Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Part 1 - Manel Loureiro - Zombie Horror Book - Apocalyptic Book

In this episode of the Side Quest podcast, Slava and Jonathan delve into the survival horror novel 'Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End' by Manel Llorriero. They discuss the author's background and the book's journey from blog to bestseller. The conversation includes character goals and a critical reflection on the protagonist's development throughout the story.

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(00:00) Intro
(01:27) Exploring Apocalypse Z: Overview and Themes
(02:28) Author Spotlight: Manel Llorriero
(04:59) The Journey of Apocalypse Z: From Blog to Bestseller
(11:44) Plot Summary and Character Goals
(20:23) Rants and Reflections on Character Development
(25:02) The Challenge of Journal Entry Storytelling
(38:05) Exploring Themes in the Apocalypse
(48:24) Comparing Horror and Zombie Genres

Creators and Guests

Host

Jonathan

Host

Slava

What is The Side Quest Book Club Podcast?

Join Slava and Jonathan as they discuss the books they are reading. Explore world-building, characters, and story development—and share some laughs along the way. Side Quest Book Club — a literary adventure podcast.

Jonathan (00:12.782)
Good afternoon and good night, wherever you're tuning in. We are Slava and Jonathan, bringing you the SideQuest podcast, where we talk about character development, stories, and all things that are world building. And we occasionally take SideQuests, because frankly, that's how conversations work. Just as a reminder, this whole show is spoiler heavy. So sit back, tune in, and join us on this episode of SideQuest.

Jonathan (00:46.574)
Good morning, Slava.

Good morning, Jonathan.

Have you survived the zombie apocalypse?

I have. I have. Thankfully, our government has been fully transparent with what happened. I am barricaded in my house with food supplies, cache of weapons.

unlike our protagonist you have a cache of weapons that's good.

Slava (01:07.97)
Yeah, I also don't have any qualms about murdering mindless dead creatures essentially that are coming over my defense in my house. I'm not kind of the morality of killing zombies.

Mmm, mhm.

Jonathan (01:21.784)
That makes one of you anyway, before we dive in, what are we reading today?

We are reading Apocalypse Z The Beginning of the End by Manel Llorriero. We have not read this before. This was suggested to us by a listener on the same thread that the girl with all the gifts was suggested by Insta user NotSure2099. And our book as told to us by Wikipedia is a gripping survival horror story told through a journal format, a blog entry format, really. A Spanish lawyer.

chronicles the slow fall of society as an unknown virus turns the dead into relentless monsters.

Perfect. This is a two-episode structure where we'll explore the origins of Apocalypse, break down some of the themes of survival and isolation, talk about our rants regarding the book, and hopefully dive into some thoughts about zombie books. The first episode here, we'll talk about the author, the overview, and some themes. And the second book, we'll do a deep dive into the plot as it's chunked up in two chapters. So Slava, over to you to tell us more about the author.

Manel Llorriero. Born on December 30th, 1975 in Spain, he has established himself as one of the most recognized Spanish authors in the genre. Apparently referred to as the Spanish Stephen King, he has built a reputation for crafting suspenseful, immersive narratives that keep readers on the edge of their seats. Llorriero's journey into literary fame is anything but conventional. Or so we're told. We've kind of seen this before in the books we've covered.

Slava (02:58.776)
Person has a career, decides to write, turns into a writer, career kicks off. He's a former lawyer, just like the protagonist. His passion for storytelling led him down a different path than law. Over the years, he has worked as a television presenter, screenwriter, and journalist, contributing to major Spanish publications such as ABC, El Mundo, and El Confidential. He's also regular contributor to Candela SER radio and the Spanish edition of J.Q. Magazine.

Despite this diverse career in media, it was his foray into fiction writing that brought him acclaim and his ability to blend horror, suspense and psychological depth has resonated with readers, earning him pretty devouted following.

Do you love books? Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review so that you never miss an episode.

So Slava, how did he get this idea? Where did this start from in Llorieros? I know you gave us kind of a history here. You gave us the fact that he was on a bunch of different news and I would call it pop culture shows. What surprised me, not that I know this person prior to reading his book, is the Spanish edition of GQ Magazine. I guess I never put too much thought into GQ that they have international versions of it.

But when you said that, I'm just thinking about like a bunch of Fabio style looking guys, open shirts, breezing in the wind on the Spanish sea.

Slava (04:30.25)
Yeah. As opposed to Brad Pitt, short haired Fabios on our side of the ocean. Exactly. So the blog that started it all, L'Orieros first novel, the one we're covering, Apocalypse Z, the beginning of the end or Apocalypses Zed or however Spanish people say Z, El Principio del Fin originally began as a blog.

correct correct just a little more tan basically

Slava (04:59.72)
His storytelling on this blog quickly attracted a loyal readership, leading to the book's official publication. Then the novel became a bestseller in multiple countries including Spain, Brazil and Italy and due to its popularity, Amazon Crossing released an English translation in 2012 and a Galatian edition followed in 2013. And then there's been film adaptation as well. And he began to expand

Apocalypse Z World, following the success of this debut, we also have Apocalypse Z, The Dark Days, Los Dias Oscuros in 2010, Apocalypse Z, The Wrath of the Just, La Ira de los Justos in 2011, both sequels were translated into English, Italian and Portuguese, and Dark Days was also released in Galatia in 2014, and this trilogy is already

mentioned follows the terrifying journey of survival in a post apocalyptic world overrun by the undead and a lens fast paced action psychological death we'll discuss that and suspense

Don't hold back your thoughts in the tone of your voice. Was it that obvious? We'll discuss that. what can you tell me and the readers, the readers, can you tell me and the listeners, what is the Galatian edition? What I've literally never heard of that before.

I just looked up Galatian and it's an autonomous community of Galatia, an autonomous community of Spain.

Jonathan (06:29.687)
Jonathan (06:34.2)
What does that even mean? Are they like exempt from the Spanish... Hi... bourgeoisie government?

I don't know. You know, this is one of the things I did in research. And as much research as I do, I just never thought that this would be a question you'd ask me.

Yeah, I ask a question. If you don't know by episode, I was just like 113 or something like that. If you don't know now that I ask questions about the obscure side comment details, then you haven't been paying attention.

Well, here's what Wikipedia says for us and for the listeners. Modern Galatia is classified as part of the Western Iberian Languages Group, a family of Roman languages. Galatian, also known as Galego, I would imagine Galego, is a Western Iberia Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, and it's part of Southwestern Spain.

Huh, okay. So it's a, basically part of the summary is just stating that it's also translated into this other language. How close, this is my last question and then, and then I'll ask you a real question that's related to the show side quest. How close is Galatian language to Spanish?

Slava (07:53.582)
pretty close as close as Portuguese is. Okay. It evolved from Latin, Bulgar Latin. Modern scholars call it Galatian Portuguese. Apparently the earliest document written in Galatian dates back to 1230 AD.

resting.

Jonathan (08:10.284)
This pretty modern language is what you're telling me.

Modern, yeah, as far as languages go, it's not that old.

That joke didn't hit. Anyway, Slava,

Over my head went right over my head

Yeah, clearly my tone was not as clear as your psychological depth. We'll discuss that. If you had to survive a zombie apocalypse but could take three items from your current home, let's just call it your current home, not just like three random items that you could just pick and wish existed, what would they be? What would your three items be for your survival?

Slava (08:46.158)
Well, my first item would be my hunting rifle. Then I'd probably take my dog. And is my wife alive? I'll take my wife.

I don't think that she counts as an item, but I'll leave that for you two to discuss.

Well, then I would take my hunting sack and snacks, to sit in the woods and eat jerky and not die of starvation in the woods of my state, my hunting rifle and some, some clothes and change of clothes. Cause I'm imagining I have to leave in 30 minutes. What do I take? So a gun, food and some clothes.

yeah.

Yeah, I think it's just a given that like your dogs will go with you. Your wife will go with you. That scenario just seems normal to me. Like I would take that stuff. I don't own any guns. I do own some knives. So definitely my bag of knives. I'm definitely going to bring that. I'm similarly going to grab some clothes. I don't have a whole lot of, I don't have a lot of survival gear here, man. So I'm not going to make it very far. I don't have a bag of snacks.

Slava (09:54.894)
As long as your knives are big, fuck-off shiny ones, if you know you know, that's a call-out to a 90s movie, I think you'd be okay.

they're not. I mean, I don't have it on me. I was gonna pull it out for you and whip it into the camera. Well, that's what that's what Nightblood was supposed to be, but he's not sharp. So disappointing.

Nice letter opener.

Slava (10:19.31)
If you were really had knight blood, I'd be fine helpful

I'd be fine. You'd be fine. speaking of actually, I do own a katana and some other martial arts weapons. So I'm probably just going to grab my martial arts weapons bag as my third item. So two sets of weaponry and clothes. Although I'm not sure I would not sure I would leave because I don't know where I'd go.

and you live in a basement, it'll be fine.

I'm fine like protection wise, I'm not fine food wise. I go to the store for food. I don't know how to forage necessarily unless it's very clear like black raspberries or mulberries or something like that. Other plants or general herbs. I'm not killing a squirrel to eat it because I don't know how to do that. I clearly don't have a gun of any kind or even a pellet gun. So if the question was I could go to the store real quick, I'd buy a gun.

So you're saying you can't dress a deer.

Jonathan (11:15.382)
No, would put a nose that's red on its nose to make it a reindeer. No, I have no idea. done, well done. My jokes today are not great.

That one was actually good. That's a good nonsensical joke. That's a good dry joke. First one, I still don't get the first one, but second one hit.

Humoring me, I suppose. Anyway, give us a quick summary of the plot and the hook and the character goals.

The mysterious incident in Russia, buried in the news, serves as the only warning that civilization will soon be destroyed by a virus that turns humans into monsters. We meet up with our protagonist one year after the death of his wife. Our protagonist is a lawyer. Watch as the deadly virus spreads across Europe. The government attempts to suppress information about the outbreak, which transforms infected people into aggressive zombies. As humanity begins to fall, the lawyer

Still grieving the loss of his young wife, is writing journal entries or blog entries as a form of therapy. But he never expected that his anonymous blog would ultimately record humanity's last days. The end of the world has begun. Governments scramble to contain the zombie virus, panic ensues, and so-called safe havens are established while chaos engulfs the globe. Soon it becomes every man, woman, and child for themselves.

Slava (12:42.634)
Armed only with makeshift weapons and the will to survive, our protagonist emerges as a lone survivor, giving humanity maybe one last chance against the encroaching doom. When his family is evacuated, our protagonist attempts to join them, but the borders close before he can leave. As society collapses around him, he barricades himself in his home. Running low on supplies, he meets a neighbor who tells him about a radio message calling survivors

to an evacuation point. After a tense encounter, he realizes his neighbor has turned, the lawyer kills the neighbor and then leaves to escape alone except for his cat, Lukulo. I think I'm pronouncing that name right, but I forget. But him and his cat, and a rucksack, a makeshift weapon, a spear gun, and a 9mm he takes off a soldier, he makes his way to another safe haven.

Yep, he does.

So if we were to write a hook for this book, I think this is one way we could do it. Imagine waking up in a world that's collapsing, society is crumbling, power grids are failing, and the dead returning to life. Our book follows a Spanish lawyer who documents his struggle for survival in an abandoned world where the greatest danger may not be the undead, but the living. And I think that's just a given. You look at any zombie book, the greatest threats to people are the people themselves. So the question for us...

readers is will he adapt to this terrifying new reality because he sure has trouble adapting the first chapters or will the apocalypse claim him like so many others obviously least we have 70 journal articles or blog entries but the five key points for us is this mysterious virus that spreads uncontrollably across the globe will we find out what actually happened we have this protagonist document in the downfall will we know

Slava (14:36.296)
More than what he knows. Will we get a glimpse into the breadth of this event? If you will. I don't think we will either.

I don't think we will.

Jonathan (14:45.944)
Wait, no way to say that

Nope, nope, this is part of one of my complaints. As infrastructure crumbles, he fortifies his home, but soon realizes he must leave. And that's the second inciting incident where we have the world falling apart, him having to kill his neighbor, having to leave, him encountering survivors, navigating both zombies and the dangers of human desperation, a trope in zombie stories, and we will see. So we have character goals in this book.

The external goal here is to find safety and to survive our world overrun by the undead. internal goal is to overcome his fear and isolation, deal with his wife's death, forge a new life in this new apocalypse world, and the antagonists are the people around him. The other survivors, what are their goals? Probably control limited resources, maintain power over the weak survivors, over the zombies. Will they justify their extreme measures?

for survival at any cost.

So the protagonist, this lawyer, which seems like a, I mean, you write what you know, the author's a lawyer as well or was, but his internal external goals, his external goal is to find safety and survive, throwback to Slava when we read Girl with All the Gifts, and he's like, they're trying to survive you dummy. It's like, yes, I've got that in a world overrun by the undead. Cool. His internal goal, supposedly, is to overcome his fear and isolation to forge a new life in the apocalypse. His antagonist,

Jonathan (16:17.93)
is this New World Order and other survivors. Their external goal as the antagonist is to control the limited resources, maintain power over weaker survivors like himself. Sorry, not sorry. Their internal goal as the antagonist is to justify their extreme measures for survival at all costs. Now, in terms of a survival book, this one is not doing it for me. Before we dive into the ranting and the raving, didn't you have a side quest you wanted to run by me?

Do I ever? I think I already have the question answered for me just by a brief comment you made. But if you had to choose between staying barricaded in your home or setting out for a so-called safe space, which would you do and why?

Okay. So this is kind of building on, what I was starting to talk about just a little bit ago. That's tough for me because like I said, I don't really own a lot of guns. I'd probably leave. The question is like, whose, whose place would I go to that I believe would survive? Well, I probably have to just go to a friend's house that has a lot of guns and I have a couple of those, but they also have to be close enough that it makes sense. Thankfully I live in a place that has.

kind of a bit of country pretty nearby, which is kind of where they live. So I would, I would leave. I would not barricade because I just don't know to my own demise how I would have food, honestly, at least if we have guns and someone who knows how to dress a deer, like we could survive at least a bit longer, but who's to say.

pretty similar to me and if we're gonna set up hypotheticals I'll assume for this hypothetical that my wife and I have purchased a country home because that's one of our plans

Jonathan (17:58.39)
That's quite a hypothetical. So you don't think it's going to happen tomorrow? You know, three to five years maybe.

Something like that. Yeah, so our ultimate plan is to buy a second home somewhere in the mountains just to have a getaway. It's a very European, Russian, Ukrainian kind of thing to have what's called a dacha, which is pretty much a country home. My wife knows how to garden and I'm thinking right now, 28 days later in the end where the two main characters are in some English countryside in a home and they are, I forget exactly what happens and how the movie ends, but they're in a home in the country.

surviving off the land. have my hunting rifle. know how to hunt. I've never dressed a deer, but I know the steps to do it. I'm sure forced to survive. I would be just fine figuring that out. And then I know how to cook. So

The cooking you're going to be fine with it's the, like, and I know you hunt, so I guess my question is how familiar are you with foraging or knowing what parts of an animal you can eat? So like, if you had to start eating squirrel, well, your cooking probably is going to help out with that, but.

I know which parts of the animal to eat. You have to gut the animal, clean the animal, this is what's called dressing, clean the animal, gut the animal, skin it, trim the fat, and then cook the meat. And for a squirrel, I guess I can figure it out. But for a deer, that's easy. You which parts of it you you the meaty parts that are on the body and not, you know, like the hoofs or the brains.

Jonathan (19:28.014)
That's good, yes. That's very educational.

That's somewhat reductionistic, but if I was trying to explain it to a 10 year old, which parts of the deer do you eat? Well, don't eat the hoofs, don't eat the eyes, eat the meat of the deer. That would be my advice to a 10 year old trying to survive this.

You know a lot of 10 year olds who are trying to survive zombie apocalypses or just Melanie? Okay, yeah got it if you know you know

Just Melanie.

Slava (19:56.674)
Well, if you guys are enjoying today's SciQuest, be sure to drop us a rating and help spread the word about our Vult Podcast Team.

you

Jonathan (20:08.364)
Yes, please. Now we get to go on a little rant. All right. So before we get to the themes, let's talk through like how much you quote love and quote this book. Slava. Lay it to us straight.

I don't love this book.

Wow, we're all very shocked. Why?

Well, I'm not intrigued by the story. I don't like the journal format in a book. If this was an online thing, like it started out, and then I would just go back and read journal entries or blog entries, like creepy pasta stuff. I think that'd be cool because then I could let my imagination run with it. That was my response to you in the previous book, The Girl with All the Gifts. Well, just turn on your imagination.

and that will get you through the slump that you were feeling the first 37 chapters of The Girl with All the Gifts. Here, there is so little information that, yeah, sure, I can turn on my imagination and know enough about zombie genre and zombie stories. I can obviously fill in the gaps, but putting only journal articles or journal articles, goodness, putting only blog entries or journal entries

Slava (21:26.432)
into a book format just doesn't do it. doesn't build the world. The guy through whose eyes we're viewing this world in limited way, which is, said already a problem for me because it's too limited. also don't like the character. I find him too soft and weak and sure you could say, well, he's just a lawyer. He's going through a lot of stuff and he's thrown into this chaotic topsy turvy, you know, world where everything's falling apart.

There's people getting up from being dead and eating each other. Sure, not everybody is Sergeant Parks that can adapt well. He's not hardened by this world. He's just being thrown into it. I'm with you. I'm okay with taking a weak character and watching him grow into somebody who is a adapt survivalist in a zombie apocalypse. We can show me that and maybe by book two or three, we see that but

Even the way he responds to the immediate threats as he's thrust into them. I just don't like him. And it's not that, Oh, I'm so strong and I'm so good and I've had a harder life. So I'm better adapt. I'm not, I'm not saying that because I'm sure at least one listener would be like, well, great Slava. you up. I can beat you up. I'm not trying to be a fake tough guy here. I'm just saying his responses are weak. And that's not the problem because again, I can see a character.

growing and that would be a cool story to see somebody who's an absolute weakling turn into a hardened fighter in this world or a hardened survivalist. I just don't like him. He just seems too soft and like the stuff that he complains about and the stuff that he thinks is well, let me put it this way the stuff that he reacts to whether he's complaining or he's expressing shock. I'm like, I don't understand. I can't empathize or connect with him because I'm like you do realize that

Whatever this is, zombies or Ebola or it's a new version of the death plague. So whatever this is, I just find his reactions to his surroundings kind of meh. Maybe it's the way it's written. Maybe it's not even the content of what he says. It's just how it's presented. I don't know. I don't like his character both as the character and his character makeup. I would hate to be with him on this trip.

Slava (23:51.98)
wherever he's going in the boat or when he gets to the dock or just being his neighbor would be annoying, constant complaining and whining. But, look at the poor zombies. I'm barfing because I have to kill an undead. I don't see him surviving. That's the kind of guy that dies in first five minutes.

Yeah, I, I don't disagree with you. think part of the problem is that he has never had to survive. when you're a cushy lawyer, you've never had to dress an animal. You've never had to figure out how to survive by not going to the store. So his responses make sense to me, but I still don't like him as a character because of like his background. Also, can we just talk about the fact that he.

never once addresses that he has friends. I haven't seen him talk about friends at all. He talks about the neighbor that he like kind of talked to. He has a sister and like, not that there aren't people like this in the world, but you would think that he'd have at least one friend that he's like, my God, are you okay? You know, let's connect or hey, can I join you?

I didn't think about that, but that's absolutely right.

Now granted, one of the themes here is isolation, which we'll get into later, but I don't think that this did well as a book. Now that said, he's successful. So who are we to talk? Right? Like, and it started out as a blog. I honestly think that the reason that it did well is because it started out as a blog because these entries don't do it for me. Before we hit record, I was telling you about how I previously had written a story that was like journal entry-esque about a gal who lives in New York.

Jonathan (25:34.274)
And it's kind of like experiencing it for the first time. She's trying to be an actor or whatever. I lived in New York and I tried to experience it and I was in the film community. So I am familiar with that story. And I met a bunch of these people. And so I was like, how would this look through the eyes of a person who came from a small town, blah, blah, blah. I wrote something that I understood and had a perspective on. The feedback I got when I wrote this, and this is in college, this is like a decade, more than a decade ago with this, probably 15 years.

The feedback I got from the writing class was like, Hey, this story's like not engaging enough, but I was like hyped on it. I was like, no, I think this is like got something to it, whatever. But now as someone thinking back to reading it, journal entry storytelling, if it's just journal entries, that's rough, man. You don't get enough information. You're not like in the head of the person. And some people might kick back and go, well, you are because they're writing down their thoughts. It's like, nah, this guy's just doing news updates. Not, not specifically.

But that's how it feels, right? Like, here's what the king did. Here's the, with armies doing this, blah, blah. And so I'm going to say it. I just don't like this book. Like we'll finish it. We'll talk about it. I don't, I don't enjoy this book though. You know me, I like to push us both to have hard stances on these things. Hashtag city in the city. So thanks for the recommendation Insta user. I would guess or bet, I would bet that you probably found this when it was a serial release and it was being pushed out to the blog regularly. That's my guess.

and you got in on the hype, but I think the medium that it is where we're both kind of coming in blind, it's just not the right medium for us.

Yeah, I agree. And I know I've said this already, and I said this to you before we hit recording. If these journal articles were just journal articles, I keep saying journal articles, journal entries on a blog, creepy pasta style, beautiful piece of art, I would say. I like that kind of stuff. I like creepy pasta. like internet writing. I like stories that are off the beaten path. I've said that numerous times, and this would fit.

Slava (27:40.502)
and you know, albeit not all the way, but it would fit, you know, enough for me to be interested in reading these blog articles, because there'll be a setup. All right, I'm going into this. These are blog articles from the past, the future, a different world, where the world has fallen apart and are reading a guy's diary. Cool. I'll read it, consume it, enjoy it, move on. But this is a book, so it's completely different and a different approach is needed. If these journal articles were

in dispersed or dispersed through the book where we have the overarching story. What's going on in this world? It's happening in Spain. And then the book either quotes or gives us epigraphs like Sanderson does or like Stephen King did it with Mike's entries. Beautiful. I love it because then we have the world we're thrown into it. We have these characters and then this random lawyers blog posts.

give us an insight into what else is going on. It gives us more meat on the bone. gives us a different perspective. Maybe this guy's journal entries reveal something that the story is not telling us or is obfuscating on purpose to create tension. And we are going one way and then we read lawyer journal entry number 34. we're like, holy crap, the last two chapters, the guy that we thought was the good guy might be a bad guy.

Then, journal entries are great, but just a collection of journal entries in book form doesn't do it for me at all.

Yeah, it's just, it's not for me. And here's the thing. Let me just, let me just say this. Just because we rag on your favorite book, is not a commentary on your taste in books. It's just like, this one doesn't do it for us and here's why. You know, just as a caveat. I think that this literally would be better as a blog released serially. And it makes sense to me that this guy got big. That all makes sense to me, but in its format, again, as two people coming in blind, it's tough. and then another commentary, cause we're doing audio book.

Slava (29:31.095)
Absolutely.

Jonathan (29:46.19)
Slava earlier this week, she's like, do you want to hear Kvothe fight against the zombie apocalypse? Cause Nick Podell is the reader. That, that to me is funny.

What did I say the name of the virus quote quote fights them dead

Yes, something like that. Yeah.

And honestly, Spencer, you're winning me over to your side about not liking Nick Podell. Listening to him read this, all I could hear is quote. I'm like, I'm not mesmerized by this book. not, I'm like, I'm not hooked. And now I have quote. And so I'm imagining quote complaining as he was want to do in some of his stuff. And so I'm like, this is quote, happens to be a lawyer who happens to have more self identity issues.

and now he's also the soft guy there mourning his wife complaining about the neighbor making social commentary about the humanity and worth of zombies and granted he doesn't know there's zombies

Jonathan (30:46.946)
Yeah, he hasn't like admitted that to himself, I feel like. It almost feels like the assumption of the character is that he doesn't know what a zombie is. Right. That's almost kind of what it feels like.

If we're being generous and careful in how we approach the critique, let's just say this happens because every zombie story assumes that there's no such thing as zombies until they arrive in the story, right? It's not like Resident Evil or pick a video game or another zombie piece of media. Obviously, these are zombies. We have books on this and scientific knowledge. These are zombies. This is how we fight them. Each zombie story starts out with

It's a regular world. There's no such thing as zombies. All of a sudden something happens that turns people into zombies. And then they had to figure out what the hell this is. So I get that part of the story. But again, gets back to how he processed this stuff. It's not captivating for me. like, my gosh, stop. What are you doing, buddy?

think maybe the disconnect for me here is that being someone who's intelligent enough to become a lawyer, you have to start making connections. Like specifically in law, what were you doing on the 21st of December? that also lines up with the fact that you weren't at this place. It's that you were cheating on your wife, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, right? Like you have to make connections. Okay, it's a zombie book and yes, you don't want to admit it, but like make that part of the internal struggle. Like I don't want to admit that these are not people anymore, but.

I think even people who don't watch or read zombie movies know like, I know what a zombie is. Yeah. Right? Like, unless he was coming from a third world country, which he's not, the ability to suspend disbelief, to dive into the story here, it's just not, it's not there for me.

Slava (32:30.434)
You know what would be really cool? Let's go with that. Third world country, a very poor farmer, and here's the funny part about third world countries. They're connected to the internet.

Just pause for a second. I don't think I've ever heard a sillier statement. It's not untrue. The funny part about third world countries. Cool. Cool.

They are connected to the internet. think of them as completely disconnected from the world. Right. They might not have the infrastructure that we have. They might not have the economy that we have, but your average poor farmer, let's go with that, in a third world country, at least in Africa, this is something that I watched the documentary on about 10 years ago, where how in Africa you will have these metropolises and they're a little bit more

built up there like second world countries actually, but if you go outside of those metropolises, it really gets third world. But you'll have these folks in these parts of Africa that have cell phones are connected that they might not have the best Wi Fi, but they're connected to the internet somehow. Right. So I'm imagining, let's say a guy from Africa who has limited knowledge or no knowledge at all of a thing that is a zombie.

or the genre that is the zombie genre and his world starts falling apart and he starts writing emails to his family or he starts texting when he starts journaling what he sees what would somebody in that context think of zombies that would be interesting because that yeah but but to your point a guy who lives in the modern world who lives in a

Jonathan (34:07.942)
That's different story. Yeah, yeah.

Slava (34:16.555)
well-developed metropolis in a well-developed European country, who is a lawyer who is supposedly educated in rhetoric and logic. He can't put two and two together and say, there's something happening here that's more than just COVID light or a big old virus. I forget what he said. General entry 20. He's talking about how we should take care of these people and, you know, try to figure out what's going on.

Well, yes, on the surface that sounds great.

Let's back a little bit about that though. Like at journal entry 20, he's still in his house. He can still go to the store. Society still functions a little bit. It's like not close enough to him. So like there's still a belief like, oh, it's a general sickness. You brought up COVID and I will say it did have me the first, I don't know, we'll just call it 20, first 20 chapters, first 20 entries where I'm like, oh yeah, this kind of seems familiar because we all lived through something similar in 2020, like 2022-ish.

Right? was like, yeah, I remember something similar. He was just kind of like middle of the road, kind of gray, gray water, muddy water. Cause he wasn't like taking a side of like, this is ridiculous. We shouldn't be shutting the world down. And he didn't take like, man, we really got to help these people. He was just like, I wonder what's going on. He was confused. Not even like true confusion though. He was just like, he didn't take a stance on what was going on in the world.

But he'd watch it every day. bought the, the radio to listen in eventually in like 25 or 30. And he was just kind of like pseudo in denial. And I say pseudo in denial because he wasn't really in denial. we, I don't feel like we had enough evidence that he was like, no, buddy, you're in denial. Like something's happening. You're just like, no, I'm just going to go to work to get it. Like, it's fine. It's, you know, something like that. Right. Like.

Slava (36:07.148)
I think you just hit the nail on the head. You uncovered why I don't like him and why I called him soft. It's because the gray mushy middle. No.

It's not interesting in any story, this or other, like the gray mushy middle. It's why it's look, it's not even interesting for the show. Right. Like, which is why, and it's the only episode and I thank you, but like, it's the only episode I can point to is the city in the city where you were like, eh, I kind of like it. It's like, and I'm not, you know, not ragging on you as you, but like, that was the gray mushy middle. It's like, you know, you don't like it. Just say that you don't like it.

That's exactly it. Now we have uncovered why for me, I find the character soft and it's not again, it's not because I'm trying to play a fake tough guy and out of done in this way and I had totally figured it out and this is what I would have done. It's not that it's right. He can't take a stance or he can't be vulnerable. We can't see exactly why he's weak and soft and

Slav it, out of the cure.

Slava (37:12.334)
doesn't have an ability to, your point, make a decision or to take a stance or whatever, or to respond forcefully, whether in a negative or positive. If he was a complete blubbering weakling, I would been okay with that. I would have been okay with that. not, wouldn't judge because I.

Who's the kid in it whose mom? Phil? Eddie, Eddie, like we get it. We get it. We've had friends whose moms have been overbearing and they won't let him look at an ant because it might bite him. Right? Like we know those people. We get it.

Eddie.

Slava (37:46.552)
Well, problem solved. Thanks for joining us on this episode of PsychQuest.

No no no we have to talk about teams.

Themes. Themes, sorry. Yeah, well, it's perfect time to move on themes. I think we've covered that well. So we have five themes that you put together for us. It's survival against all odds.

Which he's doing poorly. I'm going to make commentary on each of these. Please keep going. Just pause afterward. Well, maybe you should make some friends.

The horror of isolation The fragility of society

Jonathan (38:16.098)
That's not a surprise to anybody.

Morality in the Apocalypse.

and the fear of the unknown.

In terms of morality in the apocalypse, how about morality in general? won't, we won't do that, but I'm just, people's thoughts on morality are clearly misaligned. I was having a conversation, I guess I'm doing this. I was having a conversation with a buddy at work yesterday and he was talking about people desire to say that if you have moral and ethics, you'll do.

Jonathan (38:56.684)
You'll, or, people who have moral and ethics and are poor can become better off in society than people who have moral and ethics and they're like from better society, something like that. And the gist of what we were talking about though, is that, we didn't really get to dive into it because it was like over lunch, which, you know, 30 minutes, whatever. The gist of it is that it didn't matter from these, studies he was reading and experiments that people were doing social experience. But.

like scientific scholarly, not like your viral YouTube videos. It had nothing to do, there was no correlation between morality for these people. It was just like the culture itself. And so like when people talk about morality, you can't strictly say morality. You have to talk about like, well, what culture are they coming from? What has the culture been like for the last 25 years? Then we'd get into morality and we have to factor into your point, which you say in other episodes, like belief system.

world view.

worldview. Thank you. Worldview. And like worldview is shaped by the culture you grew up in and your life experience. Like you can't just be like, well, everyone should be moral. It's like, okay. Well, some countries believe that killing little girls is moral. Some countries think that chopping off parts of human bodies is moral. Just stop with like, well, people should be moral because you're making so many assumptions that you can't even have a conversation about this.

There's two points that can be extrapolated from that. One is the different types of moralities. There is situational ethics. There's morality that is very pragmatic and utilitarian. There is morality that is passive or pacifistic. What is the greater good for each system of morality? That's one thing as the end cap to what you're saying, if you will. And I think another thing that is overarching

Slava (40:53.386)
as opposed to being an end cap is the worldview of any person is yes shaped by your culture, your society, your religion or lack thereof because of that and other external and internal forces if you will, provide you with certain presuppositions that you come to anything with either a situation or a piece of knowledge or information, a piece of information.

You come to it with certain presuppositions because of your worldview. And the example of I always use is a materialist and somebody who is not a materialist. Not even going to put any religious context on it. Just somebody who's not a materialist who believes there's something out there other than just straight matter. Both of those people come to the understanding of

gravity, physics, mathematics, with certain preconceived notions, certain presuppositions. And a worldview is comprised of three things. Metaphysics, what is reality? Is matter all we know or can know? Or are there immaterial things, things outside of our immediate experience? Epistemology, study of knowledge, how do we know what we know? And then drives to ethics, how we act, the morality part of it, everybody and their mother.

has a worldview. We'll interpret what we see based through it. And sometimes those change. And that's why dialogue is great and debate is great and diverse worldviews are great in the marketplace when they're being discussed, not the way we discuss them in 2025. But when they're being discussed and hard pushback is welcome because that kind of strengthens our worldviews.

Just one comment to sharpen epistemology. Epistemology goes a little deeper. It's actually the beginning of knowledge. Oddly enough, I did terrible in statistics in college, but I did great in epistemology. I can philosophically talk about when knowledge starts. I got an A in that and a D in statistics. So do with that whatever you will. This is not financial advice.

Slava (43:10.03)
so your analogous statistics is wanting.

You very, yeah, it was then specifically because the teacher only taught math people. And I asked her questions anyway, I'll stop on that frustrations with that teacher specifically, but to bring us back, morality is not a quaint topic that you can have at any time about anything, unless you're going to stop and have a conversation about the things you're talking about, stuff that you mentioned and like get a, at least some baseline agreement on like,

some key elements before you even have the conversation that you want to have. Ironically enough, all that to say, we won't use that as a theme that we'll talk about.

We don't have enough information to discuss it. There point stands. There's just not enough explored here about morality, except this guy's journal entries. And I don't think there's enough foundation for us to pick it apart and say, when he has to kill the neighbor because the neighbor has turned. what else is he going to do? The neighbor has turned and maybe we can squeeze.

right, right. I will leave that. Yeah.

Slava (44:22.59)
some amount of interesting bits of that but this is not enough in my opinion to talk about here.

So I think fear of the unknown's a fine theme. Let's look at that because we all lived through 2020 and depending on where you were at, the fear of the unknown did become pervasive in society to the point where families and friends started drawing hard lines against each other, ironically enough. We don't have to get into this part of it, on pseudo moral grounds, because of the fear of the unknown, honestly,

I think that with what we lived through, the fear of the unknown was perpetuated by the news, lack of scientific method. Our imaginations are really powerful tools that when left unharnessed will create the worst scenarios possible. But in reality, a lot of times that's not even the case. 9.9 times out of 10, because we're building up the unknown part of it, which then fuels the fear, which then builds up more unknown, which fuels the fear.

people do irrational things like the mist, Stephen King's The Mist, right? Like you've got the religious zealot, you've got the general towns people, some of them have different thresholds for the fear of the unknown, and then you have these alien bug things starting to come at the grocery store. And like, okay, at that point, the unknown is like, I don't know where these came from, but I know they want to kill us. So at that much, you can understand that it's a survival thing because there's a direct threat.

and there's some tangibility to the unknown. What about you? Do you think that the fear of the unknown is well covered in this book so far? Or is it another muddy water gray area?

Slava (46:10.638)
think it's covered well enough, meaning that we have this guy in a world that's falling apart. He doesn't know what's going on until journal entries, late 30s, early 40s. So I think it's covered well enough in the sense that it's presented. And here's, have a protagonist in a world that's falling apart and there is an element of uncertainty for him, right? He doesn't know what's going on, even though, okay, so there are zombies.

okay, so they are actually the undead walking among us. they are really dangerous. No, we shouldn't coddle them and you know, give them hugs. Maybe that'll stop them from eating us. He's finally is pulled out of his naeve a tae. So I think that's covered well can't be covered to the extent that either of us could find compelling because of the setup which is journal entries. He doesn't provide enough information for us to

point to and say, here's a great example of how he is fearing the unknown and here's how he's processing event X or event Z. So it's set up in the story. It's touched upon, but given the way the story is written, I don't think it's explored as deeply as it could be.

Totally agree. What do you guys think in the comments? Do you think that the fear of the unknown is covered quite well? Or do you think that it's kind of a muddy middle and it's just kind of like, let's kind of run to the mill, et cetera, et Leave us some comments and let us know. Let's leave some of these themes because we kind of went off for a while on why we weren't going to pick one of them.

Wrap up the show, Slavo, with a little bit of talk of the genre. You're more of an expert in horror and zombie books than I am. I'd like to know in your mind, some of the other ones you've read, I've kind of watched more things than I've read for the zombie specific items, but how is this comparing so far with, I guess I'll say, likes and dislikes? Like, is there anything that you like about this so far? You know, is it the cat?

Jonathan (48:24.866)
the cat feel like a strong character to you

I think the cat is strong character. like cat the cat. I've also watched more than I read. think I've only, this is the second zombie book that I've read. I've watched a lot of shorts, meaning like, you know, short films or classics. Night of the living dead. I watched the recent classics 28 days later, which are I think like 20 years old, if not 30 years old. They're more modern classics than the ones from the seventies, right?

Okay.

Jonathan (48:51.574)
Yeah, there's Harold.

Slava (48:56.642)
Yeah. Comparing movies and books is a little bit different.

Well, it's not just like, so zombie yes, but also horror. You've read a ton of Steve King. You've read of other horror books. You've read survival books. It doesn't have to be limited to zombie, but like share with us. Okay. In terms of a horror book, this is, or isn't cutting it in terms of a survival book. It is, it isn't cutting it.

It's not cutting it for me on either genre. As far as horror goes, this is definitely not scary or eerie. I'm not at all pulled into it on the horror aspect of it at all.

So would you say that horror books need to pull you in? Not just you, not like Slava, like, do a job.

Yeah, there has to be. You should be pulled into the world in a way where the creep factor is amped up to 11. That's a good horror book. There's some more tame horror books that discuss maybe psychological things like signs of the lambs, right? So it's more psychological horror. There's the creep in is there and the scare factor is the murderer and this

Slava (50:07.326)
Monster who's actually just human then you have the exorcist where the monster is a literal demon Possessing a 12 year old two different type of horrors to do for type of scary But for both books you are pulled into the world right Harris with sons of lambs bladdy with exorcist Stephen King the different books he has some of them are a little bit supernatural some of them are more straightforward People are monsters like misery

The monster is the crazy fan. It Pennywise the clown. So it has to be written in a way where you can be pulled into the story. And a journal entry, I suppose could pull you in if it's set up right where you're reading this guy's recap of what happened to him that day. But what he writes is more captivating than what this guy does. I don't know.

It just reminded me, and this isn't an exact one-to-one, but the only story that's very, very close to a journal entry that I've really, really liked is a short story. It's H.P. Lovecraft. When these guys go insane.

Yo, yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah. Right, right.

I think it's Dagon. That's the only time, but it's because, and here's the difference, right? It's because he's describing how he's been going mad, but the thing is he doesn't say, I'm going mad. We see that he's going mad. He talks about like, I was lured in and then the other captain like killed himself. And then there's all this screaming and like, he describes it in a way that's not specifically a journal entry, but it is an entry from the entity of the

Jonathan (51:53.902)
I'm just realizing like nobody else has done it that well, but it's it's not entry 15 that I like there was a little bit of that, but it wasn't strictly that

And here I'll throw a bone to to the book. It's translation. Maybe in Spanish or in Spain, the way this stuff is written and what he says is more captivating to the culture. Yeah. Because what he says in Spanish, maybe there's context behind the words that reveal something to the Spanish readers. Now like, I know he's talking about, yeah, that's messed up.

You think so?

Jonathan (52:28.61)
Will 100 % concede that as a possibility as someone who doesn't speak Spanish. Yeah.

as somebody who only swears in Spanish and can order food at a Mexican restaurant.

Caliente. That's all I got for the day.

Well, that's all I got too. Thanks for joining us on this SideQuest. Be sure to share this episode to fellow book lovers and join the conversation on Instagram and YouTube. And we'll see you next time on SideQuest.