Devolution

[Scott]

"Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre". I've been waiting for this book a long time, and it finally came out. It's by Max Brooks. I've liked everything else of his I've read so far, and I'm such a Sasquatch fan, I was sold as soon as I saw the first promo.
Publisher's Summary:
"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."

I've just started it. It's got that found diary/journal/etc. trope going, but I'm rolling with it.

[GRWelsh]

I'll check it out. One of the biggest objections to bigfoot believers is that we never find any bones, so I'm wondering if a well-done fictional version will account for that. One of the wackier explanations I heard is that the bigfoot species is from another dimension, and they come through well-hidden dimensional gates in remote places. Okay, but what is the evidence for that other than us never finding their bones? In fiction, the idea of this other dimension is something that could be explored, with humans finding the a gate and going through it to the other world. That would be an idea. I'd also like to see a fiction writer address the question: if bigfoot exists, what is it exactly? Another species of man, like an offshoot of one of our ancestor species, or an addition to the great apes, or what? With DNA testing at the level it is now, it should be easy to pinpoint how these things are related, if a sample can be acquired.

[grodog]

Jun 19, 2020 7:53:53 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

I'll check it out. One of the biggest objections to bigfoot believers is that we never find any bones, so I'm wondering if a well-done fictional version will account for that. One of the wackier explanations I heard is that the bigfoot species is from another dimension, and they come through well-hidden dimensional gates in remote places. Okay, but what is the evidence for that other than us never finding their bones? In fiction, the idea of this other dimension is something that could be explored, with humans finding the a gate and going through it to the other world. That would be an idea.

That's not similar to the version of the Sasquatch Tony and I published in TTS#1, Gary

I'm not familiar with Max Brooks' writings---what else has he done that you like, Scott?

Allan.

[Scott]

Max Brooks, who is Mel Brooks' son wrote the Zombie Survival Guide and Work War Z (the book was much better than the movie). He wrote a good Minecraft based kids book. He's done a few comics/graphic novels I'd like to check out.
I participated in a Zoom discussion he did last night. He researches like Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton. I haven't gotten very far into the book, but he said he worked from the starting point of 'What if Bigfoot was real ?', avoided any metaphysical elements, and built the story around points that science could support or not rule out.

[GRWelsh]

I'm still waiting for a father-son collaboration such as "World War Z: the musical."

[Scott]

Somebody asked about that at the Zoom meeting last night. He said he’s not a comedian, his dad’s not a novelist, so the social distancing PSA is probably the closest thing to a collaboration you’ll see.