Permuted Press has a lot invested in the end of the world! J.L. Bourne’s DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON gives the small publisher instant street cred, but sacrifices some crucial entertainment value necessary to make it a success.
Someone wittier than me once wrote that Nebraska is living proof that Hell is full and the dead walk the earth. If so, I want Bourne in the foxhole with me when they come staggering with their cold, dead hands. He makes Chuck Norris look like a pansy ass. This is what I’ve been able to determine about Mr. Bourne: He’s active-duty military — whereabouts unknown, but probably in the deserts of the world, destroying evil in a fashion that would make Remo Williams weep. In the morning, after a hard night of partying, when it comes to zombies, Bourne doesn’t throw up — he throws down.
And he writes.
It’s a good thing, but not so sure it’s his MOS (note: complex military in-joke that Bourne, probably out stalking the global forces of terror even as I write, will understand — no bravo sierra). Bourne has heard a calling. And that calling is the trumpets of Armageddon.
It’s the day after Dead Day, zombies encroaching, and our unnamed protagonist — an unnamed soldier I’ve nicknamed Bourne — is making his last stand. He’s a professional fighter, our man, and improvises, adapts, overcomes. No, he doesn’t go to the shopping mall and steal shit. Our man keeps it real, and uses his head like he was trained, finding an airplane and hooking up with a band of survivors. Together, they make their way in a world gone mad. If the zombies weren’t bad enough, there’s possible nuclear attack as the government rushes to irradiate the undead menace.
The limitations on apocalypse fiction are trying to keep it fresh after you end the world. DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON is told in journal entry, and what I found novel becomes a restriction after the first 50 pages. Lacking the emotion and depth of deeper characterization of anyone other than the narrator, we’re stuck with him and a deadened pace on par with his attackers.
That’s not to say the book doesn’t have its moments, and Bourne stuffs his journal with maps, handwritten text and pictures. The photographs reminded me of a photo novella, with extra cheese, but the diagrams and maps eventually gave it an arty feel that helped when the pacing slowed.
Zombie enthusiasts and government paranoia culminate in a battle for the ages that Bourne would have done a better service writing as a novel, but bravo to him. He makes it work and miraculously avoids the high camp that inevitably follows when a writer puts live-action shots of himself in the work. —Matt Adder
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i thought it was a decent read, though the whole “zombies as a metaphor for the apocalypse” trend is getting old. my biggest problem is……
*spoiler*
….that the main character, pimping his military training throughout the entire book turns into a big crybaby when he has to kill a few people who are trying to kill him