My thoughts on World War Z by Max Brooks

I am recently finished the audio book version of World War Z by Max Brooks. I have to say, I was rather impressed. The audio book, and the actual book itself, are a fictional conglomeration of interviews. The interviews take place several years after a zombie threat almost destroyed the world. It is meant to be somewhat of a parody of the WWII books of a similar nature that have been published. I have to say, this format was very interesting to read (I've read about a quarter of the book so far) but it was even better to listen to. What made it so interesting is that each interview is read by a different person, so it sounds like actual interviews. There are a couple of famous voices on there, which was really cool. It was only distracting maybe once or twice, and only right when they came on because you were a little shocked or excited to hear them. For instance, I read that Henry Rollins read a part, so when he first came on, I was excited to hear him. I've seen Henry Rollins perform both musically and in spoken word. He's a very entertaining person in either format. I actually restarted his part a few minutes into it so I could re-listen and just pay attention to the story he was telling instead of just listening to Henry Rollins speak. The same thing happened when Alan Alda spoke as well. I was expecting that to happen with Mark Hamill's part, but I ended up not fulling recognizing his voice until about half way through his first part. By then, I was already into the story so there was no distraction. Rob Reiner reads a part too, but I didn't know it was him until afterwards when they mentioned it in the credits. Rob Reiner's cool and all, but he doesn't have a real distinctive voice, so he was a little harder to pick out. Definitely not like Henry Rollins or Alan Alda, or even Mark Hamill. Although, Mark Hamill has made quite the name for himself in the voice acting circuit, so I'm sure he can disguise his voice or accent pretty well by now. His character in the audio book had a little bit of an accent and it definitely had a roughneck attitude, as his character was a soldier in the war. He probably had the largest part in the book, he had several stories, two of which were basically back to back. His first part is where the book really starts getting interesting and he wraps everything up at the end of the book too, which a part or three in the middle as well. Like I said, he is a very prominent character.
Anyway, I wanted to recommend the audio version of the book to anyone interested in this sort of thing. It's told in a very real, very gritty way. At some point in listening, you almost feel like this zombie uprising actually happened. Everyone does a great job, but there are a couple of times where a thick accent was a little hard to understand. Of course, that makes it more authentic sounding though. There were several little nuances that made it good too. They would mention things and use expressions, but don't explain them to you beforehand. For instance, the soldier just starts calling the zombies Zack, similar to how the Viet Cong were called Charlie. They never give you a briefing and tell you this, they just make the references. Don't get me wrong, they do explain some stuff, but they don't spell everything out for you. That makes it feel a little more authentic because this book is supposed to be a real account of a war that really happened to us. In the world that this book is fictionally released in, you would know some of these terms so they wouldn't have to explain it to you first. It would be like me giving an interview and making a reference to a Harley. The interviewer wouldn't stop the interview or interject that a Harley is a reference to a Harley Davidson brand of motorcycle. It would be assumed that you know what a Harley is because it is now a common term.
I'll end the review by just plain old recommending you go out and pick it up.