I'll be honest, this post comes from the extremely comfortable position of a sun lounger in Southern Portugal, and as any book lover knows, holidays usually mean one thing - lots and lots of reading.
11 days in and I've managed to plough through three books - The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane, Authority by Jeff VanderMeer and World War Z by Max Brooks - and I've just started a fourth - The Circle by Dave Eggers.
I'm going to write a post about each book over the next few weeks, but today is reserved exclusively for undoubtedly the best zombie book I've ever read: World War Z.
I've not been a fan of the zombie genre for a very long time now, finding all the books, TV and films really quite repetitive and decidedly unoriginal. It's quite ironic that one of the igniters of this recent zombie fad has been the book to restore my confidence 8 years after it burst onto the scene.
Brooks' book takes the form of a compilation of interviews with veterans of the Zombie Wars, from divers and soldiers to government officials and historians, and each set of interviews moves chronologically through the conflict, from 'patient zero' to the post-war economic, social and political recovery, covering almost everything imaginable in between. It's an interesting concept, and even though the victorious human victory is revealed by the very nature of the book, it removes none of the impact, tension and excitement from the picture unfolding.
Looking beyond the constraints of genre and content, the writing itself is actually really very good. Brooks' style is near effortless to read and, even more impressive is that every single interviewee has a completely individual perspective, character and feel that genuinely makes it seem like a work of non-fiction: every character is believable. That's no mean feat when you consider that there must be near enough 30 interviews in the book.
For me, what really stands out about World War Z is that it's not a conventional zombie story. Of course, the zombie uprising, conflict and victory is a crucial part, but it's not the only part. To a certain extent the book isn't about zombies. It's about political conflict, sheer geographical luck, human will and kindness.
The most interesting interviews aren't with soldiers on the front lines, but generals in the war rooms, survivors stranded out in the wilderness, political leaders dealing with international strain and so many more.
Brooks doesn't create a world ravaged by zombies, he creates a world, political structure and social order shaped by the strains of war, fear and death. It's not the world he destroys, it's the world he creates that allows the book to sing.
Sure, a (moderately) slim paperback is always going to leave a few gaps, and it'd be silly to pretend that there weren't some pretty large holes. Post-war Tibet is described as hosting the most populous city and Cuba the most vigorous economy, but these avenues feel woefully unexplored. There is a huge amount of eccentric (and overwhelmingly American) detail about the contribution of dogs during the war, life on the international space station and the varied effectiveness of castles, amongst much more, but it doesn't quite make up for some of the more obvious gaps.
Overall it's a corker of a book, brilliantly plotted and executed and packed with originality and charm. If you love zombie fiction this is the cornerstone to ravage and if you don't... well... you'll have a much higher opinion of it after this.
Let's just pretend the film never happened.
9.5/10
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