Devolution

A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

De: Max Brooks

Narrado por: Judy Greer, Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Nathan Fillion, Mira Furlan, Terry Gross, Kimberly Guerrero, Kate Mulgrew, Kai Ryssdal, Steven Weber

The number one New York Times best-selling 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).

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 this audiobook, 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 heard 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)

The Cast:
Judy Greer as Kate Holland
Nathan Fillion as Frank McCray
Kimberly Guerrero as Josephine Schell

With
Jeff Daniels as Steve Morgan
Mira Furlan as Mostar
Kate Mulgrew as Hannah Reinhardt-Roth
Steven Weber as Tony Durant
and
Terry Gross and Kai Ryssdal as themselves
and
Max Brooks as the researcher

©2020 Max Brooks (P)2020 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"There’s a bowstring undercurrent running through the whole of Max Brooks’s newest that’s liable to snap a reader in half. Characters so real you could name them from your own life, even as you call for them to run for cover. Max Brooks has written the next great epistolary novel. Devolution is phenomenal.” (Josh Malerman, New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box and Malorie)

“A masterful blend of laugh-out-loud social satire and stuff-your-fist-in-your-mouth horror. One elevates the other, making the book, and its message, all the more relevant.” (David Sedaris, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Calypso)

"I wish we could elevate the national dialogue on public safety to a level of tone and focus that Max Brooks has demonstrated for all of us.” (Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and first secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security)

Thrilling

Absolutely an amazing ride from start to finish. this tale is fantastical yet has scientific elements that make the story believable. Especially if you have ever believed that Bigfoot might be put there!

People suck

I can't believe how many reviews say don't read it just because of a woman's voice. Grow up. This book is fantastic. An amazing story about a group of very different people some how surviving in this super unique "eco friendly" situation, and then you throw in Bigfoot, and it works!?!? This book is so good it makes Bigfoot interesting.

Cryptid Horror at its Finest

I can understand why some people would find this text to be a slow start. But to me, its crucial for the entirety of the piece. Max Brooks expertly sets up every character like a domino before the inevitable moment that the chain reaction of events leaves them in freefall showing them in all their humanity scrambling against both natural disaster and supernatural disaster. The Bigfoot side of the story is well-researched, and while it resorts with the Gigantopithicus angle, it is well-rounded and researched in terms of both native folklore, coverage on subject, the pop-culture movies about it (I know every movie mentioned from that Fangoria article) and the larger than life personalities surrounding it while adding its own distinct twist making the troop of wood devils a terrifying yet relatable force that forces a hard-mirror onto human society itself and the nature of violence and survival. I'd have preferred a bit more from it on the folklore and native people's side of it, but that's my purely personal preference. For a grounded take on Sasquatch its terrifying and well-rounded. The characters you meet in the beginning of the story are not the same ones you meet by the end of the story as their facade's, upbringing and faces all crumble around them leaving their true natures shine through. As such the slow opening is crucial so you get that coin-flip/night and day impact you receive as the dominos start to fall. This is peak Millennial Horror too, the characters feel as pretentious as any I met in college but yet human enough to relate with them. A far cry from other attempts to turn Millennial's into the new 'sex crazed teens' of a slasher movie by out of touch movie directors. As someone struggling with immense introversion and social disorders, I felt at times 'called out' by the portrayal of the main characters, which worked very well to its advantage in making emphasize with them and seeing my own faults within them and thinking how I'd make or break in that situation, something all good Horror should do. (Spoilers going forward) Every character is human and through our protagonists sheltered millennial mindset we see her perceptions skew from seeing her introverted/perpetually depressed and emasculated by society husband shift into the intelligent, cunning, active problem solver he always was but due to societal expectations and tech-culture pigeon-holed himself into a state we found him in the beginning. Whereas the confidant "alpha male" tech-start up guru and his hot foreign highly educated wife that our main is envious of fall inward in on themselves when the society they propped themselves up and benefited from for so long no longer mattering. As our own socially distraught perpetually appeasing main protagonist burns away all her societal preconceptions going from Bay-Area Yuffie to Burt Gummer from Tremors over the course of the story. Likewise the commentary on human society, not just millennial culture, but American society in general is very poignant in a post-Covid-19, post George-Floyd, Post-Trump world and the scariest thing about the book isn't the monsters, its the fact that the lead up to the tragedy is very, very real. "They" as in the powers that be, aren't gonna save you when things hits the fan. "They" are just as backwards, negligent and incompetent as any Walmart manager in a rural town. And Mt. Rainer's eruption in the start of the story, is a perfect metaphor for that, as our government, CLEARLY, now shows: they cannot handle a natural disaster and more pressingly, all the hoards of maskless, rallying people demanding their haircuts likewise will make matters worse for those most in need. However, "everyman for himself" is not the core message. Pressingly, community and solidarity is the strongest message of the book. If everyone communicated fully and had an organized system and respect from the start, things might have went differently. If they were nearly as efficient and on point as the group was in the end, things could have went differently. Every step forward they took got me rooting for them, thinking and hoping they can make it out alright. But writing was on the wall from the start. As such it was just a single steady march to tragedy that could have all been avoided if the leadership was strong, if everyone else wasn't so self-centered, and more importantly if everyone looked after each other. This book is a damning indictment of American society in general, not just the tech-bubble yuffies in their isolated safe spaces but the people clogging the phone lines, the people taking potshot at government helicoptors with a sniper rifle, the people spreading conspiracies and paranoia about Yellowstone going or the riots in Seattle, or the complete unwilling prideful incompetence of those currently in power stripping funding from critical venues. I doubt the situation of the book would have changed if it had been say a bunch of isolationist militias in the woods with AR15's, probably would have instigated and lead to group-infighting as the power-trip such things give would cause ego's to flare up, break into inter-factionality and likewise instigate the situation with the unseen entities of the woods given the intent and theme of the book. So this book isn't an indictment to 'trigger the libs' but rather take a good, hard look at the Devolution of human society and all those pointless ideologies we cling too. Primalism, Veganism, Conservativism, Liberalism... Nature cares little. As such we are left back to rely on the thing that allowed humanity to survive so long. Not intelligence, cunning, or naturalism. But our empathy and compassion for our fellow man and our drive for community. Dividing ourselves is fruitless, uniting is key to survival when the worst comes to worst. And that, in this day and age, is poignant. It also so happens to be a damn good Sasquatch story.

Very good performances

I found this very well voice acted, anchored by a strong performance from Judy Greer.

A lot of the reviews of this book are very negative about Judy Greer's performance, which is a shame because it is a well done performance. One shouldn't confuse character with actor, she is performing the character well, the character starts off as an anxious whiner and grows throughout. But if you hate the sound of women's voices, I guess you should be forewarned.

The story itself feels schlocky, but I feel like that was part of Brooks' goal. It is a horror novel, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. I did appreciate the Mostar character, and I appreciated that the main character was too self centered to ask about her past. I also appreciated the criticism of urbanites who claim to love nature without understanding it. The book doesn't take itself too seriously, but Brooks gets some good cultural observation jabs in.

edge of my seat

loved loved this story and I hope there is another one. I was not disappointed with this book.

Can't stop listening until the end. Great book.

loved it. Would love to find more like this book. Told as a story should be told. Exciting , don't want to go camping anymore.

the books are a wonder, the movies are less so.

when max Brooks writes books like this one you have to restrain yourself from looking on line to see if it's true

Awesome!!!

Perfect blend of horror and survival, relatable characters and descriptive settings, gripping from the start!!

It’s not as bad as everyone says

I almost didn’t get this audiobook because of all of the bad reviews I saw but I’m glad I disregarded them. All the reviewers saying the lead character’s voice was whiny and she sounded like some valley girl... well she WAS a valley girl! The lady writing in the journal had just moved from LA, and suffered from OCD with social anxiety! The journal she was writing in was initially being addressed to her therapist! Of course she sounded whiny! That was the character she was portraying. But even that gets better as the story goes on. This story is not World War Z. It is it’s own story and shouldn’t be compared to the other. I really enjoyed this book. I liked WWZ better of course, but that doesn’t mean this one wasn’t a great read that kept me entertained until the end. The other characters in the “village” were definitely naive and did some stupid cringy stuff. But again, they were supposed to be as typical ppl in reality that are city dwelling vegans all their lives would most likely react the same way when interacting with nature.
So, in closing, I definitely recommend this audiobook. Try it out for yourself and judge it on its own merits instead of comparing it to previous works.

Fun book but not as good as world war z

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I found the main narrator very annoying. Especially during the first two chapters of the book. She got better. However, I wish I had read this instead of listening to it.
Brooks is great at telling a story through multiple narrators with different voices. And the story was well research. But it wasn’t as good as world war z. It was engaging. But a little preachy on reliance on technology