From Publishers Weekly
Brooks, the author of the determinedly straight-faced parody The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), returns in all seriousness to the zombie theme for his second outing, a future history in the style of Theodore Judson's Fitzpatrick's War. Brooks tells the story of the world's desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts "as told to the author" by various characters around the world. A Chinese doctor encounters one of the earliest zombie cases at a time when the Chinese government is ruthlessly suppressing any information about the outbreak that will soon spread across the globe. The tale then follows the outbreak via testimony of smugglers, intelligence officials, military personnel and many others who struggle to defeat the zombie menace. Despite its implausible premise and choppy delivery, the novel is surprisingly hard to put down. The subtle, and not so subtle, jabs at various contemporary politicians and policies are an added bonus. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Audiofile
Zombies are among us. In a series of journalistic-style interviews and monologues, Max Brooks tracks the institutional and geopolitical missteps that led to the collapse of civilization and follows the intrepid survivors as they tell the story of fighting their way back against a zombie horde of 200 million. Alan Alda, Carl Reiner, Mark Hamill, and a host of others lend their considerable vocal talents to give these interviews a solid realism. China secretly developed a deadly virus. Israel closed its borders. Cuba plotted. And in the United States the Battle of Yonkers was a devastating rout for the U.S. Army. It's all very much in the grand tradition of War of the Worlds. B.P. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
