Tuesday, May 5, 2015

A Positive Start to the Beach Read Season

Positive – A Novel - David Wellington – (Harper Voyager)

Dystopian post-apocalyptic world…check.

Quarantined walled city…check.

Potentially infected types cast out to fend for themselves…check.

Road pirates willing to kill and take what they need to survive…check.

Zombies with an insatiable taste for human flesh and blood…check.

Take a heaping helping of the classic movie Escape from New York, add a dash of Walking Dead, a splash of Mad Max and a pinch of Zombieland and you’ve got a close approximation of David Wellington’s latest outing Positive.


Finn is a seemingly ordinary teenager, at least as ordinary as you can be when you live in a post-apocalyptic New York City and the biggest challenge you face is the daily pursuit of food. Creativity is the order of the day when it comes to that pursuit and setting traps in the flooded former Subway system leads to some interesting catches of the day. One such catch leads to all hell breaking loose and Finn discovering that his Mother is indeed infected and the really bad news is; he’s positive too!

Cast out into the wasteland outside the Big Apple, Finn has to be a fast learner when it comes to his own survival. Wellington takes what could be a predictable theme given the recent history of the genre and makes it into a page turner. If you look at the recipe cited above you’ll notice more cinematic references than not and that is the broad scope of Wellington’s writing style.

Is it War and Peace…no; but what zombie novel is? What it is, is an entertaining, quick read that could be the perfect first pitch of the beach read season, even if you need a hoodie for the visit to the sand.

 

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