World War Z

A few years back, the son of Mel Brooks found himself with a genuine cult sensation on his hands with the tongue-in-cheek The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (the title of which pretty much speaks for itself). With the publication of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Brooks continues with the same theme but without the overtly absurdist approach. Picking up a decade after “The Crisis,” which nearly brought about the annihilation of the human race (well, the breathing part of it), our narrator sets about accumulating a compendium of survivors’ tales from their memories of the frontline of the zombie plague. From the isolated survivalist to the huddled masses to the full-blown dogs of war who found that it’s hard to kill something that is already dead, each vignette plays out in a deadpan voice, albeit with plenty of satirical jabs at the virtual zombiegeddon we currently inhabit. Irrefutably a worthy addition to the George Romero living-dead mythos. Soon to be a major motion picture featuring … uh, Brad Pitt.