Nowadays, you meet someone on Facebook. You chat while browsing their carefully selected pictures, that might not really be them, but gives you the impression that there's someone attractive on the other end typing. You chat and flirt with texts. Maybe get your Skype on. Then you finally sack up and decide its time for that real life meet-up. That's the state of things, and its a whole horrible ordeal.
It gets much hairier when the real life meet up involves trekking across miles of zombie infested terrain.
Yep, Dan Nokes has been at it again, and this here is a review of ADAM AND EVE: BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLE IN THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Vol 1: "Post Armageddon Underground Bunker Blues". Dan is, above all, a storyteller and he's always been damn good at pulling me right into his tales. This is no exception. Of course there's going to be the obvious comparison with Image's THE WALKING DEAD, because this deals with very much the same notion: "OK, I've survived the zombie apocalypse. Now what?"
We come in about seven years after the shambling undead nommed their way to world domination. We meet one Adam Jenkins of what's left of the U.S.A.F. and it quickly becomes apparent that this fella is no Rick Grimes. I completely buy this guy. He's not some big stud. He's a guy who hunkered down and managed to duck the worst of things when everyone around him was getting munched. So for five years, it was just him, his dog, the A.I. the bunker has installed, and his girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend. OK, she's dead. Sort of. So in dealing with the fact that the only person he has to talk to really only wants him for his brains (literally), the guy buries himself in his routine. He goes on doing his job and maintaining the bunker. At first I wanted to think he was nuts, but ultimately how is Adam supposed to cope?
We do get the backstory of how it all went down, and where everything went horrible. We see how things went with Adam and his dead ex. What's great is that while expostion is typically pain to get through Dan keeps it interesting and really uses it to paint and fascinating picture of who this character is. Adam Jenkins is a completely believable character in an unbelievable situation. We don't see exactly how the zombie outbreak got started, but we do witness how the bunker got overrun.
Fast forward to our guy Adam, along with Schafer the dog and Groucho the A.I., getting set to go on their big adventure to find love. Riding their hi-tech segway off to adventure in the wild's of post apocalypse Maryland. Here's where the real weirdness sets in. There's such an oddball absurdity to the entire thing and yet it stays just shy of going completely screwball. This really is fine-line writing because this story could go ff the rails at anymoment and devolve into a goofy comedy or a cliché horror tale. But it doesn't.
There's a couple of bits here and there that we have get around like there still being power in some areas and food not being a major issue. We get around this because this isn't the point. We've done that story a thousand times. This is about one guy who is all alone in the world and goes out to risk himself to make a meaningful connection with someone else. There's this vibe that Adam is kinda that guy who lives in his parents basement and doesn't want to go out, but finally finds something worth the risk.
It is a damn interesting take on the genre that's been beaten straight to undeath.
So read it.
And apologies to Dan for being incredibly tardy in reviewing his book. I suck, but he doesn't. So go read his stuff.
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