Techno-Thrillers discussion

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (2006)


Publisher’s Summary
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand 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.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?"

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.

Finished it. 2nd read for me. It is of a different character than the movie. I think I liked both. Best quote I’ve heard about this is that for a zombie horror story, it’s way smarter than it has any right to be. The after-action interview style puts a distance between reader and the horror of some scenes, so you and the characters can calmly think it through and reflect instead of the experiencing 100% panic mode from cover to cover. I like the interviews and varied global perspectives. However, about 2/3 in it is getting old … just more stories … and we’ve heard many … and there is no plot evolution … just more interviews with more people … and so there is no sense where the book is going if anywhere when you’ve already had enough interviews. A little late, it begins to turn the tide. You know from the outset that things will get better or stabilize, because that is the context already. You just don’t known when and how. He took a while getting there. It would have been nice if you could trace the evolution from a recurring person or two, but he didn’t do that. So, I began to lose interest and was reluctant to pick the book up again around 3/4 in, but then it improved for the finish.

Will have to watch the movie.

UPDATE: Watched it. Not at all like the book. Book is much better.

A sequel movie to World War Z has been kicked around, started, and canceled, ... more than once. There are also many AI constructed bogus trailers out there. However, Paramount announced last month (Aug 2025) that some derivative of World War Z will be a priority. They haven't said what that would look like or specified a date ... and it isn’t based on a sequel book because there isn’t one. Even the first movie was hardly based on the book at all, ... so I won't post this in the Group Watch folder, but ... still interesting.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mov...

https://movieweb.com/world-war-z-2-se...

If you like zombies, or World War Z, consider going back to the original zombie book ...

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (1954)


Many people are not doubt familiar with the Will Smith movie, and not the book. They differ notably. Both good. I Am Legend seems to seed the whole zombie genre. It was actually his take on a vampire book. If you remember from the movie, the zombies were light sensitive. But, ... rather than pure fantasy, ... Richard Matheson pens one of the earliest technothrillers, by writing vampires not as some mythological fantasy … a monster horror thriller, ... but instead as an epidemic that comes about due to natural causes. That book strongly inspired the first zombie movie ... which had no vampire connections.

It was a novella I believe. Short and sweet.

Watching the movie …

Yeah … it has zombies … but otherwise seems unrelated to the book plot.

The zombie swarmed helicopter is from the movie. In the movie, an average white dude zombie suddenly becomes a super fast like Usain Bolt and jumps like Michael Jordon. In the book, if you power walk, you’ll outpace the zombies.

Just talked to a guy that is a bit of a fan of Max Brooks. He liked World War Z, and turned me on to a couple of author books by Max he liked:


Anyone else read these? What did you think?