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WORLD WAR Z (Review)M ax Brook’s WORLD WAR Z is one of those horror novels that defy you to not take it seriously. Ostensibly an apocalyptic zombie novel, the kind that is being written by everyone and their grandmother recently, WWZ manages to transcend the genre in the way that only George Romero’s own original works a handful of other zombie stories have managed to. Just like Romero, Brooks manages to make his novel be about more than just the sum total of it’s horrors, using the zombie apocalypse as a medium for pointing out real-world, present day ills and concerns, while still taking itself entirely seriously. Like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or DAWN OF THE DEAD managed to do before it, WORLD WAR Z is a completely believable story of the walking dead almost taking over the world, while still using the genre as a pulpit for turning a critical eye towards current events. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Max Brooks is destined to be the George Romero of this generation, doing for horror literature what Romero did for horror films. It is that good. Brook’s first book, THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE: COMPLETE PROTECTION FROM THE LIVING DEAD was fantastic, but it can’t really be called a “novel” or a “story” in the traditional sense. Like his father (Brooks is the son of the infamous and brilliant satirist director Mel Brooks and the actress Anne Bancroft), Brooks has a deft sense of the absurd, and how to use unexpected venues to say imortant things about society. Despite being written in a completely straight-faced manner, the ZSG is often found in the “Humor” section of many bookstores (and in fact is tagged as “humor” on the back of the book above the bar code) since the premise is so absurd. The ZSG is exactly what it professes to be in its title: it is a survival guide, not unlike any other wilderness or urban survival guide, telling one how to survive on one’s own in a number of environments. However, where traditional guides tell you how to start a fire with stones or sticks, how to find water, and so on, the ZSG tells you how to detect, evade, protect oneself from, and ultimately destroy the undead. With snippets of wisdom like “Use your head; cut off theirs”, “Blades don’t need reloading”, and “No place is safe, only safer”, it would be easy to write it off as merely a 247 page one-trick-pony zombie joke. However, the book is approached as if the subject was not only real, but of the utmost importance. His advice is actually quite smart and extremely practical. He never breaks the fiction simply to get in a good gag. Brooks goes out of his way to spin for you a world in which there is an unthinkable, deadly plague that has been covered up by the government and gone largely unnoticed by the general populous, giving a brief but convincing timeline of various “outbreaks” throughout history, and even goes so far as to predict a Class 4 or “World Wide” outbreak that would result in us “Living in a zombie world”. This is where WORLD WAR Z intersects with his first work, dropping us into the aftermath of a globally catastrophic struggle against a worldwide zombie pandemic. At the outset of the book the Zombie War is over, and we have won… but only barely. It takes place in the near future, a world that could be ours just around the corner. The narrator (presumably Brooks himself) is one of the world’s foremost experts on the undead, as he was the one who wrote the guide that formed the basis for almost all organized civilian efforts to evade and combat the undead (presumably the ZSG). As such he has been charged with capturing the human side of the war that almost destroyed human civilization, by compiling an oral history of what has become known as World War Z. He does this by interviewing various people from all over the world who played either major or minor roles in the struggle, giving both a grand military account of the pivotal battles and groundbreaking decisions as well as the more personal day-to-day stories of survival from people all over the globe. And this, without a doubt, is what makes this book not only an instant classic of the genre, but also one of the most emotionally engaging and evocative books published in 2006. Brooks does an incredible job of capturing every aspect of this frighteningly familiar and yet fictional world, tracing the epidemic from its origins from a single incident in rural China to the pivotal campaigns that lead to the living populous turning the tide, and every imaginable aspect in between. It is all done in the form of a series of interviews, with Brooks as the interviewer asking tough and engaging questions of a diverse group of interviewees. Each chapter focuses on another person in another place, focusing on a different aspect of this zombie world. What is truly amazing is that each of these characters comes across as a real, full-blown and three-dimensional human being, staying true (at least as far as I can tell; I’m no anthropologist) to each characters personality traits and societal nuances. In one chapter he is talking to an emotional closed but incredibly intelligent and logical American military scientist talking about the tough truths of trying to come up with usable domestic resources in the wake of a global industrial economy, and in the next to a common Canadian citizen talking about their harrowing personal accounts of loss and survival. Or he’ll be talking about an internet-addicted Japanese Otaku (rough translation: “outsider”) having to learn to become a warrior and survivor, then switch to a beautiful redheaded woman who has been so traumatized that she has the mind of an eight-year-old child. There are dozens and dozens more, and each character is a fully realized, three-dimensional character, unique from all the others. And since each chapter represents a different facet of the struggle, from the outset, through the war, and into it’s aftermath, each one is really like a separate short story that all ties into a greater whole. Obviously there are some chapters that are better than others, and some of them are truly brilliant, such as the one about the pilot down in enemy territory and how she survived, or the one about “The Redecker Plan” which was one of the turning points in the war. Some of these vignettes contain brilliant and thrilling twists that make you realize how good Brooks really is, but it would be a disservice to ruin them for you. But what is truly amazing is the level of understanding of world events, cultural anthropology, and human emotion that this work must have required of Brooks. He uses the slang appropriate to each area of the world, addresses cultural taboos and how they would have had unique impacts on how the plague progressed, and some subtle but scathing social commentary on today’s events without being too preachy. However, in all aspects he shows a level of societal understanding that makes one realize that this book is just as much an allegory as it is a horror story. In short, it is nothing short of brilliant. While some of the vignettes don’t match the level of quality of others, there are few things to complain about this book. There are a few threads that are picked up and then abandoned, or themes that are suggested but not thoroughly explored (such as the Japan sub-plot), but there is only so much that one can expect of a single book. And in the end, even though one knows that the war is over and the good guys one from the outset, the personal accounts are so well written and presented with such a sense of terrible immediacy that it is still harrowing and disturbing. In short, go out and buy this damn book, and the ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE to boot. In both concept, execution, presentation, and literary merit, WORLD WAR Z and it’s companion volume are among the greatest and most original works of horror fiction written in years, and also some of the most important societal commentary that the horror field has produced since Romero’s heyday. Here’s hoping that Brooks can keep it fresh and engaging with his inevitable next entry.
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Title: WORLD WAR Z: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE ZOMBIE WAR