When [It] Strikes Me

Books one through six have been released, with seven soon to come.

This Sunday, AMC will debut their brand new series The Walking Dead, based on the Robert Kirkman comic book series of the same name.  I don’t actually know if you’re supposed to call them graphic novels or comics.  It is more sophisticated that the cartoon books of my youth and it is easily closer to literature than one would associate with an Archie or X-Men book, so I’ll go with graphic novels.

I don’t quite recall what drove me to pick up TWD for the first time.  It may have been on a recommendation from G4TV’s Blair Butler or some interweb publicity, but I’m darn glad I did.  I’ve had a long-time fascination with the zombie genre of film-making that has extended beyond the George Romero staple to be highlighted by recent movies (be they comedies such as Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, or action thrillers such as 28 Days Later) and even the under-exposed Max Brooks tome World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

The Walking Dead is a tale that starts off a bit like your typical zombie fare, but it evolving rather quickly into something more akin to literature.  That is not a knock on any of the movies in the genre (particularly 28 Days Later, which film’s beginning is quite aped by Kirkman in Book 1), nor is it a hack at World War Z, which very much so is a piece of unique literature, trading the oral history motif from the documentary to the sci fi.  The key, distinguishing element of TWD is that it doesn’t focus on the zombies.  The story is, instead, about the humans in their endeavor to survive.

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Released this past June, The Passage was a very well deserved "break in" fiction for the Kindle.

So what happens when you turn over to a “legitimate author” the dystopian, post-apocalyptic genre with a mix of vampires and the “fast-zombies” of 28 Days Later?  Well, the long and the short of it (and this will be the last reference to “short”) is 784 pages of frackin’ awesome.

The author is Justin Cronin, whose prior works, “The Summer Guest” and “Mary and O’Neil”, were less mass-marketable titles.  They were, however, popular and well received, with each earning pretty solid reviews and critical acclaim.  In “The Passage”, he breaks out into the world of big, Hollywood-tie-in fiction.  And he does so by journeying into a realm that, to be honest, few “legitimate” modern authors have ventured into.

Yes, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker became legends with the monster book story, and each did so with sophistication. But the modern face of monster fiction is the drivel that Stephenie Meyer has made a fortune off of.  I’ve not read and have no intention to read Twilight books.  One only needs to understand that they are written for an ADD, tween audience with film in mind.  I imagine her books must be like Dan Brown vomited up a trilogy with no religious underpinnings and a lot more self-cutting.

I’m probably not being fair, as this isn’t really a genre I seek out in books.  I generally read more non-fiction than fiction and I tend to stick with the classics or some Michael Chrichton (who, to be honest, probably actually would qualify as something not far off this genre).  Nevertheless, I imagine most horror fiction is somewhat like a harlequin novel or the Star Wars spin-off books.  Not a lot of thought, but mindless enjoyment.

“The Passage” is so very much more than that.  Click on through for why. Read more…

More art, courtesy of http://damoncarltonandapolarbear.com/dcpb/x/.

Lost: Season Five arrived a while back and though I’ve not been sufficiently diligent in order to finish up before this coming Tuesday, I’ll be re-watching the season in anticipation of the launch of the sixth and final year of the show. I didn’t spring for the Blu-ray (I don’t have a player) or the Special Season Five Dharma Initiative Orientation Kit box set, so I’m relying solely on standard DVD. I did hear that the Blu-Ray has excellent special features, notably the Lost University Feature.

I intend to continue with the LOST Recaps until I get through Season 5 and will then do a LOST Recap for each Season Six episode in due course so as to retain order.  I will, however, be posting Quick Hits reaction to the episodes as they come.

Lostpedia is the consummate source for all Lost information, but sadly they lack any concise episode summary to help with this. Rather than attempting to summarize episode plots in great detail, I’m going to simply link to Lostpedia’s summary and give my base thoughts, this time on Episode 5-06, 316. For other LOST Recaps, visit the dedicated page here.

The Sixth Episode of the Fifth Season, “316” is easily mistaken for plot filler.  Yes, it largely is a confluence of events that gets us to where we need to go and sets up a handful of new questions like:

• What the heck happened to Ben and are Penny and Dez OK?
• How is Jin now on Team Dharma?
• What and who got Hugo on the plane?
• Who is that with Sayid and why is he being deported to Guam?

All valid in their own right and a topic for another day.  The basic premise of the storyline is advancing getting the Oceanic Six (minus Aaron) back on the Island.  We start with a typical Damon and Cuse headfake, with Jack waking up in the jungle.  Except this time Hurley screams aren’t drowned out by a plane.  Jack rescues Hugo and Kate from a lagoon and the trio realizes they’re back on the Island.

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Seen at Borders on Park Avenue last night, the #9 Non-Fiction book is The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.  The #8 Fiction work is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

I’ve read TZSG as the add-on to World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which is a book I greatly enjoyed.  I can’t really say the same for TZSG.  I’ve not read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and admit that I don’t see myself doing so.  But I wholeheartedly recommend World War Z.

Do the walking dead read? At Borders they apparently do.

Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" has been hailed by many as the best English language fiction of the young millennium.

I just completed reading the post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his boy fighting to live on.  Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” is, for lack of a better description, the most interesting book I’ve read in a while.  I’m still not really sure quite what I feel about it, but I know that I feel.

I hustled to read the book as the movie version is already out, starring Viggo Mortensen as the Man with Robert Duvall as the Old Man and Michael K. Williams as the Thief.  For those unfamiliar with MKW, he is better known as Omar Little from The Wire and is one of the best casting calls that I can recall.  Most telling, perhaps, will be the casting call on the book’s central character, the Boy, played here by Kodi Smit-McPhee.  Although the movie has been out in limited release for a while, this is a review of the book only.

The problem, of course, is that I’m having trouble figuring out how to put my thoughts on the book together.  So part of this review will be an exercise in discovery… a review that hopes to draw out the substance underlying itself.

As a whole, “The Road” has been almost universally hailed; however, it also is risky.  McCarthy utilizes a challenging theme, dangerous taboo and a staccato means of writing which all represent big gambles.  For the author of The Border Trilogy (“All the Pretty Horses”, “the Crossing”, “Cities of the Plain”) and “No Country for Old Men”, “The Road” has, thus far, been his most acclaimed work.

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