Friday
Sep102010
Biohazard by Tim Curran - A Post-Apocalyptic Gore-Fest
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 10:31AM
Let's start with this:
"He dug into the mess, letting limbs and bones and globs of offal fly... Then he happened upon a head. The head of a teenage girl. The face was nothing but fungus and corpse jelly oozing from the white skull beneath... It hit the pavement like a moist, soft pumpkin and broke right apart at his feet... wriggling in the human carnage of bone and limb... Misshapen like deformed fetuses, they wormed through the cadavers and skinless husks like maggots in pork."
Offended? Disgusted? Grossed out? If so, you don't want to read this book, but if you're still with me, then Biohazard, by Tim Curran, might be your kind of story.
It starts with Rick Nash, survivor of the bombs, nuclear winter, and plagues that wrack the country, as he realizes enough is enough, and decides to join his dead wife. But with the knife on his wrist, he hears a voice in his head, and makes a deal with The Shape, a mystical being described as "a ravenous evil born from the furnace of radioactive waste."
The deal offers protection and prompts him westward, while compelling him to choose a human sacrifice at each full moon. Joined by a small group of companions, Nash sets off on a trip across blasted landscapes inhabited by hellish creatures, all the while pursued by an even more enigmatic force that haunts their dreams.
Biohazard isn't going to go down in the annals of post-apocalyptic literature as an all time great, but it represents it's particular sub-genre well. It has more putrescence, rot, slime, mucus and ulcerated flesh than any book I've ever read. Horrible misshapen creatures, scabs, trogs, and mutants abound. There's plague, blood rains, radiation sickness and more bands of cannibalistic crazies than you can shake a disembodied femur at.
It's not the kind of story where a strong plot matters, but there's a good arc and a logical conclusion. There are several entertaining characters, a few who even show some development, but really, the main draw of the book is the outlandishness of its descriptions. The grotesquery is so over the top, I kept rooting for Curran to push the envelope even further, and even laughed out loud a few times at the extent of his depravity.
If you've got a weak stomach, I'd advise you to stay away, far, far away. But if you're in the mood for a post-apocalypse chock full of crawling, squirming things and clouds of corpse gas, then Biohazard might be the right choice for you.
"He dug into the mess, letting limbs and bones and globs of offal fly... Then he happened upon a head. The head of a teenage girl. The face was nothing but fungus and corpse jelly oozing from the white skull beneath... It hit the pavement like a moist, soft pumpkin and broke right apart at his feet... wriggling in the human carnage of bone and limb... Misshapen like deformed fetuses, they wormed through the cadavers and skinless husks like maggots in pork."
Offended? Disgusted? Grossed out? If so, you don't want to read this book, but if you're still with me, then Biohazard, by Tim Curran, might be your kind of story.
It starts with Rick Nash, survivor of the bombs, nuclear winter, and plagues that wrack the country, as he realizes enough is enough, and decides to join his dead wife. But with the knife on his wrist, he hears a voice in his head, and makes a deal with The Shape, a mystical being described as "a ravenous evil born from the furnace of radioactive waste."
The deal offers protection and prompts him westward, while compelling him to choose a human sacrifice at each full moon. Joined by a small group of companions, Nash sets off on a trip across blasted landscapes inhabited by hellish creatures, all the while pursued by an even more enigmatic force that haunts their dreams.
Biohazard isn't going to go down in the annals of post-apocalyptic literature as an all time great, but it represents it's particular sub-genre well. It has more putrescence, rot, slime, mucus and ulcerated flesh than any book I've ever read. Horrible misshapen creatures, scabs, trogs, and mutants abound. There's plague, blood rains, radiation sickness and more bands of cannibalistic crazies than you can shake a disembodied femur at.
It's not the kind of story where a strong plot matters, but there's a good arc and a logical conclusion. There are several entertaining characters, a few who even show some development, but really, the main draw of the book is the outlandishness of its descriptions. The grotesquery is so over the top, I kept rooting for Curran to push the envelope even further, and even laughed out loud a few times at the extent of his depravity.
If you've got a weak stomach, I'd advise you to stay away, far, far away. But if you're in the mood for a post-apocalypse chock full of crawling, squirming things and clouds of corpse gas, then Biohazard might be the right choice for you.
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