Creepy Reads: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

 From the publisher:

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse.

Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of human civilisation.

 

So...yeahhh....I downloaded this audiobook on January 26, 2020, based heavily on the extraordinary cast (more about that later). I didn't start listening to it until a couple months ago, and I just finished it a couple days ago (I'm a slow listener) (and was distracted by 19 hours of Stamped from the Beginning). Taken by itself, World War Z is an incredible novel about a devastating pandemic. In these Interesting Times? Hoo boy. 

Max (son of Anne Bancroft and Mel) Brooks' best selling The Zombie Survival Guide came out in 2003, the same year that The Walking Dead comic premiered and helped usher in the wave of zombie-mania that's still getting fluids everywhere. Following up in 2006, World War Z takes place in the same world as his previous book. There's a viral source, it's spread by bodily fluids, and it reanimates the dead. WWZ  is a gripping account of the 10 years the world spent battling zombies, told through first person accounts from around the world. It traces the virus' emergence in China, then across the globe. World leaders and countries' responses are detailed, as well as the development of weapons and resistance. Critical battles are analyzed by both soldiers and commanders alike, and the cultural and environmental impacts are pondered. 

I'd read the book once years ago and really enjoyed it. When I saw that there was an audiobook with a stellar cast, I picked it up right away.  The cast list includes Nathan Fillion, Simon Pegg, Martin Scorsese, Jeri Ryan, Henry Rollins, Mark Hamill, Kal Penn, Alan Alda, and the late, great Rene Auberjonois and Carl Reiner, among others. The cast offers a captivating look into people around the world dealing with a plague that has changed everything they know. It is genuinely creepy in some parts, and then there's the whole 'world dealing with a pandemic' and 'actions government officials take (and don't take)' parts, and it may not be the best thing for you to listen to right now. You know you. But I do highly recommend this book in whichever flavor is your favorite.

Please note that the movies World War Z has nothing in common with the book besides the title.

World War Z is available from Galesburg Public Library in both Playaway (audio) and paperback formats.