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I've been reading World War Z by Max Brooks.
Interesting book - less about the zombies than the human reaction in a time of war.
It's supposed to be the "oral" history of the war against the undead outbreak, how the world reacted and then fought back and how everything has changed since the first bitey bitey. Every sub-chapter starts with a location and a little blurb about the person the interviewer is talking to. I read one of the sub-chapters out loud to my husband, the one from this grunt who had been at the battle of Yonkers when the US Military realized all their fancy weapons and tech weren't terribly effective against a zombie. Spoose chortled once or twice as the grunt waxed pissy about all the shiny toys that had been rolled out for this big publicized battle that was supposed to reaffirm the people's faith in their government but were useless and in some cases detrimental.
The author really put some effort into thinking about how an invasion of this magnitude would effect the world, but he doesn't just tell you governments have fallen apart - he shows it. From the average Joe family that fled to above the snow line and lived in a camp where people began to turn on each other, to the former government officials who were involved in the decision to take on the Redecker(sp) plan - which is some nasty work that I won't go into because if you read the book, you'll want to discover it yourself.
Interspersed with the army and governmental accounts are the regular people. The "We were watching tv when it happened. Yeah, we'd heard the news but who really believes that kind of thing would happen in our neighborhood, right? So when the dog started barking I didn't think anything of it."
It starts small. An account from the doctor who found the first documented case - someone calls it the patient zero I think, but it's not. Not really. So far there's no explanation of how the infection started, and I spent a pleasant lunch hour talking to Spoose about my suspicions.
It's not the kind of book I would have read if not for the fact that the anonymous horde happen to want to eat your brains, but it's been an interesting read so far.
My one complaint is the canine corps. I understand it works for the story, and it really does. But it still makes me cry to read about the canine units in the war. Go ahead and eat all the people you want, zombie dudes, but you chomp down on one puppy and I get weepy. The author doesn't even show any of the dogs getting eaten, he just gives you the reactions of the handlers and that's enough to set me off. I had to put the book away yesterday because I just couldn't deal with finishing the last few pages of that chapter because I'm a wuss.
Yeah, I'm weird.
On the whole, I don't think it's a bad book and if anyone else has read it I'd love to hear your theories.
Interesting book - less about the zombies than the human reaction in a time of war.
It's supposed to be the "oral" history of the war against the undead outbreak, how the world reacted and then fought back and how everything has changed since the first bitey bitey. Every sub-chapter starts with a location and a little blurb about the person the interviewer is talking to. I read one of the sub-chapters out loud to my husband, the one from this grunt who had been at the battle of Yonkers when the US Military realized all their fancy weapons and tech weren't terribly effective against a zombie. Spoose chortled once or twice as the grunt waxed pissy about all the shiny toys that had been rolled out for this big publicized battle that was supposed to reaffirm the people's faith in their government but were useless and in some cases detrimental.
The author really put some effort into thinking about how an invasion of this magnitude would effect the world, but he doesn't just tell you governments have fallen apart - he shows it. From the average Joe family that fled to above the snow line and lived in a camp where people began to turn on each other, to the former government officials who were involved in the decision to take on the Redecker(sp) plan - which is some nasty work that I won't go into because if you read the book, you'll want to discover it yourself.
Interspersed with the army and governmental accounts are the regular people. The "We were watching tv when it happened. Yeah, we'd heard the news but who really believes that kind of thing would happen in our neighborhood, right? So when the dog started barking I didn't think anything of it."
It starts small. An account from the doctor who found the first documented case - someone calls it the patient zero I think, but it's not. Not really. So far there's no explanation of how the infection started, and I spent a pleasant lunch hour talking to Spoose about my suspicions.
It's not the kind of book I would have read if not for the fact that the anonymous horde happen to want to eat your brains, but it's been an interesting read so far.
My one complaint is the canine corps. I understand it works for the story, and it really does. But it still makes me cry to read about the canine units in the war. Go ahead and eat all the people you want, zombie dudes, but you chomp down on one puppy and I get weepy. The author doesn't even show any of the dogs getting eaten, he just gives you the reactions of the handlers and that's enough to set me off. I had to put the book away yesterday because I just couldn't deal with finishing the last few pages of that chapter because I'm a wuss.
Yeah, I'm weird.
On the whole, I don't think it's a bad book and if anyone else has read it I'd love to hear your theories.