Max Brooks

I picked this up after a re-read of World War Z on a whim. The reporting/oral history was done well in WWZ, but this was a little too hard of a try. The detail in the main character's journal was way too high and far too specific to be absorbed. Brooks still weaved in research and other commentary through character interviews, but I think it would have been a more enjoyable read for me if it had just been in a novel format. There wasn't quite enough development for several characters and they ended up just being fodder for the climax.… (meer)

A very small community living in the shadow of Mt Rainier is, er, rocked by volcanic eruption, and is cut off from the outside world. The community is kind of a cult and is built around easy access to the outside world via roads, drones, etc. Just when they are trying to figure out how to survive a new problem arises: apparently a band of Bigfoot (feet?) has been forced down into lower elevations and is waging a kind of war on the community. Brooks provides a real feel for the territory, and presents a lot of bigfoot research. He's an exciting writer, and the last 100 pages or so are really gripping.… (meer)

My quest to read more cheerful books over the Christmas and new year period is proving to be a ridiculous failure. This is the third post-apocalyptic novel I’ve read in the last ten days, or maybe the fourth depending on how on you interpret [b:Nemonymous Night|11350445|Nemonymous Night|D.F. Lewis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347475074s/11350445.jpg|16280172]. Anyway, I found 'World War Z' a fast and intense read. The format choice was sheer brilliance - it provides an original and striking twist on post-apocalyptic and zombie tropes. Rather than following a handful of characters and guessing who will survive, the reader effectively experiences a documentary of personal experiences during the human-zombie war. (By the by, this is more fodder for my theory that post-1970s depictions of apocalypses became more violent but more survivable.)

I enjoyed the range of international perspectives, although ultimately the book remained perceptibly America-centric. I guess that fits within the frame of reference of the American interviewer, but I found America’s post-World War Z ascendency a little bit of a stretch. Perhaps because America’s built environment and transport infrastructure seem so ill-suited to a very low-resource, energy-restricted world. On the other hand, the depiction of Cuba’s ascendency was very convincing, as was the response of Russia. I’d have liked to hear more about the UK (other than the monarchy) versus zombies - but I would say that! (I wonder how Cambridge fared in World War Z? Being in the middle of fens, overall it seems defensively weak, but some of the colleges would make great fortresses. As would a number of libraries. Moreover, plenty of current and former students have spent evenings idly discussing the best response to a zombie invasion. Including me.)

The digression above attests to the immersive nature of this book. It was convincingly, intensely creepy. The details, such as nicknames, dogs, and whales, sold the scenario to me. The bit about the Paris catacombs was probably the most viscerally frightening. I’ve visited them myself and it’s hard to imagine anywhere worse to encounter zombies. The section discussing North Korea was extraordinarily creepy, too.

I haven’t seen the film adaptation, but the trailer seems baffling in light of the book. That made it look like Brad Pitt Tries To Save His Family From Zombies. The whole point of this book is that individual perspectives are brief and specific to places and times, which vary considerably. It is a chronicle of war survivors that gives a global picture, rather than making the apocalypse about one particular group of infeasibly photogenic Americans. That has been done before, many times, whereas this felt engagingly new.… (meer)