World War Z
By Max Brooks
Or how Mankind survived the Zombie holocaust..
This book is the more serious bigger brother to Max Brook's "Zombie Survival
Guide" (Also reviewed in this issue of Alive.) In some ways, it is a logical
outgrowth of some of the themes touched on in that book, namely what would
happen if a Zombie outbreak went way beyond just being a local nuisance,
indeed if there was a worldwide Zombiegeddon!
World War Z is described as an oral history of the Zombie war, and uses the
device of the narrator going around a slowly recovering post-war planet and
collecting the recollections of a wide and varied selection of survivors in
an interview format. The time period is set in the near future, although
events and personalities aren't explicitly referred to by name, you can make
some pretty good guesses about who/what the author is talking about.
Thus we start with the Chinese doctor who came face to face with 'patient
zero', a young boy who had been bitten whilst swimming. Others have been
bitten and infected, but the boy is the only one so far showing the classic
zombie behaviour patterns, such as extreme hostility and a terrifying
disregard for his (its) own safety. Upon getting advice from a collegue, it
turns out at least some parts of the Chinese government and intelligence
community are aware of the zombie threat. (In the Zombie Survival Guide,
case histories tell of various governments working on secret zombie bio-
warefare programs. Although the two books aren't explicitly linked, it is
possible to draw your own conclusions.)
However, this apparently swift and decisive reaction does not restore
control, and we hear the tale of the 'Snakehead' who helped to export the
problem worldwide. People fled west seeking a cure, even when there was none
to be found. There were even random outbreaks from donor organs, such as the
South American doctor who had personal experience with a heart transplant
going horribly wrong from an infected donated organ. The Chinese government
go as far to cover-up by describing their zombie cull as a 'health and
safety sweep', really a massacre of political dissidents to get everyone
looking in a different direction.
By the time the outbreaks become public, in South Africa, where it is
misnamed "African Rabies", the various governments are united in their
resolve to do as little as possible. Of course, the CIA are the last people
to know what is going on. The denial and profiteering culminates in one
corporation creating a fake vaccine called 'Phalanx', which was a working
anti-rabies vaccine, but useless against the zombie virus. A superbly
cynical interview with its creator, 'Breck Scott' sets the tone for this
period before the 'Great Panic' to follow.
"If there's a hell... I don't want to think about how many of those dumb
shits might be waiting for me. I just hope they don't a refund."
Israel showed the way, by pulling back to its pre-1967 borders and extending
the security wall right around the country, but no-one else followed that
example. It is fair to say that although the outbreaks are in the public
domain and widely discussed, no-one is prepared for the reality of the
threat to come clawing at their front door.
The 'Great Panic' describes the time of collapse when the zombies march in
massed numbers. From individual encounters, through to the masses of people
trying to flee to an illusory safe haven. From the memories of a feral girl,
now grown up, but trapped in the thought processes of the four-year old who
lived through a zombie attack on a church, through to the disaster at the
'Celebrity Safe House' on Long Island. (Hint to the rich and famous, in the
event of a zombie outbreak, use your money and influence to get yourself to
safety, but don't advertise your location on a reality teevee show, where
less rich and famous people might want to come along and take your space!)
There is a great chapter, where the limitations of even the US army's mighty
conventional weapons against a million-strong zombie horde, are cruelly
exposed, and the problems with 'Net-centric warfare'. Sometimes you can just
get too much information, and when things go wrong, panic is even more
infectious than the solanum virus!
"All over the net, you could hear the browning of shorts across the info
highway." The massacre at Yonkers also includes the largest proportion of
news reporters and media people to soldiers ever seen in a battle!
But it's not all about the US-of A, as worldwide reactions and problems are
described. Pakistan and Iran resort to nuclear weapons, but not exclusively
against the zombies. The carnage at Alang in India, a ship-breaking yard,
where people tried to flee seawards anyway is another vivid chapter. The
solution to the Zombie problem comes from a South African, Paul Redecker,
who proposes defensible safe zones where the government and armed forces can
regroup and rebuild in comparative safety. The controversial aspect is that
not all the people can be accomodated in the safe zone, and those must
remain outside, effectively as zombie bait, to draw the undead away from the
safe zones.
In the absence of government control, people fled north, armed with one of
the few real bits of information, that zombies freeze solid when it gets
cold. (unfortunately, they thaw out again!) Equally unfortunately, those
people hadn't really planned what to do to survive for an extended period in
a very cold location, which added about 11 million to the death toll for
North America alone, let alone those people who fled to Siberia and other
cold zones...
The nations of the world fall into adopting some version or other of this
plan, and the next section of the book, "Home Front USA" details how the
safe zone was put back into running order, something like the second world
war command economies running on fairly socialistic principles. The large
white collar working population, with no practical skills, is retrained to
do 'real' jobs, even grave digging, for which there is a big demand! We find
out about 'Quislings', or pretend zombies, which are real people who are
traumatized so much, they think they are zombies and attack the living in
the same way. (Their bite is nearly as fatal, due to the high bacterial
infection count from their mouth.)
This culminates in the tale of a resupply pilot who came down in 'Zack'
territory, and was talked home, BAT 21 style.
'Around the world and above' goes into more detail about the zombie
experiences of other parts of the world. We get to hear of the Europeans
putting medieval castles back into service with mixed success. There is the
pending mystery of what happened to North Korea, in theory, the society best
placed to withstand a zombie attack, but the population mysteriously
disappeared underground, it is speculated that if the infection got in with
them, then the entire 23 million population could be infected. There are a
couple of good stories from Japan, where a alienated teenage hacker
transforms himself into a latter-day Samurai warrior, after he finds an old
sword whilst escaping from his apartment complex, and the old man, blinded
by the Hiroshima bomb, who is more than capable of looking after himself in
the wilderness.
Finally, the Chinese issue is resolved, when their politbureau tells lies
one time too many, and is destroyed by their last ballistic missile
submarine. We even get a view from space of the unfolding catastrophe, as
the International Space Station continues to function. There is an
environmental component to the Zombie war, as the atmospheric disturbance
from all the fires is seen as equivalent to a low-level nuclear exchange
between the USA and Russia. There are even a series of 'nuclear' winters
where the average temperature has dropped by ten or fifteen degrees, it
isn't possible to see the stars or moon, and when snow does fall, it is
grey, some think that a lot of the ash in the air is human in origin!
Additionally, the oceans remain infected with millions of Zombies, which
sink to the bottom, then carry on as if nothing had happened. There was a
large oceanic community where millions more people had put to sea to try to
escape, in anything from aircraft carriers and luxury liners, through
historic ships like HMS Victory and the Russian cruiser Aurora, down to
improvised rafts made of garbage bags filled with ping-pong balls! Of
course, there are a large proportion of zombie-crewed derelicts, where the
infection got too far to control.
'Total War'
At last, humanity goes back on the attack. The same infantryman who was a
witness to the Yonkers debacle, is a participant in the first battle at
Hope, New Mexico, which uses the new tactics and weapons. These include slow
and careful shooting with a purpose-built semi-auto anti-zombie rifle and
pyrotechnic ammunition, and the soldiers formed into Napoleonic era line
(and later square) formation. (The "RS", or 'Reinforced Square', or even
"Raj-Singh" after the Indian general who invented it.) The battle is a
resounding success, but the campaign is a slow and methodical slog, taking
three years to take back the whole of the USA.
There is an interesting philosophical discussion of the meaning of 'total
war', expressed by one of the generals. Zombies are the only life-forms
capable of waging this, as they have no human needs such as sleeping or
eating to distract them. They are on a mission to consume any life they can
get their hands on 24-7! (Another point made was, that these zombies don't
just eat people, they will even dig for any burrowing creatures, and all
animals are afraid of them, or show a gut reaction to avoiding traces of the
Solanum virus.)
Humanity's greatest alliance with another species is given a new slant, as
special canine warfare (K9) units are created, firstly to detect infection,
later to provide warning, lure zombies into prepared killzones, and even
conduct long range scouting missions with a video uplink and gps locator
attached to the dog.
There are reflections on other parts of the campaign, the undersea battles
between the ocean-going undead and divers in reinforced deep suits, the
French battle to clear the catacombs underneath Paris, and the complicated
reactions of besieged communities as they were liberated from the
surrounding zombies. Russia turns into the Holy Empire, a religious
dictatorship. Cuba not only survives, but prospers as one of the few safe
havens, and Castro is clever enough to stand aside when his old-school
politics are no longer needed.
In general, the surviving societies experience something of a return to
their traditional underpinning values, but humbler and tougher than before.
Japan re-establishes a Samuri code, specifically for combating the undead,
seeking a middle way between the arrogance of the old imperial order, and
the over-pacified post-war society. The USA is portrayed as being closer to
the idealised version of itself after the conflict, reborn out of the
current decadent mess, but not too proud of itself. As one witness summed up
nicely;
"Yeah, we stopped the zombie menace, but we're the ones who let it become a
menace in the first place. At least we're cleaning up our own mess, and
maybe that's the best epitaph to hope for. Generation Z, they cleaned up
their own mess."
There is some vagueness about the death-toll. There is a general agreement
that it is massive, but the official figure of 600 million, directly due to
zombie infection, is seen as too low. This firstly does not take into
account all the deaths from other causes, such as starvation, disease, and
inter-human violence during times such as the great panic. Secondly,
although no total figure is given, it is estimated at the height of the
stalemate period, where the safe zone is operational in the US, that there
are 200 million zombies walking around the US alone, of which 25 million
plus are refugees from further south who died trying to get to Canada. So
taking that as representative of the whole, at least half the human
population worldwide may have become zombies, possibly a higher proportion
in highly urbanised and densely populated countries. And this is before
deaths from other causes are counted as well! So this world may have
experienced a very severe depopulation of more than half the pre-war level?
World War Z is a compelling book, as it plausibly explores the ultimate
consequences of a favourite topic of horror fans. The reactions of the more
informed sections of the people and government agencies are all too
plausible as well, with cynicism and head burying in the sand being the
order of the day when the outbreak first kicks off. Humanity has to be
confronted with the catastrophe before it learns to react decisively, and
the early chapters of this book may well be a blueprint for what happens
with other pending disasters in the making that could happen for real, the
day after tomorrow!
In short, this book rules!
CiH, for Alive Mag,Nov '06.
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