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

one of the best audio books I've listened to

chapter 3 no longer skips :-D

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.

Yeah, I've listened to the 2006 Abridged version several times now and I'm already on my second listen of this Complete Edition. The book is just fantastic zombie entertainment all over.

The narrations are all excellent and the story is a creative approach to the zombie apocalypse genre.

Sure, if I had 12 hours to spend in a sitting.

I'm so glad that Audible and Random House finally listened to the complaints from the fans and fixed the error. The missing audio (especially from the first zombie story) was just obnoxious. It's good to have a real Complete Edition.

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."

Let me start with the fact that I really am not interested in most zombie stories, I think that they are usually nothing more than mindless gore. This, on the other hand, was done well. The story is put together in a way to make it very interesting and (somewhat) believable. The cast of narrators did a great job and I have to say that I truly enjoyed the book.

First off, I have to say I was “duped” into thinking this was finally the unabridged version of the book. I have a strong aversion to abridged books and probably would not have purchased this had I known it was not the complete work. Having said that, it was still a good listen despite the missing parts. If you never read the print version you probably won’t notice because the story is told in the style of firsthand accounts that are choppy by nature. Think Ken Burns doing a documentary on a worldwide zombie war. All-in-all it is a moving story that is less about zombies than the human spirit, good and bad.

This has been, hands down, my worst audible experience and my first time having reviews removed from any site

The story was good, but not the one advertised during preorder.

Very much! World War Z not only has a strong stroyline, but the audiobook is a lengthy one - roughly 12 hours or so to keep its listeners plenty entertained. It can be quite difficult to simply review the audiobook without remnants of the story popping up in my review. But I must say, it was not easy to simply put this one down....not even for 5 minutes.

The narrator. As many fans of the book know, this story revolves around the narrator's encounter with various survivors of the post-apocalyptic zombie war. The survivors recount their experience with the undead and what measures were taken in order to survive. I very much enjoyed the narrator's interjections with questions I myself may have asked.

I have not had the privilege to listen to Max Brooks in other stories.

Yes. It was difficult to put this story down. As mentioned earlier, the story was not only engaging, but the voice performances were quite exceptional (although some accents seemed to be forced).

This edition of World War Z is one that I would not pass up. Audible recently updated this version to its entirety. I thank Audible for listening to its members! I don't want to discuss too much about the story...just experience it for yourself!

A great addition to any zombie literature fan!!

This ranks on my top 5 best audiobooks, the different actors/actresses really make this a great listen.

The realism.

Haven't heard any others, unfortunately.

Very much so.

The description states this is an 'unabridged' reading, which I took to mean all the people who did the original reading, had come back to fill in the dialogue that got cut from the original. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. All that was done was new actors were brought in to read the chapters not included. Hopefully the site will change the wording.

Great Book. However there is missing audio in Chapter 3 and it is very important. I e-mailed customer support and this is what they replied to me.

Dear John,

Thank you for contacting Audible. My name is Nickiesha and I’m happy to help.

I am so sorry to hear that some of the audio file is missing from your book "World War Z". I understand how disappointing this must be and I will be happy to help you with this.

Having checked with my content team, they are aware of the issue and are working diligently to have the issue resolved as quickly as possible. Never the less, I have escalated this to the Audio Bug Department to be corrected. We will continue to monitor its status. Depending on the extent of the audio problem, we may be able to resolve this issue internally within about 2 weeks. If we have to request a new copy of the title, this may extend the time until it is resolved.

In the mean time, if you prefer not to wait until the file is repaired, please let us know and we can remove the book from your library and issue you a full refund.

We appreciate your patience and will contact you via email as soon as we have additional information regarding the problem with this title.

If there is anything else that I may assist with please let me know. Once again thanks for contacting Audible and have a great day!

Sincerely,
Nickiesha W


Hopefully they ARE working on it, and we won't have to wait long. Until then everyone should wait to buy it.