If the lycanthrope was the preeminent monster of the
medieval period, the vampire that of the Victorian era, and the bug-eyed monster
that of the 1950s, then the zombie is almost certainly the favored boogeyman of
the modern era.  It’s not all that
unsurprising to understand why.  The
concept of the zombie – and here I explicitly speak of the shambling, undead
human moaning about brains, not the Caribbean metaphor for alienation from the
community – lends itself well to our tastes in horror (which are not so much gruesome as they are exceptionally visual), while permitting a surprising
amount of social commentary to presented alongside the undead hordes.  Every generation finds a suitable monster to
build its scary stories around; the zombie is ours.

World War Z by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks, for those
inclined to trivia) is, in its way, a sequel to his seminal The Zombie Survival Guide (ZSG), a book which is probably on the bookshelves of every fan of the
genre.  The conceit of the ZSG is
that zombies are real, and not overtly supernatural; that their tactics,
advantages, and disadvantages are both knowable and uniform; and that there can
be workable, practical methods of surviving a zombie outbreak.  The bulk of the ZSG is dedicated to
discussing what tactics work, what tactics don’t, and what tactics will just
get everyone killed, with not a hint that the subject matter is anything except
completely real.  While it is not
necessary to have read the Zombie Survival Guide in order to enjoy World War Z,
the latter uses the zombie described in the former for its template, and the
ZSG is an entertaining book in its own right.

World War Z is presented in the form of after-the-fact
personal interviews with survivors of a world-wide zombie outbreak (one which
was as apocalyptic as possible without actually destroying either human
civilization, or even the human race itself). 
The story is traced through the first cases in China, followed by the
slow spread of the undead through Western Asia and South America, then Western
Europe and America; step by step, the reader is led through an increasingly
nightmarish scenario brought about in equal parts by bad planning, wrongheaded
assumptions, shortsighted thinking, and a simple unwillingness to accept that
the dead could be walking around, hungry for human flesh.  The middle part of the book explores the
permutations of the “Great Panic” (somewhat a self-explanatory
description of the almost-collapse of civilization) and surviving governments’
retreats to defensible territory; obviously, given the aforementioned conceit
it shouldn’t be surprising that the last part of the book is dedicated to how
humanity finally was able to reclaim the Earth from the zombies.

All of this is presented as oral accounts, in a style
deliberately evocative of biographers such as Studs Terkel.  This method of presentation is one of the
strengths of the book; Brooks’ characters are all well-defined and easy to tell
apart from each other.  While a plurality
of the interviewees are American, the book takes pains to emphasize the global
aspects of the story, giving it a certain breadth not always found in horror tales.
 Brooks also makes a point of making it
clear that, while humanity was eventually victorious over the undead, it was
not done without heavy cost – and that neither the world nor the survivors
would quickly recover from the disaster (it is, in fact, open to question
whether the immediate survivors would ever really recover at all).  This note of realism in what is after all a
story of supernatural terror (and never mind the “scientific”
explanations for the walking dead) improves the experience for the reader.

One legitimate criticism of the book is the politics found
in it – more accurately, the fairly topical politics found in it, which are not
an issue now, but will probably make the book slightly less comprehensible ten
or so years down the road.  It is probably
safe to say that Max Brooks is a mildly left-of-center Democrat who does not
approve of the War in Iraq; and while the level of resentment against the Bush
administration present in the book never even approaches that of, say, Jo
Walton’s Farthing it is nonetheless a mild distraction from the book.  Fortunately, neither that, nor the faint whiff
of condescending towards the military mindset, is sufficient to make
World War Z unreadable, although it would be interesting to find out whether an earlier
version of the book had made things more explicit.

Overall, I would recommend this book: it’s well written,
internally self-consistent, and possessed of both strong characters and an
easily-followed plot.  Max Brooks knows
his zombies, and knows how to use them to tell a killer story.  Don’t give this book to a twelve-year-old who
can’t handle the concept of gore, but there’s nothing in here that won’t be
cheerfully visualized for him by television or the movies.
World War Z is a good choice for the horror
fan in your life, as is The Zombie Survival Guide. The former is in
paperback now, so if you
have a gift card or three it’s a good choice for eating up the balance.

Making Money is the second (the first being Going Postal) in a sub-series about a character improbably-named Moist von Lipwig. Moist is a conman and swindler (although not, in point of fact, actually a bad man) who has become a more-less-voluntary fixture in the improbably-named Ankh-Morpork***, thanks to the decision of its current Patrician (one Lord Vetinari). Vetinari, who actually has the sort of mind and abilities that people erroneously ascribe to famous political operatives, decided that Moist’s skill set was of value to the city, so he hanged the man, and then gave him a job running the Post Office. After the events there (excellently described in Going Postal), Moist is then given a new assignment: fixing Ankh-Morpork’s banking system. Whether the current operators of it like it, or not.

There are also golems.

If the above sounds vaguely silly, well, it’s supposed to be, except for the “vaguely” part. Terry writes comic fantasy, after all. But it’s also a pretty good book on economic concepts; the author makes the concept of fiat money both entertaining and interesting, mostly because he’s using it to tell the story, instead of telling the story to highlight the concept****. The characters are (as usual) both distinctive and understandable, even if a few of them are quite mad – a designation that might include the hero. And the plot moves along nicely, although readers should probably read Going Postal before this book.

I would say that Making Money is a suitable book for 14-and-above: Terry Pratchett doesn’t go in much for graphic sex and/or violence, but some of the concepts mentioned in passing might make a parent wary. Buy this one for the burgeoning venture capitalist or Milton Friedman enthusiast (he would have liked this book, I think). While you’re there: if you like police procedurals, buy Night Watch or Men at Arms; Shakespeare, Wyrd Sisters or Lords and Ladies; or children’s stories that don’t insult, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. All of which are worth your time.

*Terry Pratchett is also quite fond of footnotes**, so we’ll use one to note that while his books frequently touch on concerns relevant to his readers, the books are refreshingly free of “tackling the tough issues.” His characters have them, but they usually end up handling them in a self-consistent manner.

**And footnotes of footnotes.

***Much of the Discworld series takes place in this city, which started off as a generic fantasy locale and is now an amalgam of London and Manhattan. It says much about Terry Pratchett’s ability for detail that someone was able to draw an accurate map of the place solely from his descriptions… and that the map (which I have framed and hanging on my living room wall) makes sense.

****Those interested in using fiction to pass along their ideas, take note: the reason that most fail at it is because while many people may write books to promulgate ideas, most people read books to be entertained.

The Lord of Creation series

If any of this sounds like the setting for an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, it’s deliberate. In writing this, S.M. Stirling had consciously made the decision to extrapolate how our world would have reacted to a situation where the assumptions of 30s pulp science fiction writers were actually true. The history of Earth itself does not seriously diverge until the 1960s, but changes accelerate quickly. By the time of the late 1980s (the time when the action takes place) Earth has been rather smugly divided between American/British Commonwealth (self-explanatory) and “Eastbloc” (Warsaw Pact & PRC) control, with the European Union (Western Europe) being a distant third. Brushfire wars are largely a thing of the past (the last being in 1967 in the Middle East, with the end result being a mandated settlement enforced by both major power blocs), and what conflict exists is mostly Cold War spy/counterspy black operations. The great political and scientific focus is on the exploitation of space resources, to the point where the biological sciences are several years behind our timeline’s activities. In short, aside from the existence of transistors and absence of ray-guns, very little about this universe would be surprising to a pulp hero.

The book itself is an entertaining jungle adventure romp evocative of the classic pulp style, complete with hyper-competent heroes, dangerous beasts of all types and species, shipwrecks, a Lost Tribe of primitive-but-well-groomed-and-attractive humans (complete with Mysterious Sky-God artifact), and even a tribe of beast-men (complete with stolen AK-47s) for the heroes to oppose. Fortunately, Stirling takes care to justify all of this, allowing the setting to remain at least internally self-consistent. He has also done his usual good job at presenting cultures in an appropriately sympathetic way, while avoiding both patronization and sentimentality: the author is notoriously hostile to the concepts of both the Noble Savage and the Noble Enlightened Euro-American. In short, if Edgar Rice Burroughs or Doc E.E. Smith were still alive, the front cover would have had laudatory quotes from both authors on it.

As a paperback, The Sky People is well worth it as a stocking stuffer for your science fiction fan on your Christmas list. As to whom it’d be appropriate for: it’s got a good deal of violence and a small amount of fornication. The former is described comprehensively, but not salaciously; the latter avoids graphic detail. Your average high school student has probably encountered more explicit examples of either in his or her English classes. Also, people who like the old pulps should like both this book and the sequel (which, from the previews available online, is somewhat more adult).

Harry Turtledove is widely regarded to be one of the best, if not the best, in this field; he has explored most of the popular themes in this genre and has probably created a few of his own. In the Atlantis series he has chosen as his divergence point either the independent formation of a small continent in the mid-Atlantic, or the breakup of the existing North American tectonic plate to create one (the cover suggests the latter). The first English explorers of the island – the first discoverers being Basque fishermen in the mid-15th century who had traded the knowledge of its existence – called it “Atlantis,” and immediately began independently settling there, as did French and Spanish fishermen. The general narrative traces the fortunes of several members of the Radcliffe family, who are descendants of the head of the original English settler, over the next three centuries, in three separate vignettes.

There are two things that are of note regarding this book. The first is the land of Atlantis itself, which has clearly been a separate continent for a long time. Fans of Turtledove’s work will know that he has explored ecological divergences in his work before (see A Different Flesh and Down In The Bottomlands for well-developed examples), and in Opening Atlantishe takes the time to discuss the implications of an ecology where there are no native four-legged mammals, let alone human beings, prior to discovery. Weather patterns also have an effect on the narrative, although not to the same extent: Atlantis is southern enough to enjoy balmy-to-tropical weather over a large part of its surface, which informs some of the geopolitical decisions made about it.

The geopolitics are the second interesting part of the book. Atlantis is sufficiently close that oceangoing vessels can stumble upon it; and they first do so in the 1450s, which means that the first exploration and settling is taking place during the English War of the Roses. The difference that results can be seen three centuries later, when the inhabitants of Atlantis are routinely described as “settlers,” not “colonists” – which implies that English Atlantis at least was not involved in British mercantilism. English Atlantis is, in fact, notable for its lack of what would be considered “proto-American” influences: there are no equivalents of the Puritans or Quakers, no indication that an equivalent of Virginia’s House of Burgesses was ever created** – and, of course, no Indian population. English Atlantis is instead a collection of steadily-growing settlements that rely on trade and are close enough to their parent country to prevent too much cultural drift… but far enough away to make administering them problematical (something made clear in each vignette). As the first book ends with the equivalent of the French and Indian Wars just ending, and the next book is called The United States of Atlantis, presumably Turtledove will be exploring an alternative American Revolution.

The book itself is quite readable: each vignette is based around a military conflict, and the author has his usual eye for appropriate detail and ear for authentic historical attitudes. Turtledove has been generally unwilling to warp his characters to the point where they are 21st century Americans in funny clothes, and keeps to that tradition here: the viewpoint characters judge themselves by their standards, not ours. This can be uncomfortable for the reader, but makes for a more internally consistent novel. If the book has a weakness, it’s in the lack of maps: the action can be a little difficult to follow without them. This will probably be resolved by the time the next book comes out. There are some language issues (mostly racial epithets made by the uncouth) and a certain amount of (not described) sex, so you probably don’t want your bright twelve year old to read it, but a high school junior shouldn’t have any problems with it. It’s not a bad book for starting out in alternate history, either, although Ruled Britannia (Shakespeare writing his plays in an England conquered by the Armada) may be more of interest to someone new to this genre. Turtledove enthusiasts have, of course, already purchased it, but if you haven’t, go ahead.

Moe Lane

*Which is not to say, “unreadable:” while it is of course impossible for magic to suddenly work in medieval Europe, or for a time traveler to go back in time to save the Italian Goths from Belisarius, neither kept Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy series or L Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall from being excellent examples of the genre.

**Whether any of these groups exist on the North American continent (called “Terranova” in this setting) is not explored in this book.