Guerra mundial Z: Una historia oral de la guerra Zombi

Very much not my style of book. I did not enjoy the interview format was unable to finish reading.

I do not read zombie novels; however, I had heard good things about this one. So, in the spirit of “never say never,” I gave it a try. This book is an oral “history” of the zombie apocalypse. As the story opens, it has already occurred, and the narrator is interviewing participants from across the globe. My main complaint is the way women are portrayed. Other than that, I have to admit being pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the storyline. It will not, however, become standard fare in my reading list.

I found this to be a more anthropological look at how we might respond to a catastrophic outbreak. The human element of individual stories and memories makes for an engaging read. Very well worth the effort.

I found this book sort of boring. I guess it was supposed to read like a journalist's interviews, so maybe that's why? I think it was sort of because most of the interviews were with different people, so it was hard to get invested in anyone enough to care about them. Also, I'm not a big fan of zombies.

This is certainly one of those books that I prefer over the movie. I understand why the movie was formatted the way it was, featuring a protagonist the audience could empathize with rather than the huge scope of the novel. The effect the novel accomplishes by giving reports and accounts from across the globe is stunning and builds a sense of dread not quite encompassed in the movie. Having a protagonist, after all, limits the story as something happening to a character or set of characters. I think the decision Brooks made to not have a specific character to focus on made all the difference in his story.

Well done.

Book is way better than the movie. The movie was a bust. Just an FYI.

When I first read this book I was skeptical because I’m not a fan of zombie anything. Let me just tell ya; I loved it.

My perception; I’ve been told I’m wrong but oh well. I read it as the war has been going on for sometime and a journalist explored the origins of the virus within a time line. I imagined it like the Interview with a Vampire. He interviewed tons of individuals and it jumps from person to person location to location explaining how the war went down.

What I enjoyed the most is perfectly realistic tone; both serious and sardonic at the same time.
I feel like the approach is truly from a reporter with military knowledge; providing a pragmatical experience, if there was a zombie apocalypse. As a therapist I also enjoyed how it hit on the psychological effects on the individual, the citizens, and the military personnel.

I enjoy books that allow for the tears and laughter.

This was a fantastic audiobook. It kept me hooked and I loved the full cast of voice actors. I had never seen the movie before so I went into this blind and I loved it. I loved how Max Brooks thought through so many different scenarios and outcomes and I loved that he "interviewed" people all over the world to really get the scope of the zombie apocalypse. If you love zombie books and movies then this will not disappoint - I wish the book were longer - I feel like there were so many different perspectives he could have included! I would definitely recommend the audiobook version - I feel that since this was an oral history - that it was the best way to read it - the voice actors really were superb too!

This is not written in the typical novel form. Rather it is cast as a series of interviews with survivors of the world-wide war against zombies. Each story is unrelated, yet builds on the others. As a result, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Each vignette captures and comments on our own world, yet remains a bit aloof, since it is set in a fictional present. I found it compelling.

I really enjoyed this book...in the beginning. It started out great. There was the mystery of the virus that turned people into zombies and it was intriguing. Probably the middle 80% of the book was recounts of what happened in different countries. Those chapters were interesting at first but soon became boring and repetitive. My biggest complaint and the reason why I gave this book 2 stars and not 3 is because the cause is never explained. I'm sure there were some scientists somewhere researching this virus. Why weren't they interviewed? I would have found that much more enthralling than countless retellings of battles across the world.

An epistolary novel of a Zombie epidemic that kills 100s of millions of people. Yet reading it I never felt the horror and devastation of what that would feel like.

One of the most unique and well written books I've read for fantasy/horror. By that I am referring to the style of interviewing subjects after an event took place, especially one as wild as a zombie apocalypse. And beyond that, Brooks really spread his net wide and covered so many different subjects that not a single story within this book was not interesting. Top 5 in my favorites of all time.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. I'd already read it 2 or 3 times years ago, but listening to the Audiobook version was a real treat. It almost felt like I'd never heard this story before simply because the structure lends itself perfectly to an Audiobook format. It was as if we were listening to a radio play and it is absolutely phenomenal.

This has to be the most stacked audio cast ever - René Auberjonois, Alan Alda, Martin Scorsese, Carl and Rob Reiner, Common, F. Murray Abraham, Jeri Ryan and Mark Hamill and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some voices don't quite nail the landing, but the overall experience is insanely good.

Also listening to it post pandemic makes the story even stronger and more chilling now that we've lived through something akin to it: the differences in how certain countries and cultures deal with it, the initial confusion, the misinformation spread, how some make a ton of money off placebos, the general hopelessness...it almost hits too close to home.

I don't know how a book I loved could become even more prescient or more interesting over time, but there you go. Incredible.

Tour traditional zombie book. If you like the genre its worth a read.

I'm not always the biggest fan of zombie stories, but I do love post apocalyptic stories.

This one was pretty close to five stars for me, but in the end it didn't quite get there. Well above average, though. What I felt weren't quite what I was looking for were the credibility of the zombies as well as the lack of tension in the writing. Now, I do get that this book is an "after the fact" recollection of events and it's not supposed to be a thriller or anything, but I still expect a certain pull in post apocalyptic books that makes it exciting.

Then again, this was really well executed for an interview formatted dossier of survival stories from a zombie apocalypse. This also managed to hit me in the feels a couple of times toward the end, though it didn't quite make me cry.

A solid read, which I'm glad for reading.

I picked this book up from a friend at a Books, Beers, and Pizza get together ages and ages ago, and somehow it seemed like a good idea to pick it up early in a global pandemic? I question my decision-making sometimes.

The chapters more focused on the actual zombies and the battles and defenses were of course (luckily?) different enough from what was going on all around me. But then chapters on the virus itself, or people taking advantage of others' fears, the nationalistic approaches and hoarding of resources... well, those chapters were all a little extra bitter (and extra familiar) reading this right now. But then it would go back to fighting zombies again, and that's a good distraction.

I do think it ended up on the enjoyable side of catharsis, so maybe it wasn't such a terrible decision after all.

Summary: Fictional interviews with the survivors of a world-wide zombie apocolypse.

Things I liked:

Short story format made it easy to dip into.

Rich setting allowed for many different kinds of stories to be told.

Allusions to modern day ills like:

i) global warming,
ii) political manipulation of the media and general expediency
iii)and the polarising affects of wealth and fame on society.

... were thought provoking and allowed me to engage with those issues from a different angle.

I like the genre of apocolyptics fiction.

Things I thought could be improved:

I found a lot of the stories quite samey in terms of structure and style; perhaps sharing the world with other authors like George RR Martin's 'Wild Cards' universe might have helped with this.

Highlight: I think I liked the story about the small family 'heading north' to be one of the most chilling (and that one didn't directly feature any zombies so there).

After reading this book, I'm now less inclined to see the movie when it releases. I think I'm just done with zombies, werewolves, & vampires, (at least until the next Underworld movie comes out :). WWZ started off fairly well but I became bored about 2/3 of the way through and was ready to be done long before reaching the ending.

The writing style is decent and some of the 'interviews' were poignant and thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed the ironic new Cuba/USA relationship. That was pretty humorous but not very realistic, (oh wait, we are talking about a zombie book here, so 'realistic' is not really part of the vernacular). That's the thing, this is fairly mindless (sorry, couldn't resist) entertainment and gets repetitious quickly. I kept waiting for something more than the same story from different perspectives, maybe a twist to the ending or something. Nope, the story just kept on plodding forward, making me moan with frustration.

I'm not a big horror fan. I do remember watching all the zombie movies when I was a teen (in the 80's), but as an adult, "dark fantasy' was way more my thing that modern horror. I read this because it was on the NPR best 100 sci-fi/fantasy books list. I figured it would be okay and maybe pull off 3 stars, but HOLY CRAP, this book is a masterpiece.

Obviously, the format is pretty unique, with no main characters, more like a bunch of connected short stories, but much more closely related than when I've seen it done by other authors. Having viewpoints from all over the world was amazing. Mr. Brooks either really did his homework or maybe he's just a history/politics fan, because this wasn't just little action scenes all over the world, this was some deep thinking about how countries would actually react, both at the government level and the public level.

So happy I didn't miss out on this one, and also happy that I did it on audio since it had an entire cast of famous people from Rob Riener to Henry Rollins narrating it.

Interesting style: story told through interviews of the people who participated, fought, endured, etc.

I liked the Studs Terkel approach a lot. I was sad that nearly every single narrator had the same voice. If you're going for an oral history, make sure your fictional contributors have their own personalities, vocabulary, and mannerisms!

This is a fantastic audiobook.

I'd never pick up a book about Zombies if it hadn't been a group read also the style of the book put me off. I'd perfer a regular story, and while reading I often had the thought that my time would be better spent reading Studs Terkel's WW 2 book that inspired Brooks.

Now that I've finished it have to say that I'm still not very comfortable with that style of story telling but I'm glad that I read it and will seek out Terkel's book as well.

What If Covid Were a Zombie War

First, if you have seen the film based on this novel, be advised the only thing the two share is the title. World War Z the novel takes you from the start of the zombie plague, to the outright panic it causes worldwide, to the first faltering steps combatting it, to the successful strategies developed and used worldwide and how they went counter to accepted military theory, to the aftermath and new world building. Max Brooks writes this as a chronicle using the experiences of survivors all over the world from various walks of life. This gives readers a panoramic view of what transpired during the years of war and the emotional impact it had on the lives of those who fought it. For zombie horror fans, that is those who haven’t already read it, this novel should be a real thrill because Brooks, who has applied his imagination to zombie disasters in a few novels, goes into great detail about our favorite haunted dream.

All this said, what makes the novel a recommended read is how it explores human response under great stress. And what could be more stressful than losing your entire way of life to animated lifeless ghouls? (This, incidentally, has been the strength of some pretty good TV series, among them The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Zombie Nation, and Black Summer.) By telling the expansive story through the eyes of a wide array of those who lived through it, readers get a pretty in-depth look at what it might be like to have to fight to win back civilization. Of course, we’ve all gotten a little taste of this with our own real life Covid pandemic. Though on a much smaller and less deadly scale, it does point up how hard it is to get people to cooperate, even when their lives are on the line.

So, if you’re in the mood for something that provides nearly nonstop action and more than enough grit and gristle for most people, catch up with World War Z, the novel.

I liked this book way more than I expected to. This book is the story of a zombie infestation told from many people perspective of the crisis. I thought this book had a lot of important messages about everything from immigration to community. I haven't read a ton of zombie like stories so I wasn't completely sure about what to expect. I listened to the audiobook for this one which is something I don't do very often (thought I'm starting to try to borrow more from my library) but I think that it was the right decision for this book, especially as it is titled as a oral history. The copy I listened to had a full cast and I thought all the narrators were very good in their roles(it even had Mark Hamill). I know some people really don't like audiobooks, but I would say if your thinking about reading this book to try the audiobook if you can get your hands on it. I also know some people don't like changing perspectives in books, but I've never had a problem with it and I thought it worked really well in this book. I really liked seeing how different survivors from different places dealt with the outbreak. I found myself being really interested in the stories of all the different people. During my listening of this I didn't really think of it as a zombie book because it is really character based. It was really more about many different peoples different approaches to surviving a crisis so if you want a more horror like, gory, zombie story this may not be the book you are looking for. Overall I really enjoyed this story, way more than I thought I would, I really liked the audiobook, and I would encourage people thinking about reading this book to definitely pick it up, whether as an audiobook or a print one.

Wish I hadn't listened to the abridged version. Very enjoyable and thematic though. Might actually read the book to just make sure I get everything.

Well, it was okay. Would've been better if all the character's oral histories weren't written in the exact same slightly stilted voice. You have characters from all walks of life, from all over the world, telling first person narratives -- they should not all talk the same. Still, some of the stories were quite compelling and none were uninteresting. This book is not really all that memorable, but it kept me interested and reasonably entertained throughout. I actually enjoyed the movie of the same name more. (that's about all the book & film have in common, the name).

The only two reasons I'm giving this book two stars is because a) as an "oral history" I really appreciated listening to it on audio in the way it was more or less intended (theoretically), and b) the casting for all the different characters is a geek's wet dream, so waiting to hear several celebrities' readings was the only thing that kept me going. Check it out, for realz.

On the other hand, do you want to read the most boring book on the zombie apocalypse ever? Then you're in luck! Very little of the narrative is dedicated to actual hand-to-hand combat with zombies, which honestly is what I'm most interested in reading about when we're talking zombies. Instead, a lot of the interviews deal with tactical political or military issues surrounding the approach to handling the zombies. Which is great if this were non-fiction. BUT IT'S NOT. I need a freakin' story here. I want to feel the crush of bone when I slam an undead's brain with a baseball bat; I want to smell decaying flesh before I see it; I want surprise attacks and to see how real loss and grief turns into rage and resolve.

Furthermore, if we refer to the previously-linked Wikipedia reader/character list, this book is going for an ASTOUNDING gender disparity here with 6--count 'em, SIX--readers out of the 41 being women. That's 17%, folks. And if we actually count the number of characters--because two of the male readers did two and three characters each--that brings the character count up to 44, so really women account for 13% of the narrative here. We have to wait until the 12th narrative before we even hear the first female, and she's a vapid housewife. I also think it's interesting that Brooks made the one adult who grew up as a "feral," and consequently lives in a state of totally helpless dependence, a female character (as well as the only other child narrative who had to completely rely upon her parents--until they died, but we don't hear about how she survived after that--INTERESTING). Just off the top of my head I recall two instances where characters mentioned badass women--a nun who fought off an enormous flood of zombies to protect her orphanage and a Lakota woman who was a general (I think)--and it just made me wonder why Brooks passed up on the people who seemed to actually have the interesting stories. Why this gross omission? There was no indication that zombies loved to feast on women's entrails more than men's. Was this a sort of (hopefully) subconscious reflection of Brooks' opinion that women couldn't be as capable as men at fighting zombies? Even when he makes a blind man and a paraplegic man able fighters? What gives, dude? Because I know more than enough women who have the balls to fight for hearth and home, not to mention the welfare of Earth and/or the thrill of fighting the bad guys.

There was also a weird wording in the epilogue--the female Russian soldier is pregnant with her gazillionth child and Brooks describes one of her actions as something along the lines of "patting her womb." Uhhhh, doesn't he know that the womb is generally a term for the uterus? Just checked, and the Oxford English Dictionary agrees with me on this one, FYI. I *guess* technically you could pat it, but it'd be kind of awkward and a bit painful, especially if you're pregnant and in the middle of being interviewed by a stranger.

There were a few narratives I did somewhat enjoy. I can't remember most names (another shortcoming of this book--to make characters distinguishable or at least recognizable by name), but I liked Henry Rollins' character (also probably because I like to listen to him), the wheelchair-bound sculptor Joe Muhammad, the Japanese guy stuck in his apartment building, the hallucinating female pilot, and Common as the soldier in the K-9 division. The most tedious narrative was by Nathan Fillion--I had always assumed that actors would be naturals at audiobook readings, but nay. Thank goodness that one was relatively short, if I recall correctly.

So that's that. It's a start at a clever take on the zombie apocalypse, but I can't recommend it unless you really like rolling your eyes.

I'm not usually a fan of "full cast recordings." i find it easier to keep up with voices from one narrator than a collective. But, in this case, it works.

This is more a collection of vignettes and short stories than a signal narrative. If you'r elooking for a novelization of the movie, you are out of luck.

3.5/5 stars.
I imagine a lot of people are going to be reading zombie books during this COVID-19 crisis. Just like the Contagion film has seen a spike in popularity, so too, I feel, will many zombie stories. I can't blame people for turning to fiction during this time of crisis; it can be cathartic to view a disaster movie in a time of disaster. But that's not why I finally picked up World War Z. World War Z is one of those books I've been meaning to read for years. It's frequently touted as one of the best zombie novels. I read an early screenplay for the film - back when it still tried to adhere to the book's structure - and loved that, but I just never got around to reading the book. And then I heard that the novel's author, Max Brooks, was publishing a new novel this year - Devolution - and I thought now was the time to finally give World War Z a read. At the end of the day, I totally see why World War Z is as beloved as it is. It's a really unique take on the zombie genre, combining it with a traditional oral history of a real-world war is a stroke of genius. But I don't know that I loved this book. It's good, but the hype might have killed it for me. 

There's a lot about World War Z to love. It's filled to the brim with authenticity. The world-building feels authentic. Each of the interviews feels authentic. Even the structure of the novel feels authentic. Everything feels authentic to what an oral history should be. And all of it is very well-written. It's surprising and engaging. Sometimes it's emotional and scary. It adheres to the structure of an oral history very well, bouncing around from person to person in a mostly logical fashion (though, more on that shortly). Brooks ensures that all of the characters feel as though they've gone through this conflict; every time someone is interviewed, it's apparent that they've suffered something and that feels really authentic to this kind of story. The novel's themes are also explored remarkably well and it frequently emphasizes the idea that humanity has to come together in order to overcome an obstacle as severe as a zombie plague - instead of falling into the trap that captures most zombie media: the over-importance of the individual over the group. There's a lot to like about World War Z and it definitely ranks among the better zombie novels.

Then why didn't I adore this novel? Well, there are a few reasons. The first: oral histories are not known for being the most exciting reads. While I think it's a good thing that World War Z adhered to the structure of an oral history book as closely as it did, doing so does make the book a bit less exciting than it otherwise might've been. All but the best-crafted oral histories are pretty much devoid of tension because you already know these people made it through the event. And without that tension, it does often read as more of a dry history book than a compelling work of fiction. Which, to be fair, might have been what Brooks was going for. But it definitely isn't the most exciting read. The first part of the novel takes forever to get going as several people are interviewed at the very beginning of the outbreak, but they don't really have any interesting or useful insight to shed on it and it just reads as a pretty generic opener to a zombie plague. Which is fine, but it's not the easiest to get through. That said, once the second part of the book kicks in, it does pick up some.

Additionally, while I think the book is mostly structured well, it can be hard to follow why a certain person is being interviewed at the time they're being interviewed. The book mostly organizes the interviews based on what part of the conflict the bulk of that interview represents, but there's a lot of overlap in those time periods and many of the interviews don't quite seem to flow together. It just often feels a bit jumbled together. And, like I said, they may be kind of accurate to real oral histories, but it doesn't always make for the most compelling read. Once you get used to Brooks's style, it does become easier to jive with the book's structure, but it can take a while to get used to that structure and the book almost completely lost me several times during that period before I finally started vibing with it. Once I did, though, I started enjoying it a lot more, even with these structural flaws.

The second and most problematic reason is that the characters lack any discerning voice. While all of the characters certainly feel as though they've lived through this zombie war, all of them are written in a very similar voice. The novel is a true globe-trotter, bouncing back and forth between a vast array of countries. But all of the characters sound the same. Nearly all of them use similar vocabulary and similar grammar. I understand that you might not want to imitate certain dialects for fear of inadvertently writing a stereotype instead of a real character, but I think it does just as much of a disservice by writing everyone in the same voice. I couldn't tell you which plot point was said by which character because all of the characters read exactly the same as each other and that's a major problem when trying to write an oral history that is remotely interesting to read. When none of the characters sound distinct from one another, it's a lot harder to care about any of them as they all coalesce into a gelatinous "interviewee."

Now, the audiobook largely fixes this problem by simply casting actors from the regions each of their characters are supposed to be representing, but that doesn't excuse the writing. Just because a good actor can make subpar writing sound good doesn't mean the subpar writing shouldn't be pointed out. I didn't read this book alongside the audiobook - I merely occasionally played an interview alongside the book - so the experience I had was that every interview had a sameness to it and it made for a monotonous read at times. It's clear that Brooks did a lot of research, but it might have benefited him to really study how different people talk. There's a way to write dialects and true-to-life dialogue from different cultures without veering into the realm of stereotype, but it doesn't feel like an effort was even made here and that's a disappointment and a definite detractor from the overall reading experience.

All of that said, I did still enjoy World War Z quite a bit. The positives greatly outweighed the negatives but those negatives did turn what should've been a home run for me into something that was merely enjoyable. I understand why World War Z has gotten so much love over the years, though. When the book works, it really works. And, at the time, there was nothing like this. I have a big soft spot for fiction that imitates nonfiction. I love dramatic fake-documentaries that cover a sci-fi/fantasy topic as seriously as a real documentary would cover its topic. World War Z is exactly that kind of novel. There's no tongue-in-cheek aspect to this novel. It's an oral history about a zombie plague that's executed in a way that's every bit as serious as an oral history about World War II might be executed. And, for that reason, it's a really enjoyable read. But its lack of character distinction and occasional odd structural choice don't always make for the easiest or most exciting read. And, in that respect, it's a bit disappointing. I'm glad I finally read the book and I did enjoy it, but I don't think it's one I'll be returning to.