World War Z (Max Brooks)

World War Z (Max Brooks)

I’m not going to say this was a bad book, but I don’t think it was a good example of a horror novel. There was a monster type present, and it was zombies. Similar to I am Legend, which had vampires that came about due to a virus, the zombies in World War Z came about by a sickness. In many ways, these zombies were like the vampires too. So much so, that I don’t really think there is much of a distinction. They both “pro-created” exponentially by infecting their victims. Some of the vampires could talk, none of the zombies could, but neither had the capacity for actual thinking. There was a second type of vampire in I am Legend that did form a society, but they were only involved in the ending of that book. Regarding the actual zombie monster of this book, I felt like we’ve already been there, seen that.

But it wasn’t a horror novel. Brooks went into incredible detail with the geopolitical representation of the world. He definitely put a lot of research into the governments and diplomatic relationships of countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, China and Taiwan (and its ambiguous status), Cuba, Russia, and Israel and the Palestinians. The book was really about how countries might respond to an epidemic like these diseased zombies more than it was about zombies. Isolationism and long-standing political tensions were what this book was about, and I never felt like I was reading a horror book. Sure, zombies were in the book, but Nazi concentration camps were also terrible. You wouldn’t classify a book about them as “horror,” though they were plenty horrible. This book felt like reading about something like that.

The journalistic approach of having multiple “survivors” give interviews was the other main factor that, for me, made this book anything but a horror novel. Everyone was telling the reporter their stories, and the problem with that is that you already know every one of them survived. There was zero tension in the book for me. There were a few scenes that described goriness, but I don’t think that is the definition of horror.

I was impressed with some of the things Brooks knew and put into this book. For instance, he knew the nickname for the B-52 as a BUFF, though the true breakout of the acronym is Big Ugly Fat Fucker. Fat Fellow was only used in situations where swearing would be frowned upon. I’d have thought in a book like this, the true breakout would have been more appropriate. But hey, like I said, I was impressed he got it in his book at all. His military terminology was very good. I think he did a lot of serious research for this book that showed. However, I found it hard to believe the story of the female pilot who parachuted down to the Louisiana swamps. Fighter pilots, which she was initially, don’t wear parachutes, but they have ejection seats that include parachutes. However, cargo aircrews on prop cargo planes, which is what she was when the plane accident happened, do not wear parachutes as part of their job. Maybe they “changed the rules” after the zombies or something, but if so, he should have called that out. It’s just not normal for an aircrew of a heavy (the term used to describe the large military planes like transports, recon, command and control, and tankers) to wear parachutes. Many heavy aircrews don’t even have parachutes. And then she also apparently wore a survival kit that included an electronic GPS, a radio, and a hammock, among other things. She had to have been wearing it, because she had just relieved herself in the piss tube when the back end of the plane broke off and she was sucked out the back. Wasn’t like she grabbed this stuff on the way out. I can’t even envision what she looked like relieving herself with all this supposed stuff on. Comical. So, what Brooks is implying is that these pilots wear parachutes and survival kits with all this equipment, at all times, in the course of their duties. That’s not the way it works. The plane will have an inflatable emergency raft or two, and bound up with those quickly deployable rafts would be survival kits that contain things like radios, water, compasses, desalination kits, and... well… no hammocks… but whatever. My point is that you don’t wear all this stuff. It would be impossible. I know I’m not really talking about the monsters here, just nitpicking the military stuff, but the book wasn’t really about monsters either.

Not a bad book, but I just didn’t feel like it was horror genre. More like a what-if scenario involving a plague and how countries would react to it.

I do have to give one major shout out to Brooks for including the metal band Iron Maiden and the song The Trooper in this book. Second best rock band of all time and one hell of a song. Bravo, Mr. Brooks.