"The end was near." Voices from the Zombie War.
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched firsthand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet.
He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living - or at least the undead - hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
©2012 Max Brooks (P)2012 Audible Ltd
"Great book however...."
Ok so I have heard the abridged version that was done a while ago and this new version but I have to admit that the voice acting is 10x better in the old version than this one. I mean the japanese, german, or even american accents sound shocking!!!
I have no idea what has happened in the making of this audiobook but please redo the foreign bits (outside UK) with actors that don't make jap voices sound almost german????
My opinion is stick with the original 2007 version it has more of what this book deserves rather than this one.
"Good old fashioned gory fun"
Max Brooks has attempted something really ambitious with World War Z - a zombie story told on a global scale.
He's really given a lot of thought to how a zombie plague would affect every aspect of life on Earth, political, social, military, environmental etc.
The story is told via a series of anecdotes from survivors of the War, the narration is for the most part pretty good, some is excellent, the American voices are more convincing than those that use accents.
There are some pretty clunky national stereotypes and some far-fetched scenarios, (as if a zombie plague wasn't far-fetched enough) and possibly a little too much gore in places. Having said that this is a very entertaining listen and a brilliant achievement on the part of the writer.
"Different"
Once you get used to the documentry style of this book its not a bad listen. Some accounts are more interesting than others but overall I found it enjoyable.
"Best zombie story I have read. :)"
I do not like zombie stories as I do not believe in possibility of zombies, at least not as living dead. But I like this story from the social and military and also people's personal point of view. How people would react on any such problems and what kind of solutions you could use and how they would have to cope and what might happen to nature. Also the insight on how and why our infrastructures are or are not weak on any such cases of global issues. Even the part on astronauts was very well thought through, how they had to cope in space. It was not just a zombie attack story, it was much more. So I have to give a maximum result to this book.
"Even for a Z fan .."
.. this is a wonderful experience. The audio book must be the best way to access this fascinating story - stories, in fact, as the account of the "real" war Zombies vs the Earth is told through post-war interview, with those who survived. The harrowing accounts are well-told and all-involving, from old and young, all over the world. Be prepared (a Zombie fan's mantra) to learn about survivalism, military tactics, despair, desperation, determination and human resilience. It's all in there.
"Intresting, Original and Exciting!"
World War Z By Max Brooks. (May contain mild spoilers)
This book was a thoroughly enjoyable listen. The story has an intresting take on the Zombie apocaplyse and is told through a series of interviews, each chapter followng different character and a different set of experiences. The interview style of World War Z is part of the charm of this audiobook, i did not find myself listening to the same narrator for very long, this helped keep the excitement and momentum going as well as the my focus.
This story also bring some instresting ideas (how humanity deals with Zombie invasion) that i have not seen before... although i am releatively new to the genre!! however here lies my only criticism some of the ideas Max Brooks brings into this story i feel are rather far fetched and possibly unrealistic... but then this is a zombie, fantasy book.
Anyway thoroughly enjoyable book, i highly recommed!
"A very entertaining listen"
As the title says. I loved listening to the book, it was just very entertaining for me.
"Refreshing"
A really nice change from what I have downloaded recently. Good voice acting an you can really put yourself in the chapters.
"Very good book"
Like many World War Z has only come to my intention thanks to the imminent Brad Pitt film. I decided that I'd read it after discussing it with friends that had already read the book. Unfortunately the film meant finding a reasonably priced copy was difficult if not impossible. Than it hit me, i had a credit left in my audible account. I've never made a better literary decision. For those that don't know this book takes the form of a number of interviews with people that come together to chronicle a world wide "zombie" outbreak or world war z. This lends itself very very well to an audiobook rather than a book. This particular performance is well done by all the cast involved. While I'm not a huge horror fan i found the change of scale from the "usual" zombie setup of small set of people besieged to a world wide over view of people's encounters with and even governments responses to the undead.
Highly recommend.