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It's been a while since I started a thread, but I figure if there's one thing with a good chance of bringing out the LitherLurkers, it's a good discussion about post-apocalyptic fiction in general, and ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE in particular.
I've just finished World War Z - An oral history of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and sometime skit writer for Saturday Night Live, fact fans). It's a follow up to an earlier book The Zombie Survival Guide, and it's a fantastic piece of fictional history. The book is entirely composed of interviews with survivors of a world-wide undead apocalypse, from the doctor in China who found 'Patient Zero' to French 'Cousteaus' who cleared the flooded catacombs of Paris of the grasping 'zacks'. In contrast with the earlier book, it is unrelentingly grim and entirely straight-faced, with psychological horrors aplenty.
I greatly enjoyed it, even if I had a couple of problems with its execution. A number of times, the language of the survivors was simply too florid and descriptive, breaking the illusion of a real oral history. And there were a couple of national stereotypes bordering on the ridiculous (the Brit who explains the resurgent use of castles to protect against the undead is pretty good until his upper lip quivers when he talks about the Queen, for example).
That aside, it was an excellent read, and reminded me strongly of Whitley Streiber's seminal travelogue/oral history Warday, which described a fractured, pre-industrial America ten years after a 'limited' nuclear war with Russia.
World War Z is, by the way, in pre-production for a 2010 release as a film, scripted by that chap that wrote Babylon 5 (I can never spell his name). This tantalising script preview plays it as tonally similar to the film version of Children of Men, but with zombies. Which would be fantastic.
That article also mentions the issue of making an 'oral history' like this more interesting than just lots of talking heads, with the clear hope that the film will show the recollections of each of the survivors.
So, what are your thoughts on 'future histories' like this? Do they gain some of their power from the relative ease with which they can suspend disbelief, due to our familiarity with the documentary format? Is it a refuge for the SF author who can write entire books worth of backstory but can't write a realistic character that can sustain itself for more than a few pages?
Also, I'd love to see anyone else's recommendations for other books and films in this category. |
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