Post by BloodyMonkeyZ on Jul 12, 2013 13:54:27 GMT -6
"Forget the cud, they want blood. . . "
With a tagline like that boldly emblazoned across the cover, you know this book is going to take you on a journey the likes of which you have never been on before.
There are several main characters in the book. Geldof is a teen whose parents are massive hippy vegans. He wants nothing more than to eat a hamburger or something with meat in it. So much so that he has conflicting fantasies between teen lust for the hot math oriented mom living next door (Mary) and eating a sausage link. The neighbor Mary is another fairly important character beyond simply being the object of Geldof's lust (although isn't that enough?) Then we have Lesley, a would be reporter whose aspirations rise well beyond her means, until she gets thrust elbows deep into a zombie cow outbreak and has all the important newsworthy bits handed to her on a silver plate. And we can't forget Terry. He is at the center of the ground zero moment in this novel.
And yes, there is a ground zero moment. A specific point where a government agency has put the country in jeopardy by turning the tables on a slaughterhouse when their tailor made virus runs amok turning the animals into killers. Terry is the only survivor of the outbreak. He witnessed the cows turning feral and attacking and not being able to be killed. The government though, manages to get ahold of Terry and plan to do no less than milk him for all the information they can and then kill him to cover their tracks. But the agents who went to clean up ground zero inadvertently allowed a lone cow to escape.
With the virus on the loose, it seems pointless to continue trying to cover their tracks, but when did logic ever slow down the actions of government?
Something I liked about this was the idea that animals were susceptible to the virus (although in this story they were the target of the virus.) Too many zombie stories ignore the idea of animals being infected. But the flip side of that in this story is that the humans are NOT able to be infected. The virus was designed only for animal transmission. It just seemed like a slightly odd thing to do a zombie story where there was no way for human zombies.
This book has the distinction of having won the first Terry Pratchett Prize. For those not familiar with Terry Pratchett, he has a very tongue in cheek style of storytelling.
While some parts of this book don't live up to the potential I imagined, I still enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps I had too high of expectations for a zombie cow book called Apocalypse Cow. Regardless, it deserves and gets 4 stars from me.
From the moment I first opened the package containing this novel, I was just praying that it would be good enough to let me say "Apocalypse Cow? Apocalypse WOW!" That is a line from the Tick live action tv series. There is a super villain in that series named Apocalypse Cow. Never seen on screen, but it was a great moment in the show. The idea there was a modification of the Tick comic character Man-Eating Cow. Which is exactly what it sounds like, and is wholly appropriate to reference when discussing a novel about zombie cows eating people. There was one other reference running through my head as I read this book. A game called Diablo 2. There is a secret level in the game called the Cow level. I am including a link to a video of it. Sometimes I slip into evil cow mode and just randomly begin saying "Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo." in various ominous tones. youtu.be/_RcjC0tAiss
With a tagline like that boldly emblazoned across the cover, you know this book is going to take you on a journey the likes of which you have never been on before.
There are several main characters in the book. Geldof is a teen whose parents are massive hippy vegans. He wants nothing more than to eat a hamburger or something with meat in it. So much so that he has conflicting fantasies between teen lust for the hot math oriented mom living next door (Mary) and eating a sausage link. The neighbor Mary is another fairly important character beyond simply being the object of Geldof's lust (although isn't that enough?) Then we have Lesley, a would be reporter whose aspirations rise well beyond her means, until she gets thrust elbows deep into a zombie cow outbreak and has all the important newsworthy bits handed to her on a silver plate. And we can't forget Terry. He is at the center of the ground zero moment in this novel.
And yes, there is a ground zero moment. A specific point where a government agency has put the country in jeopardy by turning the tables on a slaughterhouse when their tailor made virus runs amok turning the animals into killers. Terry is the only survivor of the outbreak. He witnessed the cows turning feral and attacking and not being able to be killed. The government though, manages to get ahold of Terry and plan to do no less than milk him for all the information they can and then kill him to cover their tracks. But the agents who went to clean up ground zero inadvertently allowed a lone cow to escape.
With the virus on the loose, it seems pointless to continue trying to cover their tracks, but when did logic ever slow down the actions of government?
Something I liked about this was the idea that animals were susceptible to the virus (although in this story they were the target of the virus.) Too many zombie stories ignore the idea of animals being infected. But the flip side of that in this story is that the humans are NOT able to be infected. The virus was designed only for animal transmission. It just seemed like a slightly odd thing to do a zombie story where there was no way for human zombies.
This book has the distinction of having won the first Terry Pratchett Prize. For those not familiar with Terry Pratchett, he has a very tongue in cheek style of storytelling.
While some parts of this book don't live up to the potential I imagined, I still enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps I had too high of expectations for a zombie cow book called Apocalypse Cow. Regardless, it deserves and gets 4 stars from me.
From the moment I first opened the package containing this novel, I was just praying that it would be good enough to let me say "Apocalypse Cow? Apocalypse WOW!" That is a line from the Tick live action tv series. There is a super villain in that series named Apocalypse Cow. Never seen on screen, but it was a great moment in the show. The idea there was a modification of the Tick comic character Man-Eating Cow. Which is exactly what it sounds like, and is wholly appropriate to reference when discussing a novel about zombie cows eating people. There was one other reference running through my head as I read this book. A game called Diablo 2. There is a secret level in the game called the Cow level. I am including a link to a video of it. Sometimes I slip into evil cow mode and just randomly begin saying "Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo." in various ominous tones. youtu.be/_RcjC0tAiss
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