World War Z by Max Brooks

I’ve been on a lucky streak with books lately; I’ve read some phenomenal ones.  Upon finishing Max Brook’s, World War Z, I have found another gem to put on top of my list for 2006.

Max Brooks narrates a story of a post-apocalyptic Earth, one where the human race was driven to the brink of extinction by a completely new type of enemy, the zombie.  He travels to various parts of the world to interview survivors who tell the details of how corrupt governments, indifferent or self-interested politicians and just simply poorly prepared militaries botched the initial wave of invasions. 

This leads to the second wave of epidemic, known as “The Great Panic” where surviving members of the human race now need to find ways they can escape and survive the overwhelming number of invaders.  And try as militaries might, their traditional military practices are completely useless on these creatures.  Weapons and tactics that, in large part, also employ a certain amount of psychological warfare are ineffective.  More hostile firepower like missiles, grenades and mines are all-too-late realized to be useless as well… after all, there is only one way to kill a zombie.

Eventually, the human race does find different ways to survive, different countries employ individual practices based on regional and past historical accounts.  Twelve years later, the war is declared won but no one is letting their guard down.  After all, who knows how many were infected and how many were actually killed.

Believe it or not, this is one of the better thought out books I’ve read in awhile.  From the beginnings, to the cultures, to military tactics, to characterizations, Brooks put an extraordinary amount of effort in.

 On the website for this book, there is a great feature that will calculate the risk and your chance of surviving a zombie attack.  It takes into account various news sources, physical health, special skills, geographic locations, and group sizes to determine survivability.

You would think for all the horror films I watch that I could come up with better odds than 34% though… Man, I have got to brush up on my skills.