In what might be the most jarring account in the book, a South African details the most desperate and controversial emergency plans.ĭesperate efforts to hold most of the country are abandoned, along with countless innocents sacrificed as the surviving government and military retreat, contracting into small, defensible Safe Zones. Yet all is not lost-as the next chapter details how the world slowly begins TURNING THE TIDE. In multiple locations, hordes of terrified refugees are pursued by growing swarms of the hungry undead engulf whole nations in furious and grim violence. This details the worst of the plague, as the absolute collapse of civilization and even the full-scale destruction of “normal” humanity becomes frighteningly possible. These events lead briskly to THE GREAT PANIC. The author includes an interview in the Antarctic hideaway he ran to, thereby riding out the horror and ducking responsibility for blatant profiteering. An especially infamous character, a Pharma exec, got rich (well, richer) selling a useless ”vaccine” that left too many complacent. Various national leaders let a global pandemic get even more out of hand than it otherwise must. Only Israel, a nation with a history of facing oblivion, seems to take the threat seriously.Īccordingly, their early efforts at least partially forestall disaster. Inevitably, the next chapter assigns BLAME for repeated errors by the Powers That Be. He strikes a near-perfect balance between giving the reader info to understand what’s happening and keeping the thing moving forward. There are off-handed references to events the author expects the readers to somewhat understand in context while fleshes out other events in later remembrances.Ĭonversely, Brooks avoids the dense info-dumps that, in lesser hands, would bog down the sprawling storyline. It’s important to note that the book is supposedly for readers who lived through the attacks. However, Brooks doesn’t spoon-feed readers too many explanations. His interviewer interjects only a few key questions, clarifying points he doesn’t understand.Īt the bottom of the pages, the author provides footnotes explaining outbreak grows amplifying matters. The outbreak grows with wildfire intensity, spilling into adjoining nations and over the entire planet.īrooks does an excellent job, here and throughout WWZ, of conveying it all like an actual event. WarningsĪppropriately called WARNINGS, the first section treats the beginnings and early spread of the “zombie virus” that brought this disaster.Īs with all that follows, the author starts each account with a paragraph concerning who is speaking.Īn aged doctor from rural China tells of his first encounter with the undead and the infected, as well as the Beijing government’s wrong-headed response.Īttempts to cover up the horror only make things worse, of course. WWZ includes multiple accounts, amounting to individual scenes, building up an increasingly complex and complete literary mosaic of the years humanity faced possible extinction. As such, WWZ divides into eight chapters. And this is one zombie novel that genuinely conveys the disaster as a worldwide event.įollowing a brief introduction from the author of this “oral history,” the book takes a chronological approach. Thereby he presents a broad overview of the horrific mess as it unfolded throughout the world’s nations. He interviews a range of people, famous and unknown alike. A researcher travels the globe, collecting survivors’ experiences soon after a tumultuous decade of undead furor.

The author writes this extraordinary novel (WWZ) as a non-fiction account. In this World War Z Book Review, I’ll break down the book’s various sections and why this book is worth your time.

World war z book