I’ve previously described Max Brooks’ first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, which I found to be a both amusing and chilling fictional field guide written in the wake of a world-wide zombie holocaust. My favorite part of that book was its appendix of ‘historical’ zombie outbreaks, a collection of vignettes about human encounters with the living dead throughout history. The terseness of these little stories made them especially creepy, as the reader feels that he/she is lacking crucial pieces to the puzzle.
Brooks’ 2006 follow-up, World War Z, continues and expands upon this narrative style. It is written as an oral history recorded after the zombie holocaust by a U.N. worker. Tales begin with the Chinese outbreak which starts it all, through the collapse of civilization as we know it, to the turn of the tide of battle and eventually the aftermath of the decidedly Pyrrhic victory. The tales are at times fascinating, humorous, horrifying, and even inspiring, and as a whole I found the book nearly impossible to put down.
Skulls in the Stars 