The individual stories overall are certainly rather interesting in many different ways. Especially as they go around the world seeing how everyone reacts to a global zombie outbreak.
However it is bit more then perspective and more the author breaks his own established rules with a heaping pile of unbelievable hand waves that reach excessive proportions beyond what is usually considered acceptable.
The zombies for the supreme example are nothing more then very slowly rotting walking human corpses and carriers of solanum and stated to be not much more. Yet magically they have superhuman endurance well beyond the realm of being just a walking human corpse.
His many other liberties are quite obvious and excessive and very unrealistic especially in regards to the military.
Who watches the watchmen?Leave a Comment:
"Perspective" is the name of the game. (Plus a side note on realism)
A lot of fiction just shows things from the perspective of the heroes. It's relatively rare to see how an average Stormtrooper feels about the Galactic Empire, or learn how a pedestrian will react when he finds out Spiderman used his car to beat up a super villain.
What makes WWZ stand out is the different perspectives given. In a lot of works the apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) is just background while we follow a group of survivors. Sometimes it can almost seem lazy, writing off the government, society, and the world at large as "destroyed" so they don't get in the way of the story. Not so here. WWZ asks questions such as "What ever happened to North Korea? What Happened To The Astronauts ? " We get interviews from soldiers, politicians, refugees, even the K9 Corp. Instead of just focusing on America, each country has its own slightly different approach for dealing with the undead. Zombie Apocalypse stories are often said to be about how survivors react to a world with no society. WWZ is about how SOCIETIES react to a zombie Apocalypse, and it's a fresh perspective.
A SIDE NOTE ON REALISM:
Some common complaints i've heard about the book are that the military are too incompetent, or that zombies would be destroyed by some of the military's bigger guns.
On the incompetence level, I think history has shown what screw ups we can be, and it's even more understandable with an Outside-Context Villain like zombies. Don't think of the book as "This is how society WOULD react" so much as "This is how society MIGHT react".
On the "scientific accuracy" level I agree that some of his attempts to make the zombies more of a threat come off as hand waving, but I think he did his best. There's only so much realism you can put into something fictional like zombies. You may make Superman MORE realistic by making sure he can't talk in space or coming up with reasons they don't realize he's Clark Kent, but there's always going to be unrealistic things about a man who can fly. Same goes for zombies.