"Wait a bloody minute! You said you were giving up book reviews! We feel cheated, CHEATED I say!"
Well OK, but bear with me on this. Now I'm wading through my adult reading pile I may well write about those books. This one in particular definitely deserved a write-up because it's the first modern horror book I've read in flipping AGES and it's also very, very good indeed.
Max Brooks' "World War Z" (not to be at all confused with the utterly detestable and dreadful movie treatment of the same name) is the seminal zombie horror book, beautifully constructed as a series of compelling anecdotes from people affected by a worldwide plague of the undead.
But can Max turn his hand equally to the claustrophobic confines of a "Perfect" eco-community tucked away in the forestial Washington hills? What happens when a natural disaster takes away that community's lifeline, exposing them to a cryptozoological threat they could never have envisaged in their worst nightmares? Welcome to the visceral delights of "Devolution".
Max's gift is getting you behind the eyes (and the journal-scribbling pen in this case) of his narrators every time, whether he's telling a story from several points of view, or whether he's allowing just one person's voice to describe the terrible events as they unfolded.
Spliced with scientific quotes, anecdotes and historical eyewitness accounts of real encounters with "Bigfoot" from across the world, Max's version of the creatures isn't like anything else you'll have read in previous cryptid-based novels. These beasts are smart AND brutal in equal measure and they're far from my childhood experience of reading about Yetis, Sasquatches or Yowies as some lone shambling entity stinking the neighbourhood out, clawing at passing cars or spotted in the middle of nowhere by some lone hunter with the world's shakiest out-of-focus movie or photo camera along for the ride.
When horror effectively puts us below the top rung on the food chain, it becomes instantly compelling and in "Devolution" it soon becomes apparent that the Bigfoot tribe staking out the panicky residents of Greenloop are doing so because they're starving, and these well-fed middle class twerps are next on the menu.
Kate Holland is the narrator, a woman slightly fed up with her lot, trying to make the best of an imagined idyll in Greenloop, an experimental community. It's the modern dream, a place that is off the grid where power and heat come from clever systems designed to use the planet's natural resources (and your own poo) to good effect. Where shopping is just a few clicks away, ordered in and dropped off by drone. Where a maintenance crew are on hand to fix anything that needs repairing. Where Seattle is a mere hour or so's drive away in your electric car (give or take four hours of choking traffic, of course!)
Which sounds brilliant until nearby Mt Rainier decides to wake from its volcanic slumber, severing all of their connections with the outside world.
At first the residents of Greenloop feel confident that the unspoken "They" will come to their rescue at any minute, but it soon becomes apparent that no one's coming, and the local wildlife is getting hungry. A terrifying encounterr with a Mountain Lion sets the stage for something far worse, as you soon realise that it's far from the local apex predator. Bigfoot can make a shish kebab out of even a vicious Cougar, and when all the other critters are eaten, guess who's left...
I love how Brooks ramps up the tension at the end of every chapter with the classic 'sting' - that final sentence that has you eagerly turning the page ready for new horrors. It's bloody, visceral stuff that will have you checking all your windows and doors at night (for all the good it'll do you if your local pongy Sasquatch visitors decide to drop in for a late supper). I'd say the only thing that slightly disappointed about "Devolution" was the lack of a real resolution at the end, but that does leave the reader free to make up their own minds about the aftermath (I'm trying not to spoil things too much here!)
No surprise that the book has been optioned for a cinematic treatment, though there'll be an awful lot of toning down (modern audiences, it seems, can't be doing with Tobe Hooper-style grisly scenes and tbh that'll be what this will need if it's going to succeed as a film). Who cares though, the book is brilliant and a must-read if you're a fan of Brooks - or just a long-term fan of the mysteries of cryptozoology and the notion that we, smug twerps that we are, still have no idea what's lurking out there in the deep dark forests.
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