Tuesday 19 August 2008

Fiction is Stranger Than Truth

World War Z by Max Brooks (son of Mel) is a compelling, horrifying account of how humanity is almost wiped out by a zombie plague. The story unfolds as a series of newspaper-style reports and interviews with the survivors. Starting with the doctor who discovers the original outbreak in China, the narrator crosses the world talking to soldiers, politicians, black-marketeers and others who played their part in the war. The result is an unusually well-written horror story, made all the more believable by the non-fiction structure of the narration.
Clearly fiction, I was more than a little surprised (but highly amused) when, browsing in one of my local bookstores, I found it prouddly displayed in the non-fiction section under History.
Then again, maybe there was a zombie outbreak and I missed it.
Did I?

1 comment:

Susan at Stony River said...

LOL! Great find, the nonfiction placement--a librarian's dream.

I like books that shake things up a bit with format or strange takes, so I'll look for this one.

I recently finished a book that does the opposite, called AD 500 I think; it's a fictional accounting of a Roman expedition across Britain and Ireland. So it's non-fiction written as fictional non-fictional... something. Fun to read anyhow, history textbooks should be more like this.

Glad to find your blog!