Review: World War Z

Finally, a book that combines my love of military drama with zombies.

A few years back, I heard that Mel Brooks' son, Max Brooks, had written a comedy book called The Zombie Survival Guide. As a fan of both comedy and zombies, I was intrigued by the possibility of a zomedy. It would require delicate balance to keep the melancholy of the zombie apocalypse from ruining all the jokes. While the zomedy would reach perfection in Zombieland, it shambled out of the box with The Zombie Survival Guide. The book couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a parody and a joke or if it wanted to provide legitimate zombie fighting advice and tell horror stories of zombie attacks of the past. The comedy bits were very bland and predictable, but his horror stories were incredible. Zombie attacks of the past had a ton of very interesting alternative takes on history. My favorite will always be in the Lost Colony of Roanoake, which was overrun by zombies. However, the book's inconsistent tone kept it from being a favorite of mine. When I heard that Brooks was returning to the zombie genre to tell a serious story, I was excited.

No one wants to see Will Smith fix utilities for two hours.

World War Z is presented as a series of interviews conducted by a UN Investigator to record the causes, events, and aftermath of the zombie epidemic. Right from the start, Brooks earns major credits by being one of the very few zombie authors to have humanity come back from the zombie apocalypse. For obvious reasons, most writers (and especially video games) prefer to stick you in the middle of the zombie apocalypse where all the action and destroyed cities are, preferring to leave the whole rebuilding of mankind to your imagination. More importantly, Brooks has a very realistic feel for how the zombie epidemic could spread across the world so quickly, how various countries would react to the zombie apocalypse, and how humanity could fight back against the zombies. 90 percent of the time, his thoughts are brilliant and combine a strong understanding of global politics with practical zombie fighting. For example, the zombie plague starts in China, a country with a very large, very dense population where the government controls the press and firearms are restricted.

The book is broken into 8 chapters, consisting of multiple interviews from people of importance from around the world. Sometimes they are leaders, intelligence officers, doctors or soldiers, but just as often, they are regular people thrust into uniquely brutal situations. The sheer number of names can be overwhelming, but they aren't particularly important. One of my favorite things is the amount of stories which intersect without the other people knowing about it. So you hear about an event you know the intimate details of in passing from the story of another character. It does wonders to add cohesiveness to the universe.

There's only one problem with World War Z and it's that Max Brooks' political opinions constantly seep into the book. Some things are inherent to the genre. For example, if the CIA was super good at containing zombie outbreaks, then we wouldn't get very far in our zombie apocalypse and there wouldn't be too much drama.. However, it's the times when he's not taking potshots that are the worst. At every opportunity, conservative values, people and places are vilified and liberal values, people and places are sanctified. For example, the military can't recruit the manpower to fight the undead hordes because people were war weary from Iraq. The northern states fare much better than the southern states because they have winters that freeze the zombies over (ignoring that the South has a shotgun per capita of nearly 1.17). The lifelong capitalist embraces the benefits of Keynesian economics (although this one is more forgivable, since rationing is more essential in a zombie apocalypse). The Sun Belt refugees don't pack warmly enough for the Canadian winter and are generally idiots when it comes to keeping warm. Because no one camps in the South and the winters are never cold. The most egregious line that stands out in my mind was "My father never hit my mother. He was a progressive." Because only people with traditional values beat their wives, right? A liberal would never be capable of violence!

METS: My Entire Team Sucks

There is one other thing that bothers me in the book, but it's fairly minor. In an otherwise fantastic chapter, a pilot who crashed deep in zombie country is talking over the radio to a woman by the call sign Mets Fan. As it turns out SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER the woman is either a guardian angel or maybe the pilot's subconscious SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER and that the name may have been influenced because the pilot's mother was from the Bronx. The problem is the Yankees play in the Bronx, the Mets play in Queens. How could an error like that get through publishing?! To the uninitiated fly honeys reading this who may not understand why it's a big deal to mix up the Yankees and Mets, it would be like mixing up Edward and Jacob in Twilight (if Edward had won more World Series than other franchise and was universally hated by all other people and Jacob was the laughing stock of the land who desperately tried to keep up with Edward but couldn't even keep Jose Reyes from signing a long term deal with the Miami Marlins! SUCK IT JACOB! I mean, METS!). Simply put, people in the Yankees neighborhood aren't going to be Mets fans and would be insulted to be lumped together. It's a mistake that becomes obvious with the slightest amount of research and would be so easy to correct in future editions of the book.

World War Z is a fantastic read, even for people who aren't obsessed about the zombie apocalypse like I am. While there are a handful of errors and political biases, it's never enough to break up the story's wonderful pacing.  The story provides a unique global perspective on the zombie apocalypse as well as the rare glimpse of the world after the zombie threat is contained. I strongly recommend reading the book and give it Four and a Half English Muffins out of Five.

Note to self: design English Muffin ratings. Maybe the half muffin will be like, half eaten or something. I don't know. It'd look cool though, right?