Brian Keene's Entombed (2011 Zombie Short Novel)

BLOT: (01 Jun 2011 - 06:38:08 PM)

Brian Keene's Entombed (2011 Zombie Short Novel)

Any zombie fan knows that ultimately it is the other survivors you have to watch. The zombies, flesh eating zed back from the dead who never sleep and never quit, are kind of an allegory for life, and death, and viruses, and cancer, and going hungry, and all the stupid shit that can happen to a man and his clan. The other survivors in the bunker, though, they are the ones who don't play fair and are hard to predict. At least you know the zombies are simply going to eat you. That teenage punk you found at the truckstop? She might stab you just for a loaf of bread or might fall in love with you. Gotta keep an eye on her.

It is fitting then that Brian Keene—who has several novels (his zombie novels, flooded earth set, and Darkness on the Edge of Town, amongst others) strongly dealing with the creation and dissolution of ad hoc families under extremely horrible situations—would go ahead and skip the foreplay and get down to business. Set in the same world as Dead Sea, which is a lot more Romero-like than his possessed-zombie novels The Rising and City of the Dead, Entombed skips ahead a bit. There is some discussion of the actual outbreak, and how it went down, and some discussion of how the society inside of a mostly abandoned nuclear bunker in West Virginia was formed; but basically this short novel's main focus is to get to a month later when all the build up comes crashing down.

People are starving. Pete, the protagonist, has withdrawn from the others and watches TV all day (the bunker has its own power plant and water supply, though not the greatest collection of DVDs) and ignored the hunger as best possible. The others, though, have been forming one of those ad hoc family groups. A slightly deranged one around Chuck, a once cable repairman who now imagines himself a burgeoning Kahn. At the brink of starvation, the group makes a decision that would have been half the build up of other novels: they are going to have to eat one another. First victim? Why, what about Pete, the outsider who can't even be bothered to be properly social? Little ironies run rampant. Nearly no one is a violent, nor even all that physical, sort. There have been others who have died and they simply incinerated those bodies with no would-be cannibals calling any dibs on all that long pork. No, stringy, starved meat is the preferred choice.

Except Pete gets word of it right off. In the first skirmish, he ends up killing another survivor (and potential flesh butcher). Pete flees, knowing the bunker better than the others, and tries to stay one step ahead. Only problem is that zombies are all around, stopping him from leaving the bunker, and the bunker isn't all that massive. Besides, Chuck Kahn has a particular bug up his butt about Pete. Fresh [starved, stringy, Pete-killed] flesh be damned, there's a particular steak Chuck craves.

From here on, the story is about Pete's struggle with everyone he technically saved at the beginning of the book. Ironies run rampant, right? We get some backshots to Pete and his ex-wife's life, and some internal monologuing giving us insight into Pete's philosophy and, perhaps half-assed, attempt to hold on to redemption. There is no honest win for our hero. Every person he beats down is one more notch of evidence for those convinced that something must be done about him. Even the most innocent sorts, the friendly ones, at least partially back up the plan to eat him. Is he going to have to kill everyone? Can he convince them that eventually they will be the next victim? Survival horror is about staying alive and it's going to be Pete vs Them to some sort of bloody finish, you can be assured. Keene knows his business and his fans and has no trouble delivering.

Generally, Keene's use of Pete's voice shines. One of his best characterizations (my favorite two are probably still Jim from The Rising and Teddy from The Conqueror Worms) enhanced by a more natural voice than many of his other novels. You get a sense of Pete's cadence, his rhythm and hue, quite easily. The setting is not unique to zombie lore, nor precisely is the situation, but Keene's take is fresh and punk. An underdog fight rather than a big morality play. If Chuck is no Captain Rhodes, that's ok. This ain't about the big guns being fired but wild animals backed against a wall and clawing their way out.

There are a few glitches in the narrative. Places where the text would say something and then later imply or explicitly say something else. Probably the worst, and it mostly is a little jarring, is a scene where Pete clearly leaves the pharmacy and then later another survivor is described as coming through the pharmacy door behind Pete. A few places where less would have been more, but the nervous overthinking (i.e. thinking the same thought two or three different ways) intended or not, at least plays out well enough.

The interior illustrations are nice, some more fitting than others. And while the bonus novella, "White Fire", isn't Keene's finest, it is an interesting attempt at melding Keene motifs with standard disease thrillers and, in places, a more casual and natural tone to storytelling. A tone that Keene wears well and I hope to see more of it. Plus, being in a part of the world recently slammed by tornadoes, it was a little unsettling to read a fictional account of one. For those into Keene's meta-fiction background, the Labyrinth and so forth, you get another dose of that including a few snatches of tie-in to other recent works. Made me jones for The Exit.

The final breakdown something like great concept, good execution, some fair to good illustrations, and a somewhat fair bonus novella. Final score coming out as a solid Good with some neat twists to the recently saturated field. This is a limited edition book (I have copy 365, woot!) and so waiting too long to get it might end up with it gone. Oh, and for those wondering about the need to read Dead Sea (which is recently out in a new author's preferred text edition) first, you don't, but you might want to read it if you get the chance. There are a few jabs/jokes that work best knowing that text, especially since the earlier novel paints more of the full picture—most of which the bunker survivors have no idea—and so a few of asides take on a extra-frightening note.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: June 2011