World War Z- holy crap! Zombies!

Max Brooks' World War Z is an eerily realistic work of fiction set ten years after a ten year way against a new breed of enemy. One that doesn't need allies, doesn't need sustenance, and doesn't need rest.

The book is set out like a factual report documenting the personal experiences of the main players during the war. A series of interviews following experiences from the first outbreak in China to the end of the war, and the aftermath.

This is a composite of several interviews, and so several mini stories divided into chapters to represent different parts of the war.

Inevitably, with a collection like this, there are some stories that are nothing special, and some that leave you with goosebumps. The research that has been put into some of the characters, and the detail with which soldiers and other specialists of various professions can describe relevant equipment and tactics is extraordinary. This is obviously a ridiculously well thought out and researched project.

Particularly haunting stories (for me) include- the female soldier who was isolated after a plane crash and guided by a woman over the radio who was never found. The man who met the famous General Raj Singh and was there when he sacrificed himself to stop Zombies following refugees up the mountain pass. The man who created the plan that ended the war, but lost his sanity after putting it into action.

The personal accounts are brilliantly written, and they're all brilliantly detailed. There are people who had positions of power before the war, who struggled to come up with a way to save the civilians, and people who became great during the war through a series of lucky escapes and acts of bravery.

Battles between the humans and zombies are described by the soldiers who fought in them- from the first disastrous battle using weapons that would annihilate humans but had little to no effect on the undead, to the later, greater battles that paved the way to reclaiming the world.

Brooks is able to represent different narratives well; culture and personality is definitely present in his writing as his character interviews people from around the world, and recounts their every story.

The only drawbacks in this book were the fact that though many segments were brilliant, they are always pretty brief. There are simply too many stories and characters to allow me to get a lasting impression of them all. This is, of course, inevitable considering that World War Z is a collection of narratives, but I couldn't help feeling that while every story contributed to painting an accurate picture of the entire overall story, this didn't allow the personal accounts to be terribly involving 90% of the time.

Another problem, for me, was that although many of the major plot points did occur in countries such as China and the East (and there's a particularly spooky bit in the catacombs of Paris) a lot of the segments are set in America. I don't know if I'm just being especially precious about my own nationality, but when talking about how the American President spoke "in a calm, firm tone that I don't think any world leader has since been able to duplicate" while every other world leader was throwing a hissy fit, I just got a bit annoyed. I have no problem with America, I think it's an awesome collection of people and landscapes (and of course writers!), but that particular scene irritated me.

This book is particularly brilliant though, and Brooks has really done well for himself with it. Personally, I think it's a must-have for any Zombie fan (in conjunction with the Zombie survival guide) and a worthwhile read for everyone else :)