“How Zombie Stories Should Be”: A Review of Beginning of the End (an In the End novella) by GJ Stevens

 

(available from the author, contact@gjstevens.com). ISBN: 9798714322549

I am not a fan of the zombie sub-genre of horror, although I have committed recently to reading more books featuring these brain-eating, often virus-produced, monsters. I have spent some time in previous reviews of books in this sub-genre examining the tropes and expressing my thoughts on why I think that they are more dangerous than tropes in other genres. It seems that just about anyone who has played some zombie video games and watched some zombie movies thinks they can write zombie novels, often a quickly produced series of them, with lots of body count and little character development or narrative.

When the author contacted me about possibly reviewing one of his books, I seized the opportunity to engage more with zombies. I am glad, in this case, that I did.

By talking about what I liked about Beginning of the End, I can better explain what I don’t like in most zombie films and novels. Stevens gives me hope that there are more books like his out there, beyond his series of full-length novels, In the End.

Narrated in the first person by a sixteen-year-old in England, the story starts in the Ordinary World, first thing in the morning (that old counter to “a dark and stormy night”—“one bright and sunny morning”) as his “super-smart” scientist brother is heading off to work. As he’s leaving, the brother has a fender-bender with another car at the end of the driveway, and the zombie action begins.

This is typical of zombie stories (and many other stories as well). A little glimpse into the life of the narrator or main character—who usually has, as he does here, a penchant for video games and is not all that ambitious—and suddenly there… are… zombies!

Here’s where Beginning of the End differs from typical zombie stories and therefore shines quite bright. As the narrator watches the Army arrive, neighbors turn in zombies, and loses everything he’s ever known in the course of a single morning, he does not somehow become a superhero with knowledge of Special Forces tactics, the use of assault weapons, and a constitution that allows wound after wound without real consequences. Yes, he has experience with video games, but he has trouble making decisions, proceeds with more than a little fear, and even has trouble driving a car.

This is a major switch-up in this genre, and it makes Stevens’s narrator/hero endearing and engaging. As he moves through his neighborhood (which is in a tiny town instead of in some metropolis and/or farmland where things get all Stephen King’s The Stand in a heartbeat), which has become a combat zone, he loads up on candy bars and tries to puzzle out the cause of the zombie crisis.

Stevens also uses violence as a reality of the narrative and not as a replacement for story. Too many zombie novels and films play out like video games. There is depth here, as well as psychological complexity and, although it is reminiscent at times of The Stand and even Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (both of them far more than apocalyptic shoot-’em-up free-for-alls), Stevens’s story has the benefit of narration by a teenager without making it a YA novel.

What I like best about Beginning of the End is that there are hardly any zombies. Although I watched several seasons of The Walking Dead, I always defocused when the zombies entered the frame. After all, the living are the walking dead in a decent zombie story. They are the ones lamenting the absence of a father or the recently deceased mother, as does Stevens’s narrator. They are the ones whose life has just evaporated in the blink of an eye.

This is not to say Beginning of the End isn’t action oriented—it is. And, as the action unfolds, it is impressively paced and very real. How often during a zombie novel or film can we honestly say, “That’s exactly what I’d do!” and have it be more than an empty, over-excited boast. Even when the narrator gets hold of a gun and uses it, there is no sense of the hero. Only of survival.

A recurrent word in the novel is “Run!,” which really brings the narrator’s reality home. Rather than stand in the street blasting away, or just rolling over and resigning yourself to death (which a considerable percentage of people might choose to do in an apocalypse), you can buy yourself some time and hope the situation changes in your favor.

GJ Stevens has proven to this reviewer that, when done right, zombie stories can have merit. If you read Beginning of the End and agree, then there are three full-length novels in this series for you to explore as well. A good place to start is emailing the author to get on his mailing list, where he offers free novellas, like this one.