Max Brooks at Comic-Com
Posted by: Mary
Watch this video on recording World War Z & The Zombie Survival Handbook as audiobooks. Interestingly, Brooks praises the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic’s audiobooks, featured in this Comic-Con post with Stan Lee, for helping him make it through school as a student with reading difficulties. World War Z is one of my personal all-time favorite audiobooks – one where the production lifts the words from the page and creates an entirely different literary experience, one recognized as the 2007 Audies Award winner for multi-voiced recording. The faux-documentary style is perfectly suited to a fully-cast reading – you are convinced that the survivors of a zombie plague are speaking directly into the microphone of a journalist. Although the voices belong to an ensemble of stars, listeners abandon any awareness of the production and are instead swept into the gory battles with the undead, with a large measure of deadpan humor and scathing political commentary. The ideal 6-hour length for a vacation trip, World War Z is a great listen for a car-full of teens and adults who like humor & horror in equal measure – the perfect palate cleanser after a dose of Twilight 
Thanks to Random House’s Science Fiction blog, Suvudu, for the link!
July 28th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Carl Reiner and Henry Rollins in a fistfight–love it.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Like that? Just get Random House’s Dan Zitt in a corner someday and quiz him about the recording – he has even more great stories. Hey! That would make a great “Inside the Audiobook Studio!”
July 29th, 2009 at 12:17 am
He does remind me of Ducky (Pretty in Pink). Thanks for the post, I am going to send the video to my World War Z friends. We LOVE the book, sounds like we will love the audiobook too! Although that might make it harder to sleep at night…