The first book I've read on my newfangled kindle is World War Z by Max Brooks. This is a great book that really emphasizes the "how" of great storytelling rather than the "what". The pithy subtitle aptly describes all the "what" you need to know.
"An Oral History of the Zombie War" aptly describes the setting for this book. There was a world war. It was humanity versus hoards of the undead. It has ended, and if we are not victors than at least we are survivors. And these are the stories of those who have managed to survive, telling us first hand of what actually happened. How did the infection start? How did it spread? And how poorly prepared were we to deal with such a threat?
Each of these perspectives gives a wider view of the world than a single narrative could. You get to see the horror from the perspective of doctors first running into the disease, leaders who have to figure out how to deal with such a mess, and average Joes who have to either nut up or shut up.
Sorry, that's a different Zombie story.
It's really interesting to see how this fictional post-apocalyptic world compares with that of Fallout 3, in which it wasn't zombies that decimated the world's government and infrastructure, but nuclear war. Some small details are different, but some common themes remain. Some folks band together and form small towns; the ones found in both stories are the ones most equipped to defend themselves against their attackers, undead or no. There are a few loners who survived somehow, but their experiences have left them at odds with the world, either catatonic or insane and eager to kill anything that moves.
One thing that kinda bugs me though is the difficulty in classifying the zombie threat. At first, the zombies are really classified as a medical condition; Patient Zero bites to transfer the infection and that infection causes death and reanimation. And all the initial perspectives on the matter view it as a disease outbreak, something entirely medical (albeit devastating).
But at some point, it's not just people getting sick, it's a massive undead army waging war. Military leaders discuss how best to defend against the hoard, or how to sweep through an area and rid it of zombies. Strategists give their opinions on how they can't be treated like a normal army. All of this is amazingly insightful and a brilliant read, but I can't help wonder why the world stopped looking at the medical side of the situation.
To the best scientific knowledge, these creatures defied life as we knew it. They're not alive, but they're animated somehow. Taking out an arm or a leg, or even decapitating them wouldn't be enough to kill them; you had to destroy the brain. This wasn't found through medical research, but by everyone trying to murder the zombies any way they could and finding out that most ways don't work. You gotta shoot 'em in the head.
But if the original plague that awoke the zombie hoard was an infection or parasite of something, wouldn't scientists be trying to find out? I would at least hope that while we have our best military men working to shoot all of the zombies in the head as they can, we have some courageous scientists somewhere working with live zombies or their remains or something to figure out a cure for the recently infected; maybe a vaccine to prevent infection or best yet, a chemical agent to neutralize the zombic germ in giant packs of zombies at once. Just have 'em all fall down, back to the lifeless state they should've been in long ago.
Alas, that personal anecdote never made it into this collection. There are some stories from folks in the pharmaceutical industry, but I've left those details out for the benefit of those who haven't read it yet.
All in all, it's a good read. I'm really more the type for quick chapters and short bursts of reading, but this book kept me turning pages for hours.
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