Devolution [electronic resource] : A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Title:

Author:

Brooks, Max.

Description:

-- Praise for -- —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Publisher:

Random House Publishing Group,

Date:

2020

Digital Format:

CLOUDLIBRARY EPUB

Language:

English

Summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The #1 New York Times bestselling author of World War Z is back with "the Bigfoot thriller you didn't know you needed in your life, and one of the greatest horror novels I've ever read" (Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter and Recursion ).

FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier's eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now. The journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town's bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing--and too earth-shattering in its implications--to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate's extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. Kate's is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity's defiance in the face of a terrible predator's gaze, and, inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us--and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it--and like none you've ever read before.

Praise for Devolution

"Delightful . . . [A] tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The story is told in such a compelling manner that horror fans will want to believe and, perhaps, take the warning to heart." -- Booklist (starred review)

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Brooks (World War Z) spins a substantial and suspenseful case for the existence of Bigfoot in this thriller, told via diary entries, news transcripts, and Brooks's own research. Kate Holland hopes to boost her failing marriage by moving to the small, sustainable community of Greenloop deep in the middle of nowhere, Washington State. When nearby Mount Rainier erupts, the disaster cuts off Greenloop from the rest of civilization. The community's hopes of survival hinge on Mostar, a mysterious resident with impressive survival skills. Trapped with the people are incredibly strong, primordial Sasquatches. The hungry creatures know how to use the land to their advantage and have no intention of sharing with the humans. Brooks creates vivid landscapes and has a gift for shifting focus in an instant, turning lovely nature scenes suddenly menacing. Brooks packs his plot with action, information, and atmosphere, and captures both the foibles and the heroism of his characters. This slow-burning page-turner will appeal to Brooks's devoted fans and speculative fiction readers who enjoy tales of monsters. (May)

Kirkus Review

Are we not men? We are--well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006). A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks' latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, "it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people." Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn't know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice--for instance, try not to get wounded, for "injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you." Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to "immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System," and there's always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from "the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man's heart and lungs." Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Imagine being stranded, and rescue attempts have been cut off. Imagine using technology so frequently that it is taken for granted, until there is no access to it. Imagine an unforeseen natural disaster unleashing a ravenous host of powerful predators on unsuspecting and unarmed neighborhoods. In Brooks' latest, reminiscent of his popular best-seller, World War Z (2006), he documents a terrifyingly realistic survival encounter using first-person interviews interspersed with journal entries recorded by a woman as she experiences events. The introduction, accompanied by a hand-drawn map of an isolated, high-tech ecocommunity in Washington, sets the stage for a bloody confrontation between a small group of humans and creatures previously believed to exist only in folklore. The escalating alarm of naive people preparing to face a curiously intelligent terror from the woods is related straightforwardly even as the beasts come howling in through the front door. The footnoted text and references to historical incidents of catastrophic failure, some fairly recent, give insight into weaknesses humanity blithely ignores every day. The story is told in such a compelling manner that horror fans will want to believe and, perhaps, take the warning to heart.

Library Journal Review

Brooks, back with his first novel since his seminal World War Z, employs a similar style here, but the scope--and resulting terror--is significantly more concentrated and immediate. The narrative is framed as an investigation by Brooks into what transpired in the isolated, high-end, high-tech fictional "eco-community" of Greenloop, WA, after Mount Rainier suddenly erupted. The brother of a woman whose journal was found after the disastrous events reaches out to narrator Brooks, asking him to look into the journal's claims of the residents' demise at the hands of a hungry Sasquatch clan. Piecing together the journal with interviews, transcripts, newspaper clippings, and historical documents, Brooks crafts a terrifying tale that reads like a "true" crime novel. Set in the very near future, with stellar worldbuilding, a claustrophobic atmosphere, an inclusive and fascinating cast of characters, and plenty of bloody action, this inventive story will keep readers' heart rates high. VERDICT Brooks's creative and well-executed conceit will have readers searching Wikipedia to look up names and events, even the parts they know are not based on reality. An obvious choice for Bigfoot fans, also suggest this to readers who enjoyed Alma Katsu's The Hunger and those who appreciate nonfiction survival stories such as Hampton Sides's In the Kingdom of Ice.

Excerpts

Introduction Bigfoot Destroys Town. That was the title of an article I received not long after the Mount Rainier eruption. I thought it was spam, the inevitable result of so much online research. At the time I was just finishing up what seemed like my hundredth op-ed on Rainier, analyzing every facet of what should have been a predictable, and preventable, calamity. Like the rest of the country, I needed facts, not sensationalism. Staying grounded had been the focus of so many op-eds, because of all Rainier's human failures--political, economic, logistical--it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people. And here it was again, right on my laptop screen: Bigfoot Destroys Town. Just forget it, I told myself, the world's not going to change overnight. Just breathe, delete, and move on. And I almost did. Except for that one word. "Bigfoot." The article, posted on an obscure, cryptozoological website, claimed that while the rest of the country was focused on Rainier's wrath, a smaller but no less bloody disaster was occurring a few miles away in the isolated, high-end, high-tech eco-community of Greenloop. The article's author, Frank McCray, described how the eruption not only cut Greenloop off from rescue, but also left it vulnerable to a troop of hungry, apelike creatures that were themselves fleeing the same catastrophe. The details of the siege were recorded in the journal of Greenloop resident Kate Holland, the sister of Frank McCray. "They never found her body," McCray wrote to me in a follow-up email, "but if you can get her journal published, maybe someone will read it who might have seen her." When I asked why me, he responded, "Because I've been following your op-eds on Rainier. You don't write anything you haven't thoroughly researched first." When I asked why he thought I'd have any interest in Bigfoot, he answered, "I read your Fangoria article." Clearly I wasn't the only one who knew how to research a subject. Somehow, McCray had tracked down a decades-old list of my "Top Five Classic Bigfoot Movies" for the iconic horror magazine. In that piece, I'd talked about growing up "at the height of the Bigfoot frenzy," challenging readers to watch these old movies "with the eyes of a six-year-old child, eyes that flick constantly from the terror on the screen to the dark, rustling trees outside the window." Reading that piece must have convinced McCray that some part of me wasn't quite ready to leave my childhood obsession in the past. He must have also known that my adult skepticism would force me to thoroughly vet his story. Which I did. Before contacting McCray again, I discovered that there had been a highly publicized community known as Greenloop. There was an ample amount of press regarding its founding--and its founder, Tony Durant. Tony's wife, Yvette, had also hosted several online yoga and meditation classes from the town's Common House right up to the day of the eruption. But on that day, everything stopped. That was not unusual for towns that lay in the path of Rainier's boiling mudslides, but a quick check of the official FEMA map showed Greenloop had never been touched. And while devastated areas such as Orting and Puyallup had eventually reconnected their digital footprints, Greenloop remained a black hole. There were no press reports, no amateur recordings. Nothing. Even Google Earth, which has been so diligent in updating its satellite imagery of the area, still posts the original, pre-eruption photo of Greenloop and the surrounding area. As peculiar as all these red flags might be, what finally drove me back to McCray was the fact that the only mention of Greenloop after the disaster that I could find was in a local police report that said the official investigation was still "ongoing." "What do you know?" I asked him after several days of radio silence. That was when he sent me the link to an AirDrop link of a photo album taken by Senior Ranger Josephine Schell. Schell, who I would later interview for this project, had led the first search and rescue team into the charred wreckage of what had once been Greenloop. Amid the corpses and debris, she had discovered the journal of Kate Holland (née McCray) and had photographed each page before the original copy was removed. At first, I still suspected a hoax. I'm old enough to remember the notorious "Hitler Diaries." However, as I finished the last page, I couldn't help but believe her story. I still do. Perhaps it's the simplicity of her writing, the frustratingly credible ignorance of all things Sasquatch. Or perhaps it's just my own irrational desire to exonerate the scared little boy I used to be. That's why I've published Kate's story, along with several news items and background interviews that I hope will provide some context for readers not familiar with Sasquatch lore. In the process of compiling that research, I struggled greatly with how much to include. There are literally dozens of scholars, hundreds of hunters, and thousands of recorded encounters. To wade through them all might have taken years, if not decades, and this story simply does not have that kind of time. That is why I have chosen to limit my interviews to the two people with direct, personal involvement in the case, and my literary references to Steve Morgan's The Sasquatch Companion. Fellow Bigfoot enthusiasts will no doubt recognize Morgan's Companion as the most comprehensive, up-to-date guidebook on the subject, combining historical accounts, recent eyewitness sightings, and scientific analysis from experts like Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Ian Redmond, Robert Morgan (no relation), and the late Dr. Grover Krantz. Some readers may also question my decision to omit certain geographical details regarding the exact location of Greenloop. This was done to discourage tourists and looters from contaminating what is still an active crime scene. With the exception of these details, and the necessary spelling and grammatical corrections, the journal of Kate Holland remains intact. My only regret is not being able to interview Kate's psychotherapist (who encouraged her to begin writing this diary) on the grounds of patient confidentiality. And yet this psychotherapist's silence seems, at least to me, like an admission of hope. After all, why would a doctor worry about the confidentiality of her patient if she didn't believe that patient was still alive? At the time of this writing, Kate has been missing for thirteen months. If nothing changes, this book's publication date may see her disappearance lasting several years. At present, I have no physical evidence to validate the story you are about to read. Maybe I've been duped by Frank McCray, or maybe we've both been duped by Josephine Schell. I will let you, the reader, judge for yourself if the following pages seem reasonably plausible, and like me, if they reawaken a terror long buried under the bed of youth. Excerpted from Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.