World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a novel by Max Brooks.

Plot:
World War Z operates on the premise that 10 years after the decade-long Zombie World War, an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission publishes a book with interviews he did with various key-figures in said war from around the world. This interviews do not make for one continuous narrative but paints a picture of the war through many little international mosaic pieces.

I didn’t think I would like World War Z as much as I did. Yes, I heard many good things about it, but I’m usually not really the person for political or military fiction, and this is both. But I’m glad to say that I fretted for nothing, because I really loved World War Z.

The thing that impressed me most about the book was its structure. I loved how the single stories make up a coherent world and manages to incorporate many different perspectives, all of which shed light on another aspect of the war and life afterwards, with some very intelligent analysis permeating through each.

Of course, the book is still pretty US-centric and not all of the interviews are equally good – some were very tear-jerkery and firmly heading towards kitsch territory – but it all comes together very nicely and it’s very absorbing. I found myself racing through the book more than once.

And even though zombies usually don’t scare me that much, that book really managed to hammer the scary parts about them home.

Its rather disjointed nature makes me curious though, how they will make the movie work. I doubt that it would work with the same structure as the book. But I’ll have to wait a little longer to get an answer to that question.

Summarising: Excellent read. Even for somebody who isn’t into politics that much.