Caught In The Whirlwind
Archive for July 20, 2010
Book 21: World War Z
Jul 20th 2010
Title: World War Z
Author: Max Brooks
Genre: Zombie fiction
Pages: 352
Summary
Stolen from Amazon:
Brooks tells the story of the world’s desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts “as told to the author” by various characters around the world. A Chinese doctor encounters one of the earliest zombie cases at a time when the Chinese government is ruthlessly suppressing any information about the outbreak that will soon spread across the globe. The tale then follows the outbreak via testimony of smugglers, intelligence officials, military personnel and many others who struggle to defeat the zombie menace.
Notes
So I’m not really one for Zombie books. I do appreciate the mythos of the Zombie Apocalypse but I’m not really a rabid zombie kind of guy. But this book was good.
Brooks sets up a plausible modern zombie holocaust situation without actually revealing the root cause of the zombies. Through first person interviews of various fictional characters he conveys a sense of confusion as the world slowly beings to recognize the threat and organize to deal with it. The perspectives of doctors, military officers, and just random survivors help to paint a pictures of events as they unfold.
The way the events play out in the book, once you get a sense of what’s going on, seem extremely plausible. I don’t recall thinking even once as I was reading “Now hold on there, that would never happen.”
I think the best part about this book is that it’s not so much a book about Zombies. It’s a book about how the people of the world react to a major global threat. Comparatively, the zombies shambling around moaning get relatively little screen time. Most of the book is devoted to what people are doing to ensure that they survive.
An engrossing read, very quick and if you’re even the slightest bit interested in Zombie type books, or even disaster books in general, you should check this one out.
Next Book
I’ve had a long enough vacation from the Wheel of Time, so my next book up is Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time Book 6.
Books 19 & 20: The Girl Who…
Jul 20th 2010
Book 19: The Girl Who Played With Fire
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Fiction (Crime/Mystery)
Pages: 630
Book 20: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Fiction (Crime/Mystery)
Pages: 576
Summary
A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden’s sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. This launches Blomkvist on a journey into Salander’s past in an attempt to clear her name (if, in fact her name should be cleared).
Notes
These books really should be read as one unit. In fact, the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire is such an evil cliffhanger I would have been a little angry at having to wait for the third book to see what happened.
It’s very much in the same vein as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and if you liked reading that book you will enjoy these two as well. Pretty much everything I had to say in my previous review applies here as well. I was pleased to find that the issues with the translation that I had with the first book were largely gone.
Sadly, my “Oh come on!!!” computer hacking reactions were back here too.
Next Book
I feel behind a bit with my posting so I’ve just finished World War Z by Max Brooks, which will appear in a separate post.
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