumstances whose lives are irrevocably changed in overcoming the zombie threat. Many are bitter or resentful about how the threat was not identified early enough or handled poorly. There is a pharmaceutical company, which capitalizes on the panic and markets a bogus vaccine. There is an teenage-Islamic extremist whose father forces him to take refuge behind the walls of Israel. A Japanese computer geek who doesn't leave his computer until he's no longer able to get an Internet connection. A girl who tells about her family's demise trying to survive through the winter. Several soldiers tell their tales of combat with Zack, Z's, Zed-heads, zombies, etc. Particularly interesting is the tactical lessons learned and implemented in these conflicts: traditional bombs aren't effective, they cannot be scared or demoralized and, as one general points out, when a human soldier is killed by a zombie he becomes the enemy.

We get a look at the world as it pretty much is, through WWZ, right before the "Great Panic". Brooks takes us through the crisis as more and more people are confronted with the living dead and struggle to survive. The best part of this collection of stories is that many show how our current methods and mindsets are forced to deal with a new challenge and manage to overcome it. Brooks tells about lawyers and CEO's who must learn to plant crops and take on construction jobs and about how blue-collar laborers now train former executives.

WWZ falls down, in part, due to its blocky delivery. Of course, a book this ambitious: to chronicle personal perspectives from the near ruin and rebirth of the human race, would have to be huge to adequately answer everything. Many of the interviews leave the reader wanting to ask more questions and dive into deeper details. The reader doesn't get much time to develop a relationship with the characters before it is time to be introduced to a new set of characters, circumstances and location. Consequently, readers have to soak up all the details and minutiae presented in the interviews and apply them to a much larger story, which is that of the human race as a whole meeting this horrific threat and overcoming it together.