Jon Lymon Reviews: World War Z by Max Brooks

As a writer of zombie fiction that doesn’t sell particularly well, I often feel honour-bound to read zombie fiction that does sell well. So a book about zombies with a cover that proudly annouces ‘one million copies sold’ is certainly going to register as interesting for me. Hence, my attraction to the World War Z book by Max Brooks.

However, this is one of those occasions where I saw the film before reading the book. I actually didn’t know there was a book. And now, having read it, well, I’m flabbergasted.

I have to say straight from the off that I preferred the film, which followed a more traditional story structure, a beginning, middle, end, a hero, a villain etc

But what got me is the complete lack of things in common between the World War Z film and book. Because while the film follows Brad Pitt’s character, the book has chapters narrated by different people from all over the world, talking about different aspects of the zombie apocalypse they’ve lived through, answering interview questions put to them, I presume, by some journalist.

There’s certainly no sparing the horses when it comes to describing their gruesome experiences – indeed, I fear horses were among those to turn zombie in some instances.

It seems to me the only similarity between book and film is the title. Did the film makers pay big bucks for the title and think we’ll just write our own zombie screenplay and loosely connect it with the book of the same name.

Fair enough, people are allowed to exercise however much artistic license they feel like exercising, especially after paying millions for the book rights. And fair play to the team who made a story out of a seemingly unfilmable book that works well on screen.

Brooks has certainly found a unique designing principle for his book (see the brilliant screenwriter and writing theorist John Truby for an explanation of the importance of this).

I found the World War Z book a little hard going and something you can dip in and out of as one chapter has little in common with the next. This format means it lacks the one hero you can get behind and the character arc you can follow – unless there’s something clever going on that I’ve completely missed out on.

So, whether you read the book first or see the film, it really doesn’t matter with World War Z as the two are worlds apart.