I figured now would be a great time to stop whining, suck it up, and read “World War Z” by Max Brooks. It’s slated for theaters sometime in December, and I despise watching a movie before reading the book. I’d stayed away from reading WWZ because, quite frankly, Max Brooks’ zombie visions scare me witless.
Oftentimes while reading WWZ, I tortured myself mentally for passing up the chance to see Brooks live in Buffalo in October. What the hell was I thinking?! In any event, that won’t happen again, if I can help it.
Back to the book though. I read through it slowly, mostly because I wanted to really have time to think about what was going on, whether it could actually happen, and what it was saying about the human race.
In general, the book was pretty steady reading. It wasn’t overly crazy, nor was it boring. It kept a decent pace, and was set in many locales. Brooks did an outstanding job of writing from different perspectives – it was possible to believe he was actually conducting the interviews with different people. There were locales in Korea, China, Russia, the US, and several other cities. Brooks’ focus wasn’t really on the plight of the zombies – most likely because that niche has been thoroughly (and thankfully) flooded with material. He chose to focus on the interactions between the people in different countries, and the impact of racial, religious, and cultural differences. I tend to agree with him in that humanity’s inability to occupy the sandbox peacefully will get us into trouble. However, being the diehard cynic I am in that regard, I don’t share his belief that we will overcome the threat. I see us bombing ourselves into oblivion instead. (Sorry folks, I’ve never been the sunny kind of person when it comes to these things.)
One section had me bawling my eyes out though. There is a series of interviews with a man who ran a K-9 team during the War. He talks about the struggles of working with your canine partner, and of the tragedies that accompany the line of work. For a few days, I had horrible dreams of my dog Lily and I being part of those teams. Only instead of us being victorious, I always wound up seeing her disappear beneath a swarm of gray hands, the last vision always being her looking at me pleadingly. I had to stop reading the book for awhile. It still bothers me, even while I’m sitting here writing.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a casual or avid zombie reader, or is interested in history. Again, read the book before you see the movie! (While I was looking for a trailer, I got rick-rolled. Oops. Well, maybe later when the fake and fan-made trailers are done taking over I will find a decent one to link.) In any event – stop reading this and go see the movie!
