World War Z
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | World War Z |
| Abbreviation(s): | WWZ |
| Creator: | |
| Date(s): | 2006-ongoing |
| Medium: | Book and film |
| Country of Origin: | |
| External Links: | Wikipedia article, WWZ (book) Wikipedia article WWZ (film) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
World War Z (An Oral History of the Zombie War) is an book by Max Books (son of Mel Brooks) published in 2006. The book is written as a series of interviews conducted by a United Nations reporter, collected for a report on the impact of the world-wide zombie conflict, ten years after victory was declared. The book is broken into eight chapters: “Warnings”, “Blame”, “The Great Panic”, “Turning the Tide”, “Home Front USA”, “Around the World, and Above”, “Total War”, and “Good-Byes”. Each chapter contains accounts of various individual experiences and options starting with the first onset 20 years before, through to life in the wake of near-extermination by the zombie horde.
In 2007 an audio book was released, including Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, and John Turturro, won an Audie Award.
A (very) loosely-based film adaptation, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, was released in 2013, and a video game of the same name, based on the 2013 film, was released in 2019 by Saber Interactive.
Differences between the book and the movie
The main difference between the book and the movie is that the movie does not keep the interview format, instead changing the story into an action-adventure. Some of the concepts - the Wall built through Jerusalem, for example - have been used as settings for the movie, but for the most part, the movie is not so much different from Rob Zombie's remake of Day of the Dead. WWZ also has high-speed running zombies, which seems to be an addition to create further tension and high-octane excitement. Finally, the movie is about finding and confirming the cure for the virus - in the book, there is no known cure and the focus in the final chapter is on living safely with the zombie threat.
Fandom
The fandom is still quite small, with 90 works for the book tag and 41 for the film on AO3. Fanfiction.net has 135 fics based on the book and 9 (all crossovers) based on the movie. Crossovers are popular, with various fics about how characters from other fandoms might react to the zombie war. Another popular genre of fic are stories about aspects or places not covered by the book's interviews. Part of this included an emphasis on original characters, as well as canon.
Characters and Pairings
This article or section needs expansion. |
By the nature of the original source material - the book being set out as a series of interviews - shipping is somewhat more difficult.
Activities
Fanworks
Fanfiction
- Tales from the Crisis a series of stories written in interview format by Mallow_of_the_Marsh (Gen)
- The Voice of Avalon (Glee/World War Z (book) crossover. Interview with the "Voice of Avalon", who turns out to be Kurt Hummel from Glee. By arem. (Gen)
- World War Z: The Supernatural Community (Buffy/World War Z) - Max Brooks interviews Dracula for the inside scoop on how the Supernatural Community survived World War Z. By Ben Church. (Gen)
- War Wounds another series with interviews in the style of the book; this story covers a number of different countries and POVs. By General Goose. (Gen)
- The Way is Shut a take on what might have happened in North Korea, by The Dark Scribbler. (Gen)
Fanart
- Post WWZ world map, by Quantum Branching
Fanvids
Communities
- World War Z (book) tag on AO3
- World War Z (film) tag on AO3
- World War Z (book) tag on Fanfiction.net
- World War Z (film) tag on Fanfiction.net
- World War Z tag on Wattpad
- Spirit Fanfics - Portuguese-language WWZ fanfic
- Deviant Art WWZ tag