Our ongoing series reviewing audio adaptations of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
By John J. Joex
Book Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)
Audiobook Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War comes to us from Max Brook whose first entry in the zombie genre was 2003’s The Zombie Survival Guide. That one was a parody of sorts of survival guides which detailed zombie encounters as far back as 60,000 BC and that provided comprehensive information on how to survive an attack from the undead. For his second book in the genre, Brooks took a more serious approach and delivered one of the best zombie tales I have ever read. Sam Christopher reviewed the novel previously on this site, so I will not spend too much time re-hashing what he has covered. But I gave the audio book adaptation a spin, so I will elaborate on that edition.
The setup for the book is simple: the world has survived a massive zombie outbreak and the book follows an interviewer sent by the United Nations to talk with people who made it through the holocaust. Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and who previously wrote for Saturday Night Live and who has voiced characters in animated shows like Batman Beyond and Justice League) provides the vocals for the narrator and the interviewees come to us from an all-star cast which includes the voices of Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Rob and Carl Reiner, John Turturro, and many more.
World War Z takes a familiar approach to the genre by utilizing the Zombie-apocalypse as a means of presenting a commentary on society and human nature. But Brooks manages to take this to the next level and provides a riveting dissection of the human condition and he makes it seem that much more authentic by delivering the message through the words of the interviewees. Their personal connection to the very real and nightmarish events, as well as their comments on what they saw and experienced, ring true and bring the horrors described to a personal level. And the amazing voice cast energizes the message through their rousing performances. Whereas an audio book usually has a single narrator, in World War Z each character is handled here with a different voice (though sometimes the same actor) which make them distinct personalities and which separates each of their stories.
Brooks’ novel on its own is an excellent addition to vast world of Zombie tales (and I concur with Mr. Christopher’s rating for the book), yet it also delivers a story that transcends that genre and that non-zombie fans can enjoy it as well. And the audio book manages to fully capture the spirit of the novel and perhaps even enhance it with the excellent performances that unfold the story. It is relatively short for an audio production (5 discs at about 6 hours), so it is a fairly quick listen and definitely worth the time (also worth the money as it runs cheaper than most audio adaptations at around $15).
There are still rumors of a movie version of the book, but I have my doubts on how well it would translate to that medium. However, J. Michael Straczynski has allegedly worked up a script for the film, so it stands a chance.
Buy the World War Z Audio Book and Print Book from Amazon.com:
