World War Z

[Werthead]

Picked this up today with some book tokens. Interesting to see how if it lives up to the hype.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I really enjoyed the interview with the dog handler.

[Ixodes]

[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1520141' date='Sep 16 2008, 11.51']I really enjoyed the interview with the dog handler.[/quote]

That was my favorite part! Especially since dachshunds turn out to be heroes of unquestionable virtue. About time those nippy little bastards contribute something positive...

[Isis]

:lol:

Yeah, I loved that part too.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I picked up the audiobook yesterday. It's abridged (that sucks) but it's got a full cast doing the reading for the interviewees. I'm up to the "Around the World" part. It's pretty good. Several notible actors doing the voice rolls, Alan Alda, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins.

[Isis]

Henry Rollins. Cool. :)

So, you must be liking it quite a bit if you got the audiobook?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Isis,

[quote name='Isis' post='1524503' date='Sep 19 2008, 11.32']Henry Rollins. Cool. :)

So, you must be liking it quite a bit if you got the audiobook?[/quote]

Yup, plus I thought the format of the book would work well as an audio book.

[GoN]

The dog handler chapter destroyed me. Good stuff.

[The Wolf Maid]

[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1524277' date='Sep 19 2008, 19.55']I picked up the audiobook yesterday. It's abridged (that sucks) but it's got a full cast doing the reading for the interviewees. I'm up to the "Around the World" part. It's pretty good. Several notible actors doing the voice rolls, Alan Alda, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins.[/quote]
I think Mark Hamill is also in the audiobook, as the veteran soldier.

I cried at the dog handler part, IIRC. I really loved it.

The catacombs part was one of the most...horrifying for me. The image of fighting [i]underground[/i] pretty much blind gave me nightmares.

[Werthead]

Seriously, I would have read this book a lot sooner if someone had mentioned it features [b]Michael Stipe and a nun fighting off zombies together[/b]. This is the very definition of The Awesome.

[quote name='Crazydog7' post='1500743' date='Aug 31 2008, 01.19']I just read this recently too kind of chringed when I heard about the movie though. They'll probably do some America Uber Alles bullshit and skip the international aspect.

How about Cuba being the storehouse of victory? I don't think thats going to make it into the movie.[/quote]

J. Michael Straczynski is doing the movie script. I consider it exceptionally unlikely he's going to go all USA! USA! corncheese on us and he'd probably love the whole Cuba thing. I suspect if that gets pulled, it will get pulled by the studio or in rewrites. It would be a mistake though.

I thought it interesting that the book ends with the human race victorious and China and Cuba now capitalist powerhouses, but Russia has been thrown back into the dark ages under a new theocratic rule. That seemed a bit surreal, to say the least. I also really liked the Chinese submarine story as well.

[url="http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2008/10/world-war-z-by-max-brooks.html"]The review:[/url]

[quote]It's finally happened. The zombie apocalypse has come and devastated civilisation...but in the end, civilisation rallied and won. Using tactics pioneered in South Africa and bankrolled by Cuba, the largest nation to remain infection-free, the world's armies successfully defeated the undead menace, but only at a staggering cost in lives and resources. Ten years after victory was declared, a journalist travels the world, listening to the stories of the survivors, from those who were there when the outbreak began to those who listened in the corridors of power as key decisions were taken to the stories of everyday men and women thrust into circumstances beyond their control. From Hawaii to China, even to the isolated crew of the International Space Station, this is the story of that war.

World War Z is that most beloved of Hollywood ideas, 'high concept'. One of those ideas that makes other writers go away smacking themselves in the head thinking, "Why didn't I think of that?" Zombies are very much 'in' these days, but after several years of zombie movies and computer games the appeal was waning, until Brooks' interesting take on the concept revitalised interest. Most zombie fiction is somewhat nihilistic, ending with the world overrun by the undead hordes or humanity reduced to tiny enclaves battling the mindless hordes, so the fact that World War Z features a victory is interesting enough. The stories of what sacrifices were necessary to achieve that victory makes up the book, which is essentially a 'mosaic' novel rather than a standard work of fiction. The book shifts between the different interviewees, some of whom appear only once but most of them reappear periodically throughout the book, as we find out how they survived the decade of the war and what happened to them along the way.

It's an excellent device and Brooks employs it skillfully. Some of the stories border on the silly - the blind Japanese gardener taking on the zombie hordes with a sword in a park full of traps stretches credulity - but elsewhere Brooks nails the feeling of total horror, with the computer nerd trying to flee his infested Japanese apartment block or the soldiers fighting to clear the catacombs under Paris. Elsewhere Brooks takes the capabilities of the zombie menace to their logical conclusion, with heavily-armoured divers fighting off zombie forces underwater, or the US army making full use of dogs (who are driven wild by the presence of zombies) in fighting the hordes and the fates of both the animals and their handlers during and after the war.

This is a widescreen story, with a truly global perspective, told economically and well. There are some good laughs (the new US zombie-dispatching firearm is nicknamed a 'Meg', as it resembles a Megatron toy from Transformers; during one battle a nun and REM lead singer Michael Stipe help fight off the zombie hordes), but Brooks takes his subject mostly seriously and sounds some cautionary notes along the way. To some extent the story isn't really about the zombies, but about people and what they are capable of when their backs are against the wall.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (*****) is a gripping, page-turning, memorable read which throws some fresh impetus on an old idea, and makes it work brilliantly. The book is available in the [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-War-Z-Max-Brooks/dp/0715637037/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222893958&sr=8-1"]UK[/url] from Duckworth and in the [url="http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Z-History-Zombie/dp/0307346617/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222894100&sr=8-1"]USA[/url] from Three Rivers Press. A movie version is in development, with a script being written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski.[/quote]

Ha, he's Mel Brooks' son as well? That's pretty cool.

[Isis]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1539132' date='Oct 1 2008, 22.13']Seriously, I would have read this book a lot sooner if someone had mentioned it features [b]Michael Stipe and a nun fighting off zombies together[/b]. This is the very definition of The Awesome.[/quote]Soz. Totally forgot Michael Stipe made an appearance. Or a rumoured appearance anyway. It's a nice touch because it's so believable. :)

[Walter Paisley]

Iron Maiden fans also get a neat little tidbit as well.

[Werthead]

I forgot that elevated that moment of the Awesome to a possible Crowning Moment of Awesome:

[b]Michael Stipe and a nun fighting off zombies together to the soundtrack of Iron Maiden's 'The Trooper'.[/b]

If they get this in the movie it would be sheer brilliance.

[Deornoth]

I finished 'World War Z' a couple of days ago, a book that has forced me to revise my own contingency plans for the event of a zombie infestation. I think it's still cool but it never pays to be too careful, especially where the living dead are concerned :thumbsup:

[IheartTesla]

This thread was pretty hard to find with the search function we have. So they are making a movie from the book, eh? Cool.

[Spring Bass]

I finally managed to get hold of the audiobook from the library (I own the e-book). All of it was pretty good, and I think the "downed pilot" interview was much better listened-to as opposed to read-through (I always struggled to get through it when reading it).

That said, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed by some of the omissions in the abridged version. They cut out all but two interviews from the "Blame" section of the book, and both of them were American POVs. I really wish they had included the "Breckinridge Scott" interview, since it's pretty enlightening (Scott is a total scumbag who is probably more responsible for the zombie pandemic's devastation in American than any other person in-universe). Most annoying was the choice to do the "blind groundskeeper samurai" interview instead of the more interesting "japanese otaku forced to survive" one.

On the other hand, I'm glad they omitted the Russian POV segments. The satire's a little too forced there.

As for the movie, we've got the December 21, 2012 release date (it's currently in post-production). I'm hoping for the best.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Didn't know a movie was coming, doesn't sound too good.

It's sounding better and better to me. Looks like they are breaking it into a trilogy and they're using many of the locations from the book...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112150/news?start=21

[Spring Bass]

That's not surprising, but it's definitely a win-win situation for us World War Z fans.

Looking at the cast, the first movie looks like we'll be getting some version of the Israeli lock-down. The whole "prisoner in a jail" made me wonder if we'd be getting the Redeker Chapter, but it looks more like something else. I suppose they'll hold off on casting Not-Colin-Powell and Not-Howard-Dean until the next movie. :)

Since I'm re-reading it again now,

The first problem with armoured vehicles in the book is that heavy ordance could not be certain to make a kill. To destroy a zombie you have to destroy the brain. You mangle a zombie with high explosives you just have a mangled zombie thats still coming to get you. They mentioned several times that zombies that had been partially dismembered but not destroyed presented a real complication to combat because there were harder to see, harder to hit, and every bit as lethal as a upright, walking zombie. So the heavier armaments that are often carried by armoured vehicles would be of dubious use in zombie warfare.

I think Brooks actually gets the physics wrong with that and other heavy weapons in the Battle of Yonkers. Heavy machine gun fire and depleted uranium rounds aren't going to just punch holes in zombies - they'll rip them apart. Massed artillery fire will pretty much turn them into pink mist, and massed zombies are particularly vulnerable to it because they don't take cover or spread out in the face of oncoming artillery rounds (in fact, they'd likely swarm into the area of impact because of the noise). Fuel-Air Bombs aren't as effective (zombies don't die of burns), but a zombie that burns until brain damage is enough to put it down is as dead as one shot in the head.

All that said, I still enjoy the chapter. It's supposed to be satirical about how the army is always preparing to fight the last war, and a lot of the foul-ups can be attributed to desperation, bad morale three months into the Panic, and supply lines disrupted by all the internal chaos in the US. I think Brooks manages to convey that point well in spite of potential nitpicks.

EDIT: On top of that, it's written from the perspective of a grunt. He probably didn't know everything that was going on.

Resource allocation was another major factor. There is a good length discussion about how the military, at least in the US, had to rethink its ways of working after suffering critical failure initially against the zombies. Because the US and most other nations were forced into much smaller geographic areas (and those areas had suffered siginficant damage to their infrastructure even after being cleared of the walking dead) which obviuosly limited their access to resources such as oil. The military became highly focused on maximizing the number of zombies "killed" per unit of resource expended. Armour, being resource intensive to produce and maintain had a much worse resource to kill ratio compared to a trained infantryman with an accurate rifle in a killing line (or square) with a bunch of other infantryman. So the army designed to fight zombies was primarily infantry with motorized vehicles limited to support functions.

Which in itself takes up a lot of gas, since you have to supply a wide front of soldiers (and railroads* aren't flexible enough to cover it all, although they would really help). I suspect that would be the final killing blow for the use of armored vehicles against the zombies, since it's easier to replace soldiers and their equipment as opposed to armored vehicles when they're competing for the same supply of gas. Of course, it still probably would be wise to send the B-52s on a conventional bombing run to wipe out some of the larger massed swarms (like the gigantic ones on the Great Plains that were visible from space) before you ground them.

They still managed to develop a brand new rifle, though. I suppose that if they can afford to spend money on impractical lasers that the public loves, they could spend it on a new rifle.

* I really wish there was a "railroad" chapter in the book. That's an awesome mental image - an armored, sealed railroad speeding through Zombie Country in the night.

EDIT: The sheer number of zombies involved is pretty staggering as well. 200 million in America alone! That's more zombies to kill than all the people killed in all the wars of the twentieth century IIRC. I suspect you'd have to focus on cheap munitions after a while, or you'd run out.

[kungtotte]

Actually Brooks got most of that stuff correct (or correct enough), CB.

A zombie isn't dead-dead until you destroy its brain, and while large-calibre weapons like machineguns will make mince-meat out of much of their bodies there will still be enough left to be dangerous. It might not be coming after you any more, but if you get close to it there is still the risk of it biting or clawing you. And now there's the added hazard of a pile of various zombies and bits of zombies all piled up on each other. It's going to be very difficult to spot the ones that are still live and dangerous.

Artillery using high-explosive shells would obliterate any zombies caught in the direct blast radius (including their brains), but HE shells are designed to fragment and fling these fragments out and shred anything that is unlucky enough to stand in its path. The direct-blast radius is much smaller than the fragmentation radius. Also the zombies are actually reducing the effectiveness of the artillery shells by being packed so close together, as the ones nearest the explosion will soak up all of the fragments. If you blanket the area with massed artillery fire you'll eventually kill most of them, but as I mentioned before you now have the problem of a field full of gumbo with live zombies sprinkled in it. Good luck clearing that up!

[Maithanet]

Actually Brooks got most of that stuff correct (or correct enough), CB.

A zombie isn't dead-dead until you destroy its brain, and while large-calibre weapons like machineguns will make mince-meat out of much of their bodies there will still be enough left to be dangerous. It might not be coming after you any more, but if you get close to it there is still the risk of it biting or clawing you. And now there's the added hazard of a pile of various zombies and bits of zombies all piled up on each other. It's going to be very difficult to spot the ones that are still live and dangerous.

Artillery using high-explosive shells would obliterate any zombies caught in the direct blast radius (including their brains), but HE shells are designed to fragment and fling these fragments out and shred anything that is unlucky enough to stand in its path. The direct-blast radius is much smaller than the fragmentation radius. Also the zombies are actually reducing the effectiveness of the artillery shells by being packed so close together, as the ones nearest the explosion will soak up all of the fragments. If you blanket the area with massed artillery fire you'll eventually kill most of them, but as I mentioned before you now have the problem of a field full of gumbo with live zombies sprinkled in it. Good luck clearing that up!

And in addition, the heavy artillery and large caliber weapons did completely destroy the first and second waves. They just hadn't really thought through the fact that you cannot overwhelm zombies. Utterly destroying the first two waves was meaningless to those zombies still coming, and there were over a million zombies flooding out of New York at that time.