World War Z: The Complete Edition (Movie Tie-in Edition): An Oral History of the Zombie War

Audible deleted my original review on a technicality. They changed the description to abridged then deleted all the negative reviews which savaged this version for cutting out a 4:54 block out of chapter 3 from the original audiobook.

I cross checked this against a copy of the original World War Z audio book and sure enough the painfully obvious jump in chapter three comes from the complete omission of track 4 on disk one of the original version. If you play tracks 3 and 5 together from the original together it plays just like the movie tie-in version. I can only assume when the tie-in edition was being put together it was omitted by accident and no one is willing to fess up to the error.

Bottom line. This is still a broken version and I can't recommend it until it is fixed.

The customer support response regarding the gap in chapter 3 was disappointing and unsatisfactory. I've mentioned this three times, once verbally and twice by mail. For both mail messages your response was that Random House assured you it was correct, despite messages by myself and others to the contrary. The second time my prior review was deleted.

Would you give us the benefit of the doubt, and check for yourselves? All you need to do is listen to the original abridged audiobook, and compare it to the movie tie-in version. Another reviewer named Thomas mentions that on the first disk, the gap corresponds exactly to track 4. The gap isn't your fault, but the publishers, and being up front about the problem would reflect well on you.

Blindly accepting the word of the publisher without checking yourself is unstatifactory, especially when many of your customers have found the same problem.

Finally, deleting reviews about this issue is unfair, and makes the reviews biased. This has been done to others as well. One lady has already cancelled her subscription over this.

I own the hardcover of WWZ as well as the original audiobook on CDs. Both are incredible. I looked forward to this new edition with additional recorded content.

Note that this version is still ABRIDGED. I confirmed this by reading along with my book. Audible needs to make that very clear, since "complete edition" can be easily interpreted as unabridged.

I can confirm with other reviewers that there is a 4 minute segment missing from Chapter 3 of the recording. At 11:39, when the doctor arrives in the village, the line ends with "I regretted my wish". The line that follows at 11:40 begins with "One of my orderlies, the one responsible for his arms ..." This is a critical mistake. Several paragraphs about the doctor witnessing Patient Zero were omitted. They WERE recorded in the original version.

From my understanding, this edition was supposed to be the original with extra content added, NOT a re-recording. If so, those 4 minutes should be there, especially since the flow of that chapter's story makes little sense without it. According to My Library, Part 1 of the audibook is 6 hrs and 31 minutes. My Audible Manager lists it at 6 hrs and 27 minutes, confirming that the omission is an ERROR.

Has any listener detected other recording errors? I read that there was one later in Paris, but I cannot find that review anymore.

I noticed that both the original version and The Lost Files are available as separate purchases on Audible. Perhaps to compensate for the erroneous recording, could those who pre-ordered be offered both of these in exchange?

Mark Hamill's American soldier who survived the Battle of Yonkers.

Performances are top-notch.

This was my second time pre-ordering. If the recording problem is not addressed I doubt I will pre-order again. I will wait for reviews next time.

I love this book. I mostly love the audio book. I know I will listen again and again, simply because it is so moving and powerful. However, when I pre-ordered this book it was advertised as "unabridged", which is not quite the truth.

1 week later I now get an email stating "... This is an Abridged book, but when you made your purchase, it may have been listed as "Unabridged" on our site, which was in error. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused." Also, chapter 3 has a fairly huge gap in it that readers have picked up on but no one who put the book out seems to be addressing.

Had I known this was still an abridged version of the book, would I still have bought it? Maybe, depending on what had been written about it. I mean, I love this book, so yes, I probably still would have bought it knowing that more of it had been recorded. I just hate being lied to.

I am so disappointed with Audible. Like many others, I pre-ordered this version of World War Z BECAUSE Audible advertised it as UN-abridged. I plan on returning it and purchasing a print version from my local bookstore. This breaks my heart as the story is amazing and the voice performances are outstanding. Instead of merely issuing an e-mail apology and reminding purchasers that they can exchange for another title, Audible should refund all pre-order purchases, especially since my dis-satisfaction is not with the purchase per se, but with Audible's false advertising.

So, no one at Audible wants to address the missing 4 minutes in Chapter 3?

My Library says part one is 6 hours 31 minutes. iTunes tells me it's really 6 hours 27 minutes. Hmmm.

I can't believe no one is listening to these very knowledgeable fans and seriously looking into the issue. Random House Audio was even worse when I contacted them. Nothing but pat replies, and we all deserve better.

And I just cancelled my Audible membership after 5 years. A sad day indeed.

So apparently, my comments were deleted when they changed the edition from Unabridged to Abridged, and they left the comments from the prior version that gave a glowing review that obviously came from a person paid to write this. The responses I got from the publisher and Audible is just a copy and paste job saying this is the way it is. If anyone at audible actually listened to it instead of just ignoring our issues, they would understand our complaints. Its not that it was abridged instead of unabridged. I understood it from the get go that it would always be abridged because some of the original recordings were edited to make leniency for the abridgement and not reference the stories not included, like the blind Japanese man and how he met his student the Otaku, which is understandable, because I did not expect them to rerecord the original. A lot is great don't get me wrong but CHAPTER 3 is an error that cannot be ignored with that 4 minute lapse that needs to be addressed. That chapter ruins the plot about patient zero.

Oh, and since this is a bad review on a possible sell, expect it to be deleted.

An accurate description of the book BEFORE I ordered it would have made me feel less cheated.

I adore Max Brooks and already have plans to purchase his short story collection.

Honestly I would cut all of the previously recorded sections that make it difficult to understand/enjoy the unabridged additions. Some of the original recordings are perfect as is, others are not.

This was my most disappointing audible experience to date. After this mess coupled with horrible customer service I will never pre-order an audiobook again. From now on I will wait until the audiobook is released and has a few reviews before purchasing.

The actual complete edition we've all been dying to hear. In this recording, there is a significant chunk of the story missing from Chapter 3. About 3 - 4 minutes worth of narration that was present in the 2006 Abridged version of the book. The story cuts off and jumps ahead midsentence.

You can actually hear exactly what I mean if you listen to the samples listed on the search page. Compare the Sample of the Complete Edition and the old World War Z Abridged version and you'll hear the missing content in the Abridged edition.

I was disappointed with the way Audible and, so far, Random House have handled the release of this supposedly Complete Edition. I was assured that the problem was being looked into and would be handled soon. Unfortunately, that was a lie and was later told that this faulty recording was intentionally released as it is. Deleting my previous review was just insulting.

Of course! This is one of the best multiple-cast audiobooks I've heard. There were too many fine performances to count, and it was less an audiobook than a picture-less movie. Along with others, however, I too eagerly pre-ordered as soon as the option became available and am angered by the same issues already raised.

How could Audible.com, an Amazon company, release an audiobook with an obvious omission of over four minutes? Even more shocking, the missing portion of the recording had already been completed for the (first) abridged version.

What bothers me much more than that, though, is the misrepresentation that this is an unabridged version. Is "Complete" a new pseudonym for "Abridged, but not as abridged as before"? Perhaps this was rushed to market to take advantage of the "Movie Tie-in," prominently featured on the book image. From all reports, this sounds like a great summer action movie featuring Brad Pitt, but far removed from the moving, chilling, thought-provoking novel on which it is based.

Max Brooks gave an excellent performance, perfectly portraying the reporter--always in the background, but providing a consistency throughout the many stories of "survivors."