Shambling back into view...

It's been far too long since I last posted a book review. That said, here we go:

Read: August 2006
Title: World War Z
Author: Max Brooks
ISBN: 0307346609
Binding: Hardcover (though I read an ARC)

Brooks (son of funnyman Mel and probably quite tired of being parenthetically labeled such) writes this in the style of an oral history, presenting transcripts of eyewitness accounts arranged more or less chronologically from one of the first outbreaks of infection in a remote Chinese village through the liberation of America as the army of the living reaches the Atlantic Ocean. While staying true to the usual rules of the genre, he (I think wisely) doesn't even attempt to come up with a pseudoscientific explanation for whatever it is that first created the zombies. Instead, the focus is entirely on the events and emotions related by the survivors of the zombie war.

Truthfully, I found the book bloody brilliant. The disaster driving the story could easily have been smallpox or a new more virulent (perhaps airborne) strain of rabies or any one of dozens of other quite plausible threats. But zombies? Wow.

I highly recommend this book. But don't just take my word for it. Read this review written in the style of one of the stories and make up your mind for yourself.