Apocalypse Yesterday

July 15, 2020
Having won the war on zombies, a former customer service rep searches for meaning, a quest that leads him to...more zombies. The zombie apocalypse has come and gone, and Rip and a few straggler friends have come out alive. But what's next when you know you can survive the end of the world? Rip finds himself back at his customer service job, writing bullshit excuses for why people's Pringles are too crumbled, and the meaningless of it all, after he's faced life-and-death questions, is overwhelming. He aches to put Santana, his machete and closest companion, back into action. Alternating chapters tell the story of "Back Then" and Rip's triumph in the four-month zombie war, his ragtag mini-army camping in the safety of a water park and finding purpose by trading stories of zombie kills. When Rip runs into formerly powerful and captivating warrior woman Davia in straitlaced business attire, he starts to wonder if the past wasn't somehow better. He hatches a plan with veteran pilot Duck Duck to restore meaning to life by releasing zombies into the world again. Rip's best friend, Rodney, is skeptical, not just because he knows that as the Black guy, he's likely to die first, but because, man, it's zombies. Plus, Duck Duck seems a little off, and not just because he's a guy with a plan to loose zombies on humanity. But Rip can't resist the draw of his heroic self and a zombie war of his own making. What could go wrong? Unintentionally prescient, a tale of losing and finding oneself at the end of the world.

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August 3, 2020
Adams (Ember) misfires with this satirical thriller in which a disease has transformed people into the walking dead. Rip, a customer service representative for an online retailer, fights the zombie menace with the help of a machete he’s named Santana, but his battles for survival are dull. Adams doesn’t make buy-in easy with silly scenes featuring celebrities, such as the one in which Jack Nicholson arrives at the Oscars to receive “the Academy Honorary Award” and tears out Ryan Seacrest’s throat. The on-screen death-by-zombie of CNN host Anderson Cooper, who continues to speak as his limbs are torn off, adds to the book’s cartoonish flavor. And the portrayal of President Donald Trump’s response to the crisis (“The people working on this, you wouldn’t believe. Just the best people”), paralleling his administration’s response to Covid-19, comes across as heavy-handed. The gory violence becomes tedious, and none of the carnage, such as the destruction of the zombie-infested island of Jamaica by nuclear weapons, makes an emotional impact. No doubt there will be a good zombie parody that effectively satirizes the current moment, but this isn’t it. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.