Frightful Friday: World War Z: The Complete Edition: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Frightful Friday is a weekly meme in which I feature a particularly scary or chilling book that I’ve read that week.This week’s featured title is the audiobook production of World War Z by Max Brooks:

• Audio CD
• Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
• Publisher: Random House Audio
• ISBN-10: 0804165734
• Source: Personal copy

The Zombie War came frighteningly close to decimating mankind. In this documentary-style oral history, survivors (including men, women, and children) look back on the tumultuous time immediately following the outbreak. While sharing their experiences, it isn’t hard to grasp the social and political commentary that follows, how our nation responded to the “attack” and the aftermath. The interviewed include soldiers forced to fight a losing battle, individuals who were just children at the time, now adults reflecting on a horrific past.

While obviously a fictional piece of writing, one could easily take the Zombie War and replace it with any major military insurgence the United States has participated in. The results, the impact, are virtually the same. Lessons learned, inadvisable and rash decisions, are easily transferable.

The interviews are what make this novel truly impactful.  Granted, since there are so many victim statements it is hard to get connected to any character. It wasn’t Brooks’ intent for his readers to relate to any of the characters, but instead focus on the story they are sharing. The story, the memories, the testimony: that should be, and is, the focus of this truly outstanding audio book production. Unlike many other zombie novels, Brooks doesn’t try to explain how or why the zombies came to be, instead focusing on how their existence forever altered society as we know it.

This particular audiobook is an “update” to the original previously released five years ago.  The release of the World War Z motion picture inspired this update, including over five hours of additional content. The previous audio book was abridged, honestly a disappointment. While this update is technically an abridged version as well, to me, the parts removed are not noticeable. Honestly, I was incredibly impressed with the additional content, specifically the additional narrators.  These include New narrators include Martin Scorsese, Alfred Molina (Spiderman), Frank Darabont (the creator ofThe Walking Dead), Nathan Fillion many, many more.

While I haven’t seen the movie yet, I cannot even begin to contemplate how a novel (and audiobook) so brilliant could be transferred to the big screen.  Perhaps a mini-series, but definitely not a full-length film. Instead, I chose to stick to the original, the true brilliance of World War Z. This production definitely tops my list of best of the year. While there are still a few months in the year, it’s going to be hard to top this one. So, in my opinion, skip the movie and stick to the audiobook. Highly, highly recommended.