World War Z

Max Brooks
Literary Fiction
Pages 32-57

The Zombie War hasn't officially started, at the moment the UN amid other government agencies are trying to maintain the minor outbreaks of the virus. In the early years of the Zombie outbreak the virus was known as African Rabies because the Chinese believed they contracted it from jungles in Africa. Brooks next interview is with a doctor, who describes his shocking first encounter with the plague. He needs to preform a hear transplant on his patient in order to save their life, the only problem is that they have no donor and are running out of time. Eventually a heart is transported over from China, there is no time to check the heart for viruses themselves. This proved to be a fatal mistake. The doctor preforms the operation, but later that night the patient wakes up as a zombie because his knew heart was infected. The doctor returns to the hospital at 3 in the morning to find his nurse being eaten by the patient he thought he saved. The next couple of interviews are of other people around the world sharing their first encounters with the walking dead, honestly it got to be very repetitive. Brooks then interviews a United States doctor who used society's fear of the African Rabies to get rich quick. The doctor stated that he created a vaccine that prevented people from getting African Rabies even after being bit. His vaccination really did prevent rabies, but the virus that resulted in changing into a zombie really wasn't a form of rabies and he knew. But, the public was willing to buy anything that they believed could save them from this modern day plague, therefore making the doctor hundreds of millions of dollars.

I enjoy the interviews of people describing their first encounters with the Zombies, especially because the people are from all different parts of the world. It's interesting to see that people in China are experiencing similar situation as people in Mexico. I can't wait till the book starts to pick up and tells stories of people scavenging and protecting themselves after World War Z comes into full effect. I also think what the doctor did in the story was wrong, but at the same time believe doctors today do the same thing. For example, the swine flu epidemic a few years back scared everyone into getting a regular flu shot. I do agree with the doctor that "fear sells" (people who are afraid will buy anything to make themselves feel secure).