I doubt that I will read a more disturbing book all year ... Brilliantly written, morbidly funny, completely convincing

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. The reports were fragmentary and confused. A world still reeling from bird flu and limited nuclear exchanges had had enough of apocalypse. Most people just wanted to rebuild their lives. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginnings of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse. Faced with a future of mindless, man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Maybe, Brooks argues, the zombies brought us back to life. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight-back against the horde, "World War Z" brings the very finest traditions of American journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of civilisation.

Max Brooks is the author of 2003?s prescient Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead. He has since received hundreds of awards and honorary degrees from around the world. Last year he received the joint Papal and U.N. citation, Pro Humanitate.

2008-08-31 Max Brooks has written the best book of the Zombie genre - hands down

Read this straight away - Don't read the survival guide first (if at all).

Max Brooks has written the best book of the Zombie genre - hands down.

It is told in a collection of personal stories that as a whole give a good view of the Zombie war or World War Z. Nearly all the stories are tense and the others hold different horrors. Max has developed all characters well and given them strong supporting backgrounds - he also explores the human factor of the survivors and brings many interesting psychological effects of this World Armageddon.

It is a stong point that the story is told from many countries and here Max has done his research, bringing out national characters, the Israelies enter into a voluntary quaranteen and close their borders, South Africa brings out a survival plan based on the horrors of Apartheid, the zombie outbreak is helped by black market body part sales and human trafficking, the infected running from developing countries escape into the underbelly of the Western Cities where the unwanted and unnamed live. So it is not only about our war against zombies, it is also about our contemporary world with the Zombies as an instigator of our collapse.

On another level it explores the Global effect of Romero's Zombie movies, what happens everywhere else?

I really enjoyed reading this book, it was tense, gripping and even made me think a little. On the whole probably the best horror novel I have read. I wish I hadn't bothered with the survival guide however, I felt I had to read it first but World War Z stands alone and nothing in the survival guide is needed to read WWZ. After reading both I'd recommend skipping the survival guide entirely.

But read this one, they are already making the movie and the book is brilliant.