World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

#46Title: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Author: Max Brooks
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Year: 2006
Genre: Speculative Fiction
342 pages

Studs Terkel meets Dies the Fire. I was pleasantly surprised to find this a better example of fake sociology than horror. Perhaps its emotional impact is mitigated by the fact that everything is in indirect discourse--the storytellers are mediated by the narrator's presence, creating a one-step-removed framework. I kept waiting for a gut-wrenching story from a parent who had to stave in the skull of his/her reanimated child, but none was forthcoming. There was also little about zombie psychology to offer a reflection on non-zombie psychology, though there is some nod toward this notion near the end. There are some amusing self-references to the author's The Zombie Survival Guide, no subplots to speak of, and a woeful under-representation of female voices.

That said, I enjoyed the book and read it quickly. It would be good beach reading, especially if you are a little suggestable and would experience a pleasant frisson at night knowing that zombies tend to walk (or drag themselves) out of the surf when the sense the presence of humans.