J. Huntington

World War Z is a fantastic book. Brilliant. Hugely entertaining, intelligently speculative, and with just enough of the Brooks flavor of horror and comedy, it's one of the best things I've read in a long time.
This is also a fantastic production. It couldn't help but be good with an all-star cast performing a book that was practically made to be an audiobook, consisting as it does of a series of interviews with various people from around the world. As a listen, it was a non-stop thrill.

So why rate it only three stars? Because it's abridged.

Setting aside my personal distaste for the very idea of abridging a book, chopping up World War Z is practically criminal; excising entire important storylines, like the fall of Russia and the rise of the Holy Russian Empire, reduces the plot from a global faux-history of the world changing, to a typically American comedy-horror zombie story where the good guys win and the world goes back to normal.

As well, had this book been left full length, there would have been substantially more of it to enjoy. As it is, I felt cheated, teased, deprived when it ended after less than seven hours.

So that's my take: it's a shame that it's only available abridged, because what little of it there is is fantastic. I recommend reading the book, and THEN listening to the audiobook, so that you get the full story as well as the excellent production. I also hope that sooner or later there might be an unabridged audiobook.

I've loved Steele's other Coyote universe books, but I couldn't finish Spindrift. The voice talent was just awful. The narrator and main characters were unimpressive at best, and some of the supporting voices - the main scientist in particular - were so whiny, overwrought, and just plain annoying that it was unlistenable. I hate to downvote what is probably a good book based solely on the reading, but do NOT purchase this audiobook. Get Steele's Coyote books in audio, but get this one in print instead.