World War Z: The Complete Edition

An Oral History of the Zombie War

By: Max Brooks

Narrated by: Max Brooks, Alan Alda, John Turturro, Rob Reiner, Mark Hamill, Alfred Molina, Simon Pegg, Henry Rollins, Martin Scorsese

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Winner, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2014

World War Z: The Complete Edition (Movie Tie-in Edition): An Oral History of the Zombie War is a new version of Max Brooks' episodic zombie novel. The abridged versions of the original stories are now joined with new, unabridged recordings of the episodes that were not included in the original (abridged) version of the audiobook. These additional episodes feature a star-studded cast of narrators to coincide with the upcoming release of the film.

New narrators include Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese, Spiderman star Alfred Molina, The Walking Dead creator Frank Darabont, rapper Common, Firefly star Nathan Fillion, Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg, and members of the casts of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes and more! Max Brooks will be reprising his role as The Interviewer.

The original abridged edition, released in 2006, won an Audie Award for Best Multi-Voiced Performance. Original cast members include Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, Carl & Rob Reiner, and John Turturro.

In this new classic of apocalyptic fiction that feels all too real, the Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. The documentary-style oral history records the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time.

Featuring five more hours of previously unrecorded content, this full-cast recording is read by F. Murray Abraham, Alan Alda, René Auberjonois, Becky Ann Baker, Dennis Boutsikaris, Bruce Boxleitner, Max Brooks, Nicki Clyne, Common, Denise Crosby, Frank Darabont, Dean Edwards, Mark Hamill, Nathan Fillion, Maz Jobrani, Frank Kamai, Michelle Kholos, John McElroy, Ade M’Cormack, Alfred Molina, Parminder Nagra, Ajay Naidu, Masi Oka, Steve Park, Kal Penn, Simon Pegg, Jürgen Prochnow, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins, Jeri Ryan, Jay O. Sanders, Martin Scorsese, Paul Sorvino, David Ogden Stiers, Brian Tee, John Turturro, Eamonn Walker, Ric Young, and Waleed Zuaiter.

©2006 Max Brooks (P)2012 Random House

Critic reviews

"What happens after the end of the world as we know it? Humanity rebuilds, and Kirby Impoinvil (Max Brooks) is there to help survivors make sense of what happened the day the zombies came. Helping author Brooks is a host of family friends, including Alan Alda, Nathan Fillion, Paul Sorvino, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, Simon Pegg, John Turturro, and many others. This audio production was released to coincide with the movie of the same name. That it’s a real drama is not surprising given the stellar cast. They don't just read the book, they act it out. And don’t think this is a teen thriller. The zombies serve as a backdrop to the larger story of how humankind reacts to such an unexpected and catastrophic invasion and the inevitable conclusion that millions must be sacrificed to save the rest. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2014. Audies Finalist." (AudioFile magazine)

Awesome

I love the movie, I love the book more now that I listened to it. It was a great performance by the people reading it.

Amazing, wish they would make episodes.

each story was so amazing and independent of his own but connected in some way. if someone was to make tv episodes of this book someone be a billion!

This Performance is Outstanding!

After listening to this performance by the huge cast, I cannot imagine how boring it would be to read. My imagination just wouldn't have done it the justice. I highly recommend this creative, and different take on a zombie apocalypse.

If you didn't like the movie, it doesn't matter. The only similarity is the title.

Amazing

A truly unique story and different take on the zombie genre that separates itself from the rest. Packed with history and memorable characters. World War Z is a read you won't regret. It makes a war against the zombies seem all too real and terrifying.

One of the best!

This is one of the best novels of the 21st century! It is the best zombie novel, the best audio book I have found, and a joy to read or listen to. The full cast is simply amazing and full of talented stars. Don't expect this to be anything like the movie.

Spectacular

This was my first purchase on Audible and it was AMAZING. I had read it before but hearing it read aloud with the whole cast was terrifying and I couldn't stop listening. My only wish was that there was a cast list breakdown by chapter. I ended up looking it up online to see who read what.

If you're going to listen to the book, pick this

Where does World War Z: The Complete Edition (Movie Tie-in Edition) rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This book is definitely up there. What truly makes this audiobook one of the better ones has to be the performance. With an all-star cast, the story just comes to life. The story itself is well written too, but the performance is what makes this audiobook so fantastic.

What did you like best about this story?

The narrators were my favorite part about this experience.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Mark Hamill as Todd Wainio was my favorite. His voice and character were so convincing. Common as Darnell Hackworth was a close second. Common has a lovely voice, and his character was my favorite.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reaction, but it was enjoyable and it did stir up emotions, just nothing extreme.

Any additional comments?

If you want to read World War Z, this version is the way to go!

Tough choice on buying, but I'm glad I did

Any additional comments?

After reading the various reviews that discuss the fact that this book, while listed as the "Complete Edition" is also listed as Abridged (which are two things that can not, by my reckoning, both be simultaneously true), I struggled with whether or not to buy this audiobook.Oh my dear gods am I glad I did! As an experience, this rocked. I work as a sign waiver for a restaurant, and the shifts are oft spent reading audio book, and the days I had this one rolling through me head were fabulous. At some point down the line, I'll definitely want to grab a copy of the paper back or hard back and read it with my eyes, knowing that there might be a few bits here and there that I didn't read with my ears.

I now have a deeper understanding of why so many people were disappointed with the movie version of this. While the Brad Pitt movie is a decent flick, the complexity of this story and the scope are so much more wide and varied. It's something that'd be better adapted as a mini series with a couple dozen episodes, rather than as a theatrical flick.

My one minor gripe, is that it feels a bit convenient that the narrator was able to track down so many people that could pick up from the details of a previous chapter. In a post war world like that, the idea that so many of the people who could shape the beginning and spread of the zombie would end up surviving the decade or so of zombie uprising stretches the suspension of disbelief for me by a little bit.

It seems like Brooks is splitting the difference between wanting to tell a set of related short stories, and wanting to tell one long story that has a beginning, middle and end. It's almost like the opposite of Stephen King's The Stand, which has a long sweeping narrative, that happens to also feel like it contains a bunch of related short stories.

The voice cast on this book is super freaking awesome by the way. The names of guys like Martin Scorsese, Henry Rollins and others are part of what pushed me over the top on buying this, along with a friend who's read the book saying "Go for it."

well preformed and easy listen

love the cast, good book, good pacing easy read was it the same story as the movie but was a good story none the less

Insane Cast to Put it Mildly

I've read WWZ multiple times. This audiobook made it fresh and new all over again, in no small part due to what should be considered the platinum standard for audiobook casts.