Taste of Ashes

Ashes by Ilsa Bick
New York : Egmont USA, 2012.
465 p. ; 21 cm.

This book continues my trend of generally not being a big fan of zombie or zombie-type books.  I found it interesting enough, and readable - but I never got lost in the book, neither in the plot or in the characters.

Ashes, in a nutshell, tells the story of Alex, the teen protagonist who is recently orphaned and suffering from a terminal brain tumor when the novel begins.  She is out hiking in a remote area of Michigan when massive electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) sweep the planet - killing billions and essentially destroying modern civilization as we know it.  Additionally, the EMPs turned nearly all teens into vicious zombie-like hunters who are fast and smart.  For a good plot refresher, take a look at Bick's website where she recaps Ashes for those about to start in on book 2, Shadows.  

To me, the novel is essentially a teen adventure / romance / melodrama melded onto a post-apocalypse nightmare world with lots of danger, gruesomeness, and skin of the teeth getaways.  If you like that sort of thing, then I think you'll love Ashes.  If not, you'll be like me and think, "Ok, that was entertaining, but I don't think I'll read books 2 and 3."

Pulses, Waves, Plagues and War

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
New York, NY : G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2013.
457 p. ; 23 cm. 

I loved Yancey's Monstrumologist and his wonderful follow-up, The Curse of the Wendigo - but his latest book, The 5th Wave wasn't as satisfying to me.  The writing is really good, the plotting is interesting and engaging, and there is a lot of great action and thrills, but ,ultimately, for me there is just too much that strains credibility.  What I liked about his previous two books was their specificity - a few characters involved in very circumscribed actions.  The 5th Wave on the other hand involves the global (and I mean global) eradication of humanity by a super-advanced invasion force of aliens - but it just happens that a few characters who knew each other before the invasion not only survive the extermination, but successfully resist and sabotage it.  I also just found the most important plot twist involving one of the main characters to be completely unbelievable.  Either he would have never changed his behavior - or the aliens would have never been so stupid as to use such characters in their operations to rid the earth of humans.

But, these incredulities aside, there is a lot to enjoy in this novel.  The waves of destruction (thus the title) by the aliens are frightening and exciting to the imagination: a massive EMP (electromagnetic pulse), induced tectonic upheaval creating worldwide megatsunamis, a very lethal viral pandemic, and sleeper human/alien killers, and... well, you get the picture.

Yancey also creates a strong and interesting female hero - something that is refreshingly more common these days (think Hunger Games, Slated and Divergent).  In spite of not enjoying the book as much as I thought I might, I'd still give it high marks, and not hesitate recommending it to students looking for something exciting and interesting to read.

Bellows and Shrieks

The End Games by T. Michael Martin
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, [2013]
369 p. ; 22 cm.

If you have any doubts that The End Games has been well-received, check out the praise on T. Michael Martin's website - wow!  I wish I could say I loved this book. I guess I'm just not enough of a zombie fan to completely enjoy the book - though I did appreciate the quality of the writing.  That is a positive trend that I've noticed with many YA books - really top-notch writing across many subjects and genres.

I would agree with critics that the book is very imaginative.  I like how it draws on video-gaming language and knowledge in a way that is thoroughly integrated into the plot.  I also liked the unusual pairing of an older brother with a very young brother who has autism.  The plot device of two characters bound up in a survival/journey ordeal is well traveled (think Huck and Jim in Twain's masterpiece, the father and son of McCarthy's The Road, or the Alex and Darla in Mullin's Ashfall) and is well done here.   But for me, I found several key actions of the plot confusing and overwrought, certain characters almost cartoonish, and just too many actions where I had to suspend disbelief and just accept the improbability. I really found the deranged Capt. Jopek a bit much - his abilities with weapons makes him seem more superhuman than real.  I also just never felt the emotional pull I was supposed to feel with the main character's memories of his troubled homelife that existed before the zombie apocalypse.

But problems aside, the book is fast, exciting, dramatic, action packed, and written with striking and fresh language. It has some gory scenes, but rarely seems written for shock effect. The language is also amazingly free of obscenities, and there is a nice romance woven into the plot with a soft touch.  Not bad for a first novel.  So, if I have a student asking about a good zombie novel - I'll definitely send them looking for The End Games.

Oh, and "Bellow and Shrieks"? Bellows is the name that the main character, Michael, gives to the zombies.  Shrieks?  Well, you'll have to read the novel to figure out that reference.

Not Your Usual Road Trip

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
New York : Knopf, 2006.
1st U.S. ed.
241 p. ; 25 cm.

This was a great book to read after the two disaster books by Pfeffer. McCarthy is an amazing stylist, his dialogue often reads like a liturgy and his effects are poetic. I was also struck how this takes the familiar American "road" story and turns it on its head in a way - the characters are on foot and there's little real development in character from beginning to end. This is a paradoxical book in that very little really happens from beginning to end - two characters come out of the mountains of what used to be the Carolinas, head for the coast, and search for food, shelter and safety. That's pretty much it, and yet it is a compelling read - I found myself wondering, "What is going to happen next?"

This book is pretty darn grim, too. In the post war-apocalypse of North America a father and son trudge through a godforsaken landscape where the sun never breaks through the clouds, nothing grows, no animals exist, and starvation and human predators threaten at every turn. And yet it is a strangely moving book. In some ways it is a meditation on the power of love (familial) in the face of the most extreme predations. There's no real happy ending, but not pure despair either. I'd definitely recommend this book, especially to any students interested in futuristic dystopian, post-apocalyptic novels.

Moonstruck

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, c2006,
1st ed. 337 p. ; 22 cm.

After an implausible start - the moon getting kicked into a dramatically lower orbit by rather unspectacular asteroid impact - this book becomes a very satisfying catastrophe-survival novel. The moon's new orbit creates apocalyptic changes on earth - monster tsunamis, extreme volcanism, earthquakes, climate change, and the general collapse of civilization as we know it.

The story is told in journal entries - also a bit unrealistic due to the level of detail and quoted dialogue - that work well to push the narrative forward chronologically and reveal the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, Miranda, 16. She and her family in rural Pennsylvania try to survive on the food, water and wood supplies that they have stocked up on while losing electricity, and dealing with a harsh, extended winter brought about by volcanic cooling of the atmosphere.

The novel resonates with the current zeitgeist of unease regarding energy woes, climate disaster, and the way in which disaster can reduce our advanced civilization to a primitive state in short order. Parts of the novel were surprisingly moving - as we follow Miranda and her Mom, college age brother and little brother fight the challenges and each other as they struggle for survival.

There's lots for students and teachers to reflect on. Would be a great supplement to an earth science class that could look at the accuracies and inaccuracies of the events in the novel.

I'd definitely recommend this book, especially for someone who likes apocalyptic fiction. Now I just have to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and see how I like that one.