Zombies: Why World War Z was a Terrible Mistake

I meet Thomas Quinn near his home in the west end. "Our flat is being renovated," he tells me over a steaming cup of coffee. "It feels like my whole life is under reconstruction, to be honest. But I guess that is the way everyone feels -- since the war."



He looks away. His hair has recently gone grey -- I know this because the photographs I'd seen of him taken just before the events of January showed him with long luscious dark hair down to his shoulders. I'd expected a male model type -- mature but strikingly handsome. The man in front of me is a husk. Hollowed out. Tired.



But then, isn't everyone?

"No one had any idea what was going to happen," he tells me. "We thought it would be straightforward. The kind of book you read in a few hours, days at the most. Entertaining and fun. The whole zombie thing..."

He looks out of the window. I have to throw water in his face to get his attention back.

"...the zombies took everyone by surprise. No one had any idea just how...."

What?

"...just how bloody boring they are!"

He gulped his coffee down and gestured to the waiter. Three Portuguese tarts arrived at our table, oozing custard.

"The problem is, zombies don't realy do anything. They stagger about. They want to kill you, sure. But anyone able to get up to a brisk jog is able to run away from them. you have to be pretty dim or extremly unlucky to be caught by a zombie. So where is the dramatic tension? The book is just page after page of shootemup gun fetishism. I swear there were times I didn't know whether I was reading a novel or playing an XBox 360 game."

The Portuguese tarts are gone. Mere crumbs are left on the plate. And a little custard round Thomas's mouth.

"Look, don't take my word for it. Talk to Walbank. You know, the magician? He knows more about zombies than any of us. Some say he has special power over them, that that is why he wanted us to read World War Z because it is like his bible or something. I don't believe that though. i think he was just like the rest of us: sucked in by the terrible Hollywood hype into buying a dull book simply because Brad Pitt had turned it into a mildly entertaining film partly shot in Glasgow."



I ask him where I can find "Walbank", but Thomas claims he doesn't know. Then he gets angry.

"Look., why don't you just leave it? None of us are proud of reading that book. Those of us who got away with just dipping in and reading a few pages -- and the synopsis on Amazon -- well they are the lucky ones. Damn it. You've got to see it from our perspective. We were just trying to survive...."

He all but throws me out of the cafe. As I run down the street to get away from him he throws a brick after me. Wrapped around it is a sheet of paper, secured with string. I take off the paper and read the message that is written on it.

"Max Brooks is crap," it says. I can only shake my head and walk off.

why oh why can't I get reply to work?
Anyway, the Luminaries is astonishing. Highly recommend it although it is probably too long for book group.

Still can't get reply to work so am doing a newpost. Highly enjoyed Gormenghast and it might be good as a summer read as there is certainly a lot to get through. Enjoyed Mark's other suggestions.

Reading List Suggestions for 2014

Lots of discussion and debate last night (not to mention the Stilton!). These are my suggestions:

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski (Hamlet reworking)

A Perfectly Good Man - Patrick Gale (Boy has rugby accident, Clergyman has affair)

Vanity Fair - Thackeray/ The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

The idea was to give out some free books, you'd think I'd asked people to chop off their arms, honesty....

Some of the reviews for the crime books I gave out last time have come in. Not everyone's cup of tea....

[others to follow..]

DELUSION IN DEATH BY JD ROBB

(AKA NORA ROBERTS)

I was looking forward to reading a thriller/police procedural by 'one of the world's top selling authors' but I found this an irritating bastard from beginning to end. Bastard because it follows all the norms of the police procedural - acronyms galore (ME, TOD, COD),  steely cop with a past, plenty of Cracker-esque criminal profiling - but then it rubbed bits of godawful Mills & Boon romance onto the corpses like an embalming fluid.

Actually, as I write that, it sounds a lot cooler than the experience of reading it. I also realise it sounds a bit 'Operation Yewtree'. Delusion in Death is not that interesting. The characters are awful. Take Roarke - the female totty bait - who is described as early as page 14 as, 'impossibly gorgeous, carved by the strong hand of some clever god and perfected by eyes of bold and brilliant blue'.

He is also a billionaire and the husband of the female investigating officer. He's a dick. In fact, the two main characters are so attractive, wise and smugly in love that the paperback should come with a free sick bag. Not sure how they would handle this for the Kindle edition. It's also set in the near future. I can't help but feel that this is merely added as some sort of marketing differentiator because apart from references to 'Links' (basically more advanced smart phones) it adds nothing to the plot or background.

What Robb does incredibly well is dialogue. In fact, apart from the odd (surely humourous?) sex scene the whole book is driven by it. Perhaps this was just a duff 'un by 'one of the world's best selling authors'... Actually, I just Googled the 'In Death' series. Bloody hell, she's written 45 of the bastards! Even Morse got killed off after 13 novels. Move along, Nora. Move along.

-- MW

Pray for the Dying
By Quintin Jardine

So crime fiction, not really my genre. And to be absolutely clear about this. If I'm honest, I don't particularly like crime fiction.

So why for the love of god did I volunteer, yes that's right volunteer to review this book?

Bob Skinner to blame, I'm related through marriage to a Bob Skinner otherwise I wouldn't have picked it up. Though I did pick it up, before I even read the intro. Before I saw and was intrigued by the Bob word.

The fact is, its got a great cover and that exploits a major weakness in my character. A sucker for a bit of graphic design.

A crime thriller. What's not to like? Well nothing really.

Its not that I'm against genre books in any principle. I enjoyed comics and science fiction as a young adult and still retain a soft spot for even the most superficial of space adventures. So genre fiction is not a bad thing per se.  It's just like soap operas, perhaps better to limit yourself to the one or at the most two. I've also nailed my colours to the mast of a few too many false prophet rock and rollers for my own good. So no stranger to fandom either then.

It's worth noting then that this is the nth book in the series [its Bob Skinner no 23]. So somebody likes them. More than likes them. Bob skinner has a serious fan base. As does Quintin Jardine. Twenty plus previous books in a series is wildly successful by any ones calculations.

Some genre books manage to break out of the genre and give us a bit more, at their very best much more. Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler and others do this. Their books redefine the genre and change the way we think about the genre. Some books would be difficult to classify as genre in the first place. Would it really be reasonable to classify Blood Meridian as a western? It's certainly set in the correct time period and follows many of the expectations and form that go to define the genre, but hardly.  

Pray for the Dying does not fall into either of these categories, it's a genre book pure and simple. No whip cracking  Chandleresque dialogue. No zeitgeist. Its ostensibly links to the current Scottish political context and the potential unification of the Scottish Police Service provides little insight and serves more or less as sufficiently serviceable wallpaper for the action.

So the book.

Yes the book.

It's well plotted, it tells me so on the back cover, and yes well it is. Well plotted and well paced, just enough twists and turns to keep you interested all the way to the very end. Slightly far fetched but nicely satisfying none the less.

What starts as a fairly standard crime thriller upscales at some point into political intrigue and grand conspiracy. However the writing style comes across as somehow slightly more domestic in character. This description is not intended as a criticism, domestic is fine, and feels just about right in the most part. But as the whole takes off it starts to feel just a bit underpowered. Like if Belle and Sebastian did a cover of Stairway To Heaven. Intriguing yes, I'd like to see it even, but I'm not so sure it would quite fly.

There's an ensemble cast to some extent, even if the book is not quite an ensemble piece. Some of the action takes place without the main protagonist being present. Bob doesn't get all the action, just the juiciest bits. I liked that and would have liked it more if there had been more of it. However it was all slightly undermined by some of the minor characters being fairly one dimensional.

The author also struggled to give the various characters necessary for an ensemble piece authentic voices. Unlike a movie where individual actors bring their own take on characters they are playing, in a novel it falls to the author to give each character defining characteristics and voice that is distinctive to the reader. Think Irvine Welch and the motley crew in Trainspotting. Each with their own easily recognised idioms and voice.

The greatest criticism that could be levelled at the book was the perceived need to fill the reader in on however many years of backstory. Resulting in groan inducing sentences, which run along the lines of (husband to wife) 'we need to go to our family home in Dunbar in our car, the blue Astra with the dodgey clutch, and catch up with our daughter, the one called Sandra whose married to Jim, the orthodontist with one leg. And so it goes (I exaggerate). These are liberally strewn through the first third of the book. This is where the editor could have helped by showing a firm hand, or was the editor to blame, was it his or her idea. There's another mystery for you Bob.

So a book I suspect for fans, for the converted, not a book to convert. The fan will buy this book and no doubt it will satisfy. If your not a fan I suspect you might be better off with something earlier in the series. The true fun I suspect lies in following Bob Skinners adventures over time, the ups and downs, victories and defeats.   

How he became a crack shot, peerless detective, gifted administrator, and a shrewd politician ( yes I know, put like that..). 

--GMcA

Stoner

This may have nothing to do with next month's book at all. But in Colorado it isn't just about boulders, its about getting stoned too.

Our Society Correspondent Writes....

On Friday last at Le Palais George, Miss Arabella Yelland hosted one of the most memorable "8 o'clocks" to have taken place in this arrondissement for some time.

The occasion was attended by several of the more esteemed members of our city's literary appreciation society. In random order they included:

Mister Mark Walbank, court magician and former student plasterer; Miss Lisa Condron, the cave specialist; Lord George McAndrew, the award winning architect and friend of small animals; Mister Thomas Quinn, writer, dilettante and wine connoisseur; Ms Carmen Reid, author, entrepreneur and linguist; and Monsieur Martin M. Minton, the legal expert and well known "friend to the crofters".

The evening began most superbly with a tour of the premises. Miss Yelland's spacious, well furnished rooms drew compliments from all who were there. Her "cabinets" were considered to be of the highest order; her "book lined study" was a fine example of early Ikea or possibly late Habitat; and her "tenement bathroom" of the highest quality.

Some surprise was expressed at the sheer scale and grandeur of the feline gym, an elaborate device that was stored for the evening in the dining room. The gym features several nooks, crannies, hammocks and scratch poles, enough for any cat. However, the felines for whom this has been purchased, no doubt at great expense, preferred to spend the evening curled up on the sofa -- only occasionally landing on the laps of the visitors. Each cat was distinctive in its way, and was capable of making a grown man sneeze within a matter of seconds. Fortunately, our hostess was able to bring forth drugs and paraphernalia to counteract the worst of these symptoms.

Sadly apologies were read out by three of the guests who had been expected. Doctor Cathy Norton was at home, feeding M&S pizza to her children and was therefore unable to attend. Also missing were Doctor John Albiston, the noted potholer, and his wife DoctorMairi Albiston. The latter is understood to be "about to drop", which may be the cause of their "crying off" at such a late stage.

The highly qualified dentistry expert Miss Yelland, BDS OMG LOL, it should be noted, excelled in her duties as a hostess. The wine -- from her own, eponymous vineyard -- was of the first rate and she was skilled enough to ensure that Mister Thomas Quinn didn't drink all of it himself, and that some was reserved for the other members of the gathering. There was food served also, a selection of the finest cheeses from France, and biscuits, which were understood to be "Jacob's".

Discussion centred on THE HARE WITH THE AMBER EYES, a biography of sorts, a history if you like, by a curious cove by the name of De Waal. Who makes pots. Stupid thing to do with your life really. But there you are. Pots, pots, pots. And he carries carved miniature tigers in his pockets. All over Europe. Eyeing up stuff his relatives used to own.

As books went it was deemed to be satisfactory in some regards, and less so in others. Mister Walbank suggested he wanted to "make it disappear through a nearby window" while Mr Quinn, who had only read a third of the book, claimed it was "The Greatest Work of Literature Ever Conceived". Most considered this to be an indication that he was "well tanked up" and his wife immediately suggested they go home.

[... "All well and good, but what the bloody hell is the next book going to be?" - ed]