When civilization finally does collapse and I’m left in the post-apocalyptic wasteland scrounging for weapons, books and tacos, I’m going to be one ofWhen civilization finally does collapse and I’m left in the post-apocalyptic wasteland scrounging for weapons, books and tacos, I’m going to be one of those loner types like Mad Max. No joining up with up roving marauders or settling into some fortified compound for me. That’s because The Walking Dead has taught me one sure rule: Being surrounded by decaying cannibal zombies in the ruins of society may suck but normal people suck even more.
Rick and his crew have found a small community that has managed to secure themselves from the zombie hordes and live in a somewhat normal fashion. However, their time battling the undead and various human scum has taken a heavy toll on Rick. He’s had to do so many terrible things to survive that he’s fallen into the trap of thinking that he’s the only one capable of making the hard choices needed. So his uneasiness and lack of trust in their new community pushes him to steal and hide weapons as well as deal with an abusive husband on his own terms. Is Rick right to mistrust the people in their new home? Or has he become a paranoid nutjob unable to live among people?
Another solid entry in the The Walking Dead series, and it got me geeked up for the return of the AMC show later this year. But while it’s an intriguing new twist on the series, this one had the feel up of being mostly set-up for later stories. ...more
When I read and reviewed The Strain, I took some easy potshots at Twilight and credited Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan with trying to rescue vampiWhen I read and reviewed The Strain, I took some easy potshots at Twilight and credited Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan with trying to rescue vampires from the clutches of teenage girls and turn them into monsters again. However, the book didn’t wow me, and I was hoping that the next one would be an improvement. After reading The Fall, I’m even less wowed and realize that a book can be much better than Twilight and still be very ‘meh’.
So you’ve got a brand of vampires that are part virus/part parasitic blood worms with a master vamp who has a plan to bring out about a bloodsucking apocalypse. The Master has been working with this evil old rich bastard who is kind of a hybrid of Dick Cheney and Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Together, they’ve got a chokehold on the government and media as well as a rapidly growing army of bloodsuckers.
And in this corner, you’ve got the standard pack of adventure horror good guys ready to do battle. There’s the heroic doctor with a failed marriage and a drinking problem to overcome along with his pretty co-worker. I know you’ll be shocked when I tell you that they’re a bit attracted to each other. The doctor also has a teen-age son who is such a ball of fire that all he wants to do is listen to his iPod while the vampires are munching people outside. There’s the standard Van Helsing-type old man who has been hunting vamps for years and instructs the others. You've also got a Hispanic street hustler who forges a gang alliance based on vampire killing. Throw in a pest control expert and a former Mexican wrestling star, and you’ve got your motley crew ready to do battle with the undead.
I’ve liked several of Del Toro’s movies, and I was impressed with Hogan’s work in The Town. But despite a large scale story about a vampire apocalypse going on with tons of action, the whole thing seems curiously listless to me. It just never comes alive and gets me wrapped up in the story.
Part of the problem is that the whole thing feels like a collection of things I’ve seen before. Del Toro has felt free to swipe whole sections of his own movies like Mimic and Blade II with the descriptions of underground New York and the nature of the vampires. Plus, Joss Whedon used the Master concept and name for his main vampire villain on the first season of Buffy. And having one of the primary villains be a rich old guy selling out humanity for immortality doesn’t seem particularly fresh either.
Sadly, instead of trying to build up any true horror by creating characters you care about and then having bad things happen to them, the book just throws vamp attack after vamp attack at these cardboard cutout heroes and then tries to milk a little sentiment with a few dead-wives-turned-bloodsuckers sprinkled in. I almost think that Del Toro just grabbed some old storyboards from some of his movies, threw them to Chuck Hogan and said, “Just write that up. We’ll make a fortune.!”
It’s not a terrible book. I’ve certainly read far worse. But I was expecting a lot more from two talented guys and so far it seems like they’ve just been going through the motions. ...more
I gotta be honest. I’m absolutely terrified about the upcoming AMC series based on these Walking Dead comics.
I’m not scared of the zombies. It’s the iI gotta be honest. I’m absolutely terrified about the upcoming AMC series based on these Walking Dead comics.
I’m not scared of the zombies. It’s the idea that Frank Darabont is doing the show. Sure, to most people he’s the guy who had Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman get busy livin’ instead of gettin’ busy dying in Shawshank Redemption. Or he’s the guy who directed Tom Hanks getting choked up as he was about to roll on two in The Green Mile. But to me, Darabont is the twisted bastard who came up with that shattering conclusion to yet another Stephen King adaptation, The Mist. (I’ve read that King told Darabont that he wouldn’t have had the balls to write that ending even if he would have thought of it.)
So I shudder to think what’s going to happen when Darabont teams up with another guy who is more than willing to do the unthinkable in his stories, Robert Kirkman. Seriously, I think the two of them may be able to create a vortex of soul-crushing horror that will cause every single person on the planet to lose their will to live.
But it’ll probably be a great show.
In the first volume of The Walking Dead, Kirkman wrote an introduction where he explained that he wanted to do a comic about zombies because whenever he saw a movie about a zombie apocalypse, he always wanted to see what happened next after the credits rolled. He explained that the comics would be a chance to do an almost endless series of post-apocalyptic zombie stories.
While he’s gotten his wish and done a brilliant job, he’s also tapped into something else. Usually, a horror story ends after a single book, film or a show. Yes, there could be sequels, but by and large, even in the really dark stuff, there’s always an END to it. Even if all the stupid teenagers get chainsaw massacred, they were dead and the movie is over.
With the comics, Kirkman’s writing makes you really care about the characters. His willingness to go to the really dark places and subject the characters you like to a variety of physical and psychological horrors gives the comics their dark and gritty flavor.
But it’s because there isn’t an ending that The Walking Dead really gets under your skin after a while. Because after all the evil shit that’s happened to the survivors, it just keeps getting worse. By surviving, they have to endure. And enduring means waking up in the same horror show day after day. What Kirkman has done is to bring an overwhelming feeling of dread into these comics because at this point, no matter how shitty things are, we know that it can always get worse. Which is exactly what it will be like when the zombies have taken over.
It’s hard to read in a black-and-white comic. I don’t know if I’m going to handle seeing what another guy who has shown he’s willing to push at the same limits will be able to do in live action color. And oh, yeah. It’s going to premiere on Halloween night.
Good afternoon. This is Wolf Blitzer from CNN’s The Situation Room, the program that tries to make viewers think that you’re seeing the busy hub of teGood afternoon. This is Wolf Blitzer from CNN’s The Situation Room, the program that tries to make viewers think that you’re seeing the busy hub of television journalism instead of admitting that despite our high-tech looking set and satellite feeds, you’d probably learn more about what’s actually going on in the world by looking out your window.
We turn our focus now to growing rumors that the U.S. Army is conducting secret medical experiments on American soil. The bizarre claims seem like something out of a Stephen King novel yet despite repeated denials by the Defense Department the stories continue to grow, and documents posted on WikiLeaks seem to support some of this.
Is this just an urban myth gaining popularity thanks to the internet, or is there something to these rumors? Joining me now via satellite from his office is Major John Smith, a spokesman from the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Major, thanks for joining us.
Major John Smith: Thanks for having me.
Wolf Blitzer: So I’m sure you’re aware of these persistent stories circulating, Major.
MJS: *laughs* Yes, they’re keeping my office quite busy.
WB: And the Army’s position is that they’re absolutely unfounded?
MJS: Of course. Frankly, Wolf, I’m surprised we even have to bother discussing this. It’s obviously the work of internet hoaxsters.
WB: But what about the documentation that’s leaked out?
MJS: They are clearly forgeries. Have you read this stuff? Secret bases on U.S. soil? Convicted felons recruited and used for guinea pigs for drug trials to extend human life? Vampire-like creatures that have some kind of telepathic connection and cause bad dreams? I think someone just posted an old X-Files script. I find it sad that Americans are wasting time on this nonsense.
WB: It does seem outlandish, but let’s talk a few specifics. The documents mention a Project Noah that the USAMRIID is running. And there are line items in the USAMRIID budget for a Project Noah for a significant amount of money.
MJS: I can confirm that there is a Project Noah, and while it’s top-secret, I have been authorized to disclose that it involves research into cutting edge medical technologies that could be used to save more lives on the battlefield. That’s all I can say about it. But it’s obvious that these conspiracy theorists just took a real project name and used it for their own purposes.
WB: So there never was a research team funded by USAMRIID that was slaughtered in the jungles of Central America while seeking a virus sample that could greatly boost human healing abilities?
MJS: Of course not. Unfortunately, we did have a team in that area that was researching a botany project, and they did sustain casualties after accidentally coming across some local drug runners, but that’s all it was.
WB: And the USAMRID does not have government agents recruiting death row prisoners to be the subjects of experimental drug trials?
MJS: Again, that’s ridiculous.
WB: So where have these prisoners gone, Major?
MJS: Considering they were death row inmates, I think it’s safe to say they got executed.
WB: I assume you’ll also deny the existence of this secret lab, hidden somewhere underground in the Rocky Mountains?
MJS: Absolutely.
WB: What about reports from Telluride, Colorado, of citizens having the same nightmares and behaving strangely?
MJS: Complete nonsense. I’m based in Telluride myself, and I sleep just fine.
WB: One last question, Major. A new wave of rumors regarding a small girl in Memphis being abducted by government agents have begun circulating today. Any comment?
MJS: The idea that the US Army had anything to do with abducting children is absurd, Wolf. Think about these stories. Does it really seem possible that the U.S. government has a secret base in Colorado where we’re experimenting with a virus on convicts and small children that turns them into some kind of Dracula-type creature with the ability to invade dreams and brainwash people. Seriously, what’s next? I’m sure the people who believe that will tell you that it’s inevitable that some kind of accident will unleash the virus on an unsuspecting public, and that the country will be consumed by a plague of these creatures until civilization is completely destroyed. And then what? Maybe a small handful of survivors will manage to establish a safe zone and a new type of society? Oh, and a couple of generations down the line, like a hundred years from now, a few of these survivors will embark on an odyssey to find the truth in a post-apocalyptic landscape? Does that really seem likely, Wolf?
WB: *chuckles* When you put it that way, Major, it does seem pretty far fetched….
(Crashing noises and screams are heard.)
WB: Major, what’s happened? Are you alright?
MJS: Ugh.. I’m perfectly…Arr… fine, Wolf. Ow! Just..uh… just dropped a glass. Arrgh..
WM: Major, I don’t mean to argue with you, but it seems like some kind of horrible vampire-like creature has just burst into your office and is biting you.
MJS: That’s…UHH…totally ridiculous…. Oh, shit!…. Ow… This is … arrr… my assistant…. EH!.. He just has….owwww.. low blood sugar. Arrrghh…
WB: Well, you’re obviously busy, Major. We’ll let you go now. Thanks for your time.
MJS: My plesur… OWWWW!… HOLY JESUS SOMEBODY SHOOT THIS GODDAMN…..
WB: It appears we lost the link. So did we just see a US Army officer get his face gnawed off by a vampire-like creature that he had just finished denying the existence of? Or is this just another internet hoax? We may never know. Up next, global warming critics continue to say that the whole thing is a liberal lie. ...more
A decent collection of zombie stories with a lot of variation from the usual George Romero-style zombie apocalypse. Stand outs include Joe Hill’s storA decent collection of zombie stories with a lot of variation from the usual George Romero-style zombie apocalypse. Stand outs include Joe Hill’s story told as a collection of Tweets from a bored teen-age girl on a family vacation that includes attending a zombie circus and Jonathan Maberry’s touching Family Business. Surprisingly, Joe Lansdale’s contribution isn’t really a zombie story at all so it seems a bit out of place despite being one of the better tales included. ...more
AMC is adapting The Walking Dead into a television series, and as a big fan of these comics, I was initially very excited about the idea. But after reAMC is adapting The Walking Dead into a television series, and as a big fan of these comics, I was initially very excited about the idea. But after reading this latest volume, I’m starting to dread it. Because it’s hard enough reading about the horror and misery that sadist Robert Kirkman has heaped on these characters, but if the series is half as good as the books, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to take watching some of this stuff play out in live-action.
Things aren’t getting any better for Rick and his crew of zombie apocalypse survivors. Just when you think things can’t any worse or more soul crushing for the gang, Kirkman comes up with all kinds fresh hell to inflict on them.
All joking aside, this is what makes this series so great and unique. By using the concept of a zombie apocalypse in an on-going series, Kirkman has been able to develop realistic characters and give depth to the hellish portrayal of survival in the face of unrelenting horror.
Must reading for any zombie or serious horror fans. Be warned, just because this a zombie comic, don’t think that it’s just light genre entertainment. There is some seriously dark and twisted shit going on here. ...more
The good news is that Charlie Huston has finally started using quotation marks instead of the annoying and cI have good news, and I have better news.
The good news is that Charlie Huston has finally started using quotation marks instead of the annoying and confusing dashes before dialogue. Granted, he still isn’t using ‘he said’ or ‘she asked’, but progress is progress.
The better news is that Huston has written a masterpiece.
It’s been fascinating to read along as pure talent has evolved to extreme skill from the Hank Thompson and Joe Pitt stories to the point where Huston started delivering these stand-alone novels that have shown him growing as a writer with every book. What he started in The Shotgun Rule and followed up with in The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, he has perfected for Sleepless. Reading a Charlie Huston book used to be like a grenade going off in your face. Sleepless is like getting carved up by a scalpel.
Set in an alternate version of 2010, an epidemic of insomnia leads victims to prolonged and ugly deaths. The SLP disease has pushed an already unsteady world to the very brink of collapse. Governments and services are in the midst of a slow motion disintegration, and the only thing that still works reliably is the Internet as people still demand on-line gaming and other distractions. In Los Angeles, open gang warfare is common and religious cults are beginning to clash with what’s left of the military and the police in what is almost sure to be the opening rounds of a global meltdown.
An idealistic LAPD officer named Parker Haas naively thinks that the tide can be turned if people will just start doing the right thing. Unfortunately, his wife Rose is already suffering from the sleepless disease, and things aren’t looking good for his infant daughter either. Park hides from his personal issues by dedicating all his time to his undercover assignment, tracking down any black market dealing of a drug called DR33M3R which is the only thing that offers some relief against the insomnia. But Park crosses paths with a deadly mercenary hired to recover a stolen object, and things get ugly in a hurry.
This book reminded me of the better cyber-punk books like Snow Crash, but Huston has built something unique here. The version of a world collapsing was brutally cynical but filled with moments of grace from desperate people. Huston flips from a third person narrative covering Park’s story to Park’s heartbreaking first person journal entries to another first person narrative from the mercenary’s point of view. This creates an eerie disconcerting vibe that makes you feel like it’s all a confusing dream for the first few chapters, but it’s a nightmare that feels all too possible....more
I’m really tempted to take a cheap shot at Margaret Atwood and call her the George Lucas of literature since I was very disappointed in this follow-upI’m really tempted to take a cheap shot at Margaret Atwood and call her the George Lucas of literature since I was very disappointed in this follow-up to Oryx & Crake.
She built an intriguing world in O&C where corporations ruled and profited through genetic engineering and gene splicing animals in a way that would give Dr. Moreau some ethical concerns. And she tied that to the devastating story of how it ended along with the tale of Jimmy (Snowman), his mad scientist friend Crake, and the woman they both loved, Oryx.
The Year of the Flood centers around two women, Ren and Toby, through the course of their lives before, during and after the disaster that occurs in O&C. Tobey has been victimized by bad luck and a vicious man to end up having to hide with the God’s Gardener’s. Ren’s mother fell for one of the Gardeners and left her husband, taking Ren from the cushy corporate compound they had been living.
God’s Gardeners are a green religious group led by Adam One. By taking animal rights to a peaceful extreme and tying it to Christianity, they’ve attracted a small following despite the consumerist culture around them. Adam One preaches about the Waterless Flood, a disaster that will pay back humankind for all the injustices done to the animal kingdom, and those who have read Oryx & Crake know that Reckonin’ Day is coming.
Ren is eventually returned to the corporate compound life, but never forgets her time with GG or her best friend, Amanda. Tobey is surprised to find herself becoming one of the respected senior members of the GG as time passes. Neither woman knows it, but they keep brushing up against the events and people who will eventually cause the Flood. Especially Ren who’s first real boyfriend, Jimmy from O&C, breaks her heart and leaves her pining for him for the rest of the book.
I was really looking forward to reading more about this culture that Atwood had described in Oryx and Crake, especially since the first book centered on the ‘elite’ types who work and live in the corporate compounds, and this was more about the rest of the people trying to live in a world turned into a biological and ecological madhouse. But after reading it, I really don’t see what the point was.
Oryx and Crake did just fine as a standalone book. Giving me another version of events from an outsider’s perspective really didn’t add anything to it. More, since I knew how it was going to end, I wasn’t nearly as involved in this story as I was O&C. Plus, while O&C ended on an ambiguous note, Year of the Flood gives us resolution to that book, only to introduce a new ambiguous ending. Also, there are far too many coincidences to be remotely plausible about survivors who knew each other before the Flood constantly running into each other after the big disaster. It’s less of an apocalypse and more like a class reunion.
I haven’t been this disappointed since Jar Jar Binks showed up. And I’m worried that Atwood will be releasing Special Digitally Enhanced Versions of Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood very soon.
I probably shouldn’t be this hard on a book that had some great writing, but I really liked Oryx and Crake so reading this one left me feeling like I got a plate of reheated leftovers and it’s making me bitter.
(I have no idea if Atwood plans to do any more books related to this story, so if she releases some kind of brilliant third book that ties all of this together and enhances the overall story, I reserve the right to change my mind about this one.)
And on a humorous side note, I listened to the audio book version of this, and the song lyrics included by Atwood as part of Adam One’s sermons have been turned into some horrible post-modern Christian rock tunes. It made Creed sound good. ...more
The good times started by the Morningstar virus in Plague of the Dead just keep on coming. Society has almost completely crumbled worldwide. Francis SThe good times started by the Morningstar virus in Plague of the Dead just keep on coming. Society has almost completely crumbled worldwide. Francis Sherman is leading the ragtag remnants of a group of soldiers and refugees across the U.S. from the west coast to hopefully meet up with friend and Morningstar expert, Anna Demilio, in Omaha at a research facility where they hope to develop a vaccine.
Sherman has new problems not limited to zombies. Supplies are low and hard to come by, and gangs of still living people want to take whatever they can. Anna’s group is working its way from D.C. but she has her own issues since she’s being hunted by a rogue group of government intelligence types that have gone off the deep end and want her secured.
Like Plague of the Dead, this is B-level zombie fun with very black-and-white characters and lots of faux-military style jargon and plenty of action. It’s not up to the levels of World War Z or The Walking Dead or Breathers, but if you’re craving a story about flesh eating zombies taking over the world, I’ve read far worse. It’s the equivalent of catching a decent horror movie on cable when you weren’t expecting much out of it and being pleasantly surprised. ...more
I am a stone cold sucker for zombie stories. I don't care if they're the old school Romero shufflers or the new breed of 28 Days Later style runners, I am a stone cold sucker for zombie stories. I don't care if they're the old school Romero shufflers or the new breed of 28 Days Later style runners, give me a story about the world being overrun by undead flesh eaters, and it makes me happy. This probably says something very disturbing about me.
This is pretty standard stuff. A virus code named Morningstar breaks out in Africa and *gasp* brings the dead back to life with a taste for the living. Efforts at containment fail and soon the entire planet is being overrun.
The remains of an Army force is trying to get back to the States after failing to hold back the zombies in Africa, and a Army virus expert finds that the U.S. government may be more dangerous than the flesh eaters after she leaks classified info to warn the public about the threat. Hilarity ensues.
Pretty solid zombie story, but there's a lot of overly macho military and spy crap with a lot of B movie cliches. This isn't anywhere close to the class of a World War Z or The Walking Dead graphic novels, but not too shabby as ending the world by zombie apocalypse goes. It was entertaining enough that I'll check out the sequel. ...more
Geez. That was the most depressing apocalypse ever.
A guy called Snowman is playing caretaker and prophet to a strange new race of people he calls the Geez. That was the most depressing apocalypse ever.
A guy called Snowman is playing caretaker and prophet to a strange new race of people he calls the Crakers in the ruins of civilization. As Snowman forages for supplies, his recollections make up the story of what caused a massive biological and ecological disaster that has apparently wiped all the old humans out except for him.
Snowman’s past takes place in our near future where he was once known as Jimmy in a society where genetic engineering was commonplace and the privileged lived in compounds owned and maintained by the corporations they worked for. Jimmy/Snowman’s memories of his brilliant friend Crake and the woman he loved, Oryx, haunt him even as he struggles to survive.
Fascinating book that seemed all too plausible in its depiction of a future state where brainless, nerveless chicken blobs with multiple breasts are created in a lab for chicken nuggets and animals are routinely crossbred. And all this set against a society where the only thing that matters is the bottom line so the idea of questioning the ethics or morality of what’s being done makes you a traitor.
This is a story that takes the idea of playing god to a whole new level. When you can create any kind of life you can imagine, where do limits come in? And if you think that human society is beyond saving, what kind of people would have the arrogance to think they can come up with something better? ...more
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