Horror Book Annotation

Author: Max Brooks

Title: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Genre: Horror

Publication Date: 2006

Number of Pages: 342

Geographical Setting: China, South Africa, Canada, Colorado, Greenland, Russia, Barbados, Kansas, India, Tennessee, Montana, Antarctica, Finland, Virginia, Israel, Brazil, Ireland, Greece, Tibet, Washington, Vermont, New Mexico, Ukraine, California, Australia, Japan, Cuba, Chile, and South Korea

Time Period: The Near Future

Series: N/A

Plot Summary:

The war against the zombies is over and every country in the world is trying to rebuild.  The novel is a series of eye-witness accounts from people all over the world who came face to face with the zombies and lived to tell their stories.  Accounts come from the doctor in rural China who found “Patient Zero,” military men and women from many different countries who were on the “front lines”, a blind Japanese man who survived on his own in the mountains of Japan, an Australian astronaut who saw the whole war from the International Space Station, and many more normal, ordinary people who adapted to new lives during the zombie apocalypse and survived.

Subject Headings:

• War
• Zombies
• Epidemics

 Appeal:

• Fast-paced
• Descriptive
• Gruesome and Bleak Tone
• Multiple Points of View

3 Relevant Fiction Works and Authors (From Novelist):

• The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse: Steven C. Schlozman
• Describes the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in the form of journal entries
• The Passage: Justin Cronin
• Variety of character perspectives of consequences of an outbreak of zombies
•  I am Legend: Richard Mateson
• One man's efforts to survive a plague that has created hordes of the undead

3 Relevant Non-Fiction Works and Authors (From WorldCat and Amazon.com):

•           Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus: Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
•           Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture: Stephanie Boluk and Wylie Lenz
•           Theories of International Politics and Zombies: Danial Drezner