Review: Z by Michael Thomas Ford

Josh is a good teenager. He usually listens to his parents, does well in school, and never skips out on Family Night. The worse offense he commits on a regular basis is passively tormenting his little sister. That is, it’s the only real offense his parents know about. He would never admit it to them, but Josh is hooked on the latest internet video game: a virtual reality zombie hunting MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

And he’s good—so good he’s been asked to meet Charlie, the game’s best player to date. It’s an invitation his parents would balk at, that anyone alive who remembers the zombie wars would find vulgar and disrespectful. What harm could it do to engage in a real life zombie hunt simulation war game? The zombies aren’t even real.

When dealing with archetypes that have been used and reused for decades across several different mediums, it can be daunting trying not adding to the exhaustive catalogue of “what’s been done before.” Discovering novelty and then relating it to an audience becomes a Herculean task. While I admire the mechanic of Michael Thomas Ford’s plot engine, his zombies didn’t do anything new. I don’t suppose they were meant to, though.

The unnamed zombie game, which gets Josh into trouble with his sister, his parents, his best friend, and his conscience, is the fundamental driving force behind practically everything in this book. While the game wouldn’t exist in its current state without the zombie wars to provide a model, the tragedy is long past and fresh only to a generation removed from Josh by age and experience. And that’s the key: if you didn’t live the zombie wars, you have no idea. As readers, we are left mostly in the dark with curriculum approved by state education boards elucidating the wars in a few sobering sentences, a brief in-class discussion and a grave insinuation to never forget to have your yearly flu shot.

What I mean by this is that while the wars are pertinent, they are not urgent—not nearly as urgent as the shock of discovering the truth behind Clatter’s “animatronic” zombies and the mysterious hallucinogenic “z.” Josh’s addiction and pure love of the game pumps Z full of adrenaline and suspense, but only if you can believe such a good kid can devolve so quickly into a dabbler of drugs and passable liar who easily avoids his old friends for the new. That’s part of the conflict. The other part involves flamethrowers and those pesky in-game enemies: the meatbags.

The zombies aren’t technically dead, but parts of their brains are. Evolved from a new strain of the common flu, the zombie virus (so to speak), attacks parts of the brain and nourishes another—the R-complex or “reptilian brain.” These zombies aren’t technically dead—they never were. Their survival depends on the dehumanization of the host victim as their neocortex and limbic system break down over time. What’s left is a coagulating husk that shambles hungrily with senses keenly attuned to all things flesh and blood. In short: pretty much like every other mindless zombie we’ve seen before, but not being too well read on zombie lore, I think that’s the point.

It seems like readers are supposed to feel more for the compromising position Josh has been put in (I did) and that he’s placed his friends in. The strong sense of guilt and responsibility emanating from the very end of the story is arresting in it’s warning: be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. There is, of course, plenty of room for a sequel. Without one, Z doesn’t quite deliver to its full potential.

Don’t get me wrong—there was something alluring about the game-to-real-life extrapolation of events. Ford definitely takes an interesting approach to the secondary reality video games (and MMORPGs in particular) provide, sometimes at the expense of loved ones and other responsibilities. I like that Josh and Firecracker took so easily to real flamethrowers and military-esque hunt formations, despite how unrealistically it represents the practical education of video games applied to real life scenarios (namely, we assume the game accurately simulated flamethrowers), especially since I felt the shock of reality alone should have shaken them more. I liked it because it was so ridiculous, I had to take it in stride.

And I hope you do, too, if you choose to read this book. It’s a light action/horror thriller that’s heavy on the special effects and short on resolution. It’s also fast and incredibly accessible to read, even if some of the secondary characters aren’t terribly consequential (his parents, for one remain silent, gullible, and unobtrusive figures hovering ineffectively in the background; in YA that seems par for the course). If there is a sequel (and I kind of hope there is), I’ll be curious to read it myself. But for first-time zombie readers (albeit zombie video games and movies are so pervasive across age groups now), this will be a fun ride.