I have said this before about a few other zombie novels, but THIS is original in every aspect. Possible spoilers are in this review so if you don’t want to read it on account of that fine but buy this book, it’s really amazing: https://www.amazon.com/The-Way-All-Flesh-Waggoner/dp/1619218186/ref=sr_sp-btf_title_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1386540858&sr=8-14&keywords=the+way+of+all+flesh
“What can I say, David? It’s a monster-eat-monster world. Always has been.”
**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**
David is just your average guy trying to make sense of a world gone to shit. All he wants to do is remember what happened and how he got to where he is. He sees visions of god awful demon like creatures that seem to be bent on his and others he encounters destruction. Where did they come from? Who are they? And why are his coworkers craving pancreas? David doesn’t know what has happened to humanity and worse yet has no idea what is happening to him. The farther into the story, the more David forgets and his “companion” Simon (wonderful comic relief and reminds me of Pascow from the movie Pet Sematary) is of little help. What he does remember, is of a family he once had and the terrible evening his daughter ripped the throat out of his ex-wife….other than that…it’s just survival with amnesia for David as searches Lockwood for his children and ex wife in a wild debilitating journey.
Welcome to Lockwood, where the crew of humans who were uninfected now run slim in this post apocalyptic zombie infestation. The epidemic has been coined Blacktide and surviving is the name of the game. Joe may be the most knowledgeable one of the group given his man hours spent playing shoot em up games starring zombies. He knows how to delegate out missions and uses his zombie knowledge of survival to scout out safe places and where to post up sharpshooters. His knowledge of zombie outbreaks may not be enough to save him from his fear of them. Marie, aka The Zombie Whisperer; the smart nerd genius, Kate and Nicholas; the badass zombie killing Ranger team, both of them with their own secrets.
Kate knows that the world has been ravaged by zombies as do the rest of the survivors. Marie is the only survivor that truly believes that there is some form of humanity left in a zombie. If you could only just tap into that part of a zombie that is still who they once were then maybe they could be trained and brought back from the virus. Kate believes her experiments and solo outings to test her theories are not only dangerous but pointless and a waste of time. That is until she sees David. During an experiment to see if the zombies can open a cage to retrieve the animal inside, Kate recognizes one of the zombies to be her twin brother, David. What’s curious is that David does indeed unlatch the cage and even more stranger shares his food with another zombie. This causes her to pause and in a moment of weakness does not kill her brother, giving more weight to Marie’s theories. Can a human and a zombie have any form of connection?
David must learn to adapt to a new way of living while searching for his children. One where others like him must control their insatiable hunger; a hunger that grows and grows and seems to have no end to it or resort to an almost ecstasy form of cannibalism.
In many zombie books, comics, and movies I have read or seen, the characters are all just people trying to survive. None of them are really bad but because of the circumstances have done bad things. But what if someone was already bad; already void of human emotion and the ability to be remorseful? When you are trying to survive and banding together with any and all humans that are left, it is unlikely a background check would be done on any newcomers. Safety in numbers is key and enlisting a possible serial killer into the group is not a character I have seen done well since DIEner! I love that this character feels inadequate to Blacktide given that Death has taken billions of lives to his four and what’s a serial killer to do when Death reigns supreme?
The main driving point of interest I want to make is that as the reader, you get to hear the side of the story told through the eyes of a zombie and all that he encounters. His reactions, his emotions and frame of mind. I’ve seen movies that have done this in a comical way but the tone set here is anything but and it is executed beautifully along side the humans perception of whats going on. David has no idea he is a zombie and has no idea that his actions are percieved as a hungry, rotting killing machine not that of a a concerned father who is quickly losing his grip on “reality” with very little time to accomplish all he needs to do before his brain loses all ability to retain anything.
There are so many different personalities that are in play in this story making it all the more intriguing with original story points and an incredible look at what people are willing to do to hold onto some form of normality.
Seeing humans destruction on the zombies through the eyes of a zombie that was once human is barbaric and increases in violence based on the person’s predisposed lust for carnage. Be a zombie or human, both creatures display acts of volatile nature and shows the primal side of the human race without prejudice.
The images the author paints for us through the eyes of a zombie are wonderfully grotesque and give new meaning to the the phrase “Home is where the heart is.”
Sometimes the reiteration of points got a bit redundant. The scenery got described over in basically the same way but really that’s the only negative comment I could make about this book.
Everything leading up to the ending is spectacular. The energy and the way all the characters come to a head was absolutely written perfectly.
The final conclusion to as to how and why a zombie outbreak happened is so incredibly original in thought (quite literally) and really pulled the book together and explains why David’s vision goes in and out of different perceptions of the world around him. This is the best zombie book I have read. Thank you Tim Waggoner for sending this to me for review. I’m kinda sad it’s over.
About the Author: TIM WAGGONER (Bio and photo taken from Goodreads.com)
Tim Waggoner has published over thirty novels and three short story collections, and his articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and Writers’ Journal, among others. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. Visit him on the web at www.timwaggoner.com.
