Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Part 2 - Manel Loureiro - Zombie Horror Book - Apocalyptic Book

Sorry, Adventurers, this episode is dropping late. Work schedules were overwhelming this week. In this episode of the Side Quest, Slava and Jonathan delve into the second part of their discussion on 'Apocalypse Z' by Manuel Luriero. They explore the narrative style, character development, and the emotional responses elicited by the protagonist's experiences. The conversation also touches on the societal breakdown depicted in the book, comparing it to real-life events, and the relatability of the average character navigating extraordinary circumstances.

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(00:00) Intro
(01:04) Overview of Apocalypse Z
(03:07) Narrative Style and Journal Format
(06:38) Character Development and Relatability
(10:22) Themes of Crying and Emotional Responses
(18:11) Societal Breakdown and Realism
(23:35) Character Choices in Apocalypse Survival
(25:57) World Building and Setting
(30:57) Character Insights and Medical Knowledge
(33:21) Ethics of Survival and Human Nature
(34:07) The Role of the Cat in Survival
(35:13) The Unseen Antagonist: The Virus
(39:30) Hypothetical Scenarios in a Zombie Apocalypse
(42:50) The Collapse of Society and Isolation
(47:16) The Lockdown Phase and Mental Breakdown
(50:41) Survival Decisions and the Cat's Role
(53:11) Unsettling Relationships in a Post-Apocalyptic World
(01:00:08) Rules for Surviving the Apocalypse

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 (00:12.814)
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 (00:45.838)
Welcome back Slava to another...

Hello Jonathan, glad to be here.

Well, I was gonna invite Matt, but he was busy. you're a close second.

This podcast has changed more hands than.

the neighborhood bicycle.

Slava (01:01.311)
or Lucullus the cat.

Mm-hmm, that's true. Well, today we've got some exciting follow-ups for Apocalypse Z, the beginning of the end. If you tuned in last time, this is part two, our final episode for Apocalypse Z, where we will discuss the plot, the world, and characters.

or how it's known by its Russian title, Diary or a Wimpy Lawyer.

Hmm, think you made that up. But that's okay. I don't think it's wrong. But can you give us a quick overview Slava of Apocalypse Z by Manuel Luriero?

A lawyer in Spain finds himself in a zombie apocalypse. The world starts falling apart. Nobody knows what's going on. He's listening to news reports of the infected attacking people. Nobody knows what the infected are or what the infection is. He tries to get in contact with his family. He does eventually goes back to his apartment and boards himself up. And quickly we realized that it is.

Slava (02:08.298)
a zombie apocalypse. infected are the undead walking among us and eating our faces or eating other people's faces. The twist on the book is that it's all journal entries from this lawyer and it was recommended to us by NotSure2099. On Insta we put out a call for book suggestions, specifically zombie book suggestions.

And holy cow, audience, this is the first suggestion post that you guys really went for. We had tenfold suggestions to our usual call for books. So we read two of the suggestions, the girl with all the gifts, which was covered in the last, well, not the last episode, but the previous book episodes. And we had Abby on the, who suggested us, she's a fellow content creator.

on the interwebs so we asked her to come on really good episode this one is just a regular old listener but we thought it would be a cool thing to cover because the premise sounded interesting we got into it I didn't like it so much I mentioned my thoughts on it last episode this episode I'll say this upfront I hated it less after the bick was finished but I'm still not sold that this is

a great book. It's an okay. It's a very okay book.

believe the quote you told me a minute ago was, you'd recommend this book, can you read the quote again? You'd recommend this book to European lawyers who like scuba diving and own a cat.

Slava (04:04.218)
Would I recommend this book? Maybe. For cat lovers or anyone interested in a zombie apocalypse told from the perspective of an average European lawyer who likes to scuba dive.

You

Slava (04:20.364)
I say.

It's funny. It's funny and kitschy.

The name of the reviewer is, I don't know the name of the reviewer, but the site that she reviewed it on is ghostflowerdreams.tumblr.com.

Sounds legit.

Yeah, but it's just an average person with a blog on Tumblr who reviewed a book and I agree with her assessment.

Jonathan (04:48.494)
Nice.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the narrative style. We touched upon it briefly last episode. The book is written as a journal and it's literally found footage. If you want to put another label on it. And I say literally found footage because he leaves the journal and then the

Yeah, he leaves a copy of the journal and I'm just like, a copy of the journal? Why doesn't he just leave the journal? No way he's retranscribing this in a second notebook. No way. Nope. And maybe you mentioned this before, maybe it's a translation issue. Right? But like, if he leaves the journal, fine, whatever.

Yeah.

Slava (05:37.57)
Yeah, I think some of the nuances that I found strange, well, why is he doing this? Why would he react like this? Or why is his description of the world, the characters, some of the zombies just seemed a little off to me or strange. I am 90 % sure it's a translation issue. Some things that are quote unquote European and then quote unquote Spanish in their nature just don't transfer into American.

English American

Fair, I think that's fair. The other thing I'd say is like not even just Spanish, but like Galatian in particular. Like, cause he's from Galatia and I think the author is too, maybe. Sounds familiar. But I will say, and we mentioned this last episode that I actually think this would be a great way to write the book when it is, you know, distributed via blog, which is how it started. And so as a book format, not great.

Right?

Slava (06:21.272)
Something like that.

Jonathan (06:38.754)
don't love it until, like Slava said, the second half of the book is being written more like a novel than the journal because the journal leaves a lot to be desired and no one writes in their journal like that and I speak about that from the perspective of someone who writes in their journal. I'm not getting descriptive about the Willow Reed looking style gal that I just met. It's not how you write in your journal.

And the woman who did the review and a couple of Reddit reviewers said the descriptions were too detailed and clunky and it didn't feel like a real journal. I'm paraphrasing it and putting some words in their mouth, but the bottom line is descriptions are too detailed and somewhat clunky.

I think that's okay though, because it's a novel. like, basically I think what I'm trying to say here is getting popular as a blog release and a serial release, love it, should have been minorly edited, maybe even mediumly edited for release in book form. It's just not a one-to-one. It's like if you took Fight Club and literally just pasted it on screen, it's not gonna do as well as it did when they translated it to film.

So yeah, absolutely. agree. And as I said in this previous episode, if these journal entries were interspersed between an actual novel and the journal entries insight to this lawyer wimpy or not crying and barfing at every turn or not, there's a journal entry of this guy who survived whatever we are living in, in this novel would have been fantastic.

5 out of 5. Irrespective of how I felt about the character, if the story was just more rounded, to use your term, when you talk about this, it would have been great.

Jonathan (08:38.606)
And you even mentioned before we hit record that you might recommend it. You might recommend it to folks like, hey, it's decent. It's decent, right? It's not phenomenal. It's not Stephen King. It's not knock it out of the park. sometimes you just want what we call it before. think we called it pop fiction. It's like flat. I just want something quick and poppy. Don't want to think too hard.

And from the positive reviews, people like that it's a new twist in the zombie genre. Although the negative review said it's not a new twist at all. It's kind of a bland twist if there is a twist, but the people who really like it and maybe not sure 2099 likes it for this reason. And that's why he recommended it. It's a new way of telling a zombie story. And I'm sure not sure 2099 loves zombie stories. That's why he was on that.

Post, that's why the algorithm suggested the post to him because it was zombie. A zombie post. But irrespective of all that, it's an okay book. I might recommend it for somebody who wants something different and new and has read all the zombie books already. Well, what else is out there, Slava? They ask me, say, hey, try Apocalypse Z. It's kind of weird, kind of fun. Might hate the protagonist, but you could read it once. I'm not disappointed that I read it. I just think it's an okay book and we can move on.

The plot twist here though is that Notchere2099 is a European lawyer who owns a cat and likes scuba diving.

That's yes.

Jonathan (10:04.046)
Drop us a comment, not sure. Let us know if that's true or not.

Yeah, and this, like you said in the previous episode, this is not a statement about Not Sure 29 or his tastes, because this book is not horrible. It's just, for me personally, it's just, okay.

Right. It's just an average, it's an average read. And the thing about running a book podcast, Casual Book Club, is when you get into the critiques, it can feel sharper than it is. The thing is like, we'll probably read it again. Not for the show, but like Slava and I read a bunch of books that we don't talk about at the moment just because we enjoy reading. So it's not something that's not going to ever get read again, like The City and the City for me, but it's definitely, you know, like, and I've complained about this before about fantasy books where

The main characters being too whiny is difficult for me to swallow, which is why I wrote an article, actually, I don't know if I've talked about this on the show before, in wishy washy characters. Now, I don't believe that the character's wishy washy, he doesn't have the opportunity to be because he's in fight for his life, but I wrote an article one time titled, Crime and Punishment is the Worst Book Ever, written in... Talk about it.

You talked about it. talked about it. Did I talk about it? Yeah, but talk about it again. So 50 episodes ago.

Jonathan (11:18.08)
Yeah, if any of you are familiar with the book Crime and Punishment written by Dostoevsky. was going to say Leo Toystoy and I was like, that's not right. Yeah, yeah, thank you. So Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment and it's a book about a highly neurotic and neuroticism is just the sensitivity to stress. Granted, he murders someone in the first chapter or second chapter, two people actually, and then covers it up.

Dustaevsky.

Slava (11:28.834)
That's war and peace.

Jonathan (11:47.084)
And this is 1900s, early 1900s. Yeah. So yeah, world war one has never happened. It's we're not there yet. It's just like, and it's over in Europe. I want to say it's on the border of Russia too.

Early 1900s, Or late 1800s.

Slava (12:03.63)
I think it's in Russia, actually.

yeah, yeah, yeah, it is in Russia. Right, right, right. Because then they sent him to Serbia at the end of the book. Anyway, close enough.

Siberia. Opposite sides of the continent, but okay.

I'm not Russian. This is not a geography test. You can't go back to my fifth grade teacher and tell them that I didn't know geography. I cheated.

Serbia.

Jonathan (12:27.97)
anyway, long story long, I forced myself to push through this book, Crime and Punishment, because the main character is just so wishy washy and complains all the time and his neuroticism gets to him. The thing is I can't relate to that. And this gets into like personality tests, but if you're familiar with the big five personality test, my neuroticism is a zero or a one. It's very low. So.

It's difficult for me with characters like that who are constantly whining and complaining because I just can't, I can't relate to it. Slava, your neuroticism is a 13. Still very low in percentile, according to the test that we took however long ago. Yeah, It's because your neuroticism, so just a quick side quest here. Neuroticism, the big five has five major categories and two subcategories under each major category.

Bean.

Jonathan (13:23.406)
Neuroticism is the major category. The two minor categories are withdrawal and volatility. And this is going to come to no surprise to our regular listeners, but Slava's volatility is a 58. It's very average actually. You're, you're, you're the thing though. Yes. Your withdrawal is a one. So my withdrawal is a one. My volatility is one, which is referred to as exceptionally low. And then your overall neuroticism score Slava is a 13, which is low.

C-Node herd.

Jonathan (13:53.114)
It's still like very much below average because percentiles, and I'm going to just like broad stroke this, don't quote me in the comments on statistics, but percentiles is like out of a hundred people in a room, you and ranked top to bottom, you'd land at the 13th, right? Top to bottom, if I was ranked in a room with people in terms of withdrawal and volatility, assuming that you and I not in the same room, I would be the lowest person. It's out of a hundred people in a room, it's a percentile. So it's not...

the type of thing where it's like you're graded on a scale of zero to 100 and 100 is passing with perfect scores. It's not like that.

So yeah, so if you're 100 you're Russ Kolonikov murdering a landlady. Yeah

Yeah, yeah, I mean, probably. Anyway, so I wrote this article and it was so hard for me to finish because the guy just kept whining and complaining and like wouldn't make decisions. Now, it's a cheeky title on my part because Dostoevsky is actually one of the most world renowned writers for his time. It's the type of thing that I was purposely trying to take advantage of people's, I thought he was famous, know, ordeal when they click on it, but I made some money off of it, so.

clickbait.

Jonathan (15:04.29)
It helped me in a time of dire need where I was Raskonnikov and didn't have any money. Dostoevsky also didn't have a whole lot of money because he kept gambling away.

I'm sure you're a landlady. Thanks, Dostoevsky, for prompting you to write this article.

Yes, she does. She does. Yeah. Anyway, back to it. That's why it was tough for me to relate to the character as well in the narration because it's just like, I struggle with main characters who just whine all the time. It just doesn't feel normal. Or maybe, maybe, and here's like a rabbit out of the hat, perhaps, is I just don't spend time with people like that. Maybe there are people out there that are like this.

if you know you know.

Jonathan (15:49.888)
I just don't spend time with them. That's probably fair, there's eight billion plus people in the world now.

Yeah, for me, the problem was not that he was an average guy thrown into a very not average situation. It was him constantly crying and barfing. Now, let me unpack it. There's nothing wrong with crying. There's nothing wrong with a man crying or a woman crying or a hardened soldier crying versus a wimpy lawyer crying. People cry. There's things that push you to an emotional release. I cry at some movies. I've cried at

He did do that a lot.

Slava (16:23.648)
some people telling me their life stories. I cried even because a song has moved me because I was just in a moment. A song was playing, something evoked emotion and a memory. That's fine. That is a normal human response, but constantly crying all the time and just vomiting every time you see something that's disgusting, which is more relatable because smells really get me. But it seemed that

Every time something happened that has zombies in it, somehow he was vomiting. In the hospital, I would have been vomiting too. When he got into the basement where there was just stacks of bodies rotting in a unventilated space, I would have been gagging worse than him. I just can't imagine crying so much. And if he was going through some sort of mental stress or had some disorder,

some sort of emotional heavy baggage besides his dead wife that prompted him to cry all the time. If that was explained, I'm there with you. I get it. But him just writing, and I cried today, then I cried. And then I saw my Ukrainian friend slumped and I cried as I ran to him. And then I cried because I was doing X, Y, and Z. It got too much to me. I couldn't relate at all.

Yeah, I think that that was difficult for me to read. I was just like, okay. Cause I agree with you, like crying, nothing wrong with crying. I also cry in what can be perceived as a more obscure times, like songs, books, movies, whatever. But the frequency, it was the frequency. And the thing is, and I think that this is the main point here that I was feeling and you put good words to it is,

The things that he was probably crying about were not explained. Sure, his wife died, but she died like a year before or something like that, or like at minimum six months, five months. And so it's like, it wasn't brought to the forefront as like, man, what would it be like if Jane was here, you know, or whatever her name was, it'd be different, right? Like, and bringing up these things. And then near the end of the book, he finally mentions like, whatever happened to my friends? It's like, you haven't thought about your friends for the whole book.

Jonathan (18:41.548)
You selfish bastard. And he mentions his family in the same sentence and it's like, okay, fine, I don't know why you didn't try to get to your family.

I think he tried, but then he realized it was a futile effort. And so he abandoned the thought. Whatever. I think I'm less upset by that because he's trying to survive. There's so much being thrown at him. And when he gets a break, finally in that church where sister Lucia has a little stronghold in an actual safe space or safe haven, he's able to relax. It's like a kitchen. A basement of a church.

Okay.

Jonathan (19:15.978)
No, isn't it?

Jonathan (19:20.994)
No, no, the hospital. It's the hospital. Yeah, yeah, it's

Okay, all right, yep, because she was at the church.

He does go to the church thing, whatever, first. Right. And happens shortly after.

That's it. Yeah. So he has more time to think on friends and family. So that I'm okay with, but the rest, I won't belabor it here, but the rest of it was just kind of like, all right, dude, just move on. There's zombies about to eat you. Take hold of yourself and get Prit and your cat and the 60 year old girl that you have a crush on all of sudden. Get all of them to safety. Yes. Focus on that.

So the other thing though that I think we don't get regularly in these zombie books, and again, you're more well-read than these than I am, I will say that I did like the slow breakdown at the beginning of the book of society. felt very reminiscent of 2020, where global events are happening, people don't feel like they have the right information, cities are locking down, martial law is subtly being put in place.

Jonathan (20:26.048)
Not to the point that people are gonna get shot on sight after curfew, but there were curfews put in place in where I lived, I think where you lived. And it's just like, okay, that's relatable, right? Like that could happen, has happened.

Yeah. And I worked with first responders in that moment in time. And so I was essential, even though I wasn't a first responder myself. So I was able to drive the empty empty streets to get to work, which was a bit eerie to say the least. I'm sure. know, when it took you 15 minutes to get to work, when it normally took you an hour, because the roads are just clear. You're like, all right, I kind of like this. Good. Yeah.

Some of it.

The deaths weren't good, but the commute was a...

I wasn't even talking about that, but yes, that's true too. The deaths weren't good. So one of the things that makes this book unique, and I think we've mentioned it already, is that the protagonist is just your average everyday guy. The notes that Slava has here. Slava, did you want to be honest with the audience about what you're doing? No, no, I'm going to let you enjoy every morsel of this, like a zombie eating a leucolus.

Slava (21:26.882)
You can read it. You can read it.

Slava (21:35.348)
Here's the notes. can guess which portion of it I edited. The protagonist isn't a soldier or scientist. He's just an everyday guy who cries and barfs like a little bitch. Parentheses all the time. This makes the survival more relatable to parentheses, to bitches and realistic. agree. I'm being a smart alec right now, but although I still think he cries too much, but it is relatable in the sense that, hey, we found this journal. This is an average dude.

He's a lawyer. He likes to scuba dive. He lives in Spain. His wife just died. He has a sister he loves. He has some friends. He has a cat that he rescued. He really likes the cat. So just your average dude like that you would find in 2020, 20 aughts, whatever. The average guy in our time finds himself in an apocalypse, overwhelmed by zombies. So that is realistic. I like that portion of it, that he's not a hardened soldier. He's not some fancy scientist.

Maybe.

Slava (22:34.774)
or a academic, a professor who now is trying to survive and he's the guy that's helping the group he's with battle whatever problems they have, which is from a scientific point of view or a soldier protecting them. So that is the realistic part of it. I'm not, I'm not going to go as far as saying that that's unique because the 28 days later, it's a guy that wakes up from a coma, also an average English dude wakes up from a coma in a hospital and fig and finds himself in a

in London that's overrun by zombies. So this has been done before, but it's unique because it's a journal. So I'm not going to take that away from the author of the book, but the execution for the reasons already mentioned, it made it an okay book for me.

Yes, I agree. But let's take a quick respite and have a side quest. Slava, if you could choose any fictional character to be your apocalypse survival partner, who would it be and why?

Two names came to me as soon as you were saying that. The first one is Vaxer from Warbreaker.

great choice. And is the second one just Nightblood?

Slava (23:45.548)
Well, he, Vassar comes with night blood. Well, Vassar has night blood in Warbreaker. So they're a package deal in my mind.

No, no, no.

Jonathan (23:55.148)
I will refrain from spoilers. Anyway, keep going. That's your answer? There's no other?

That's it. VASCHA.

somebody else, maybe Vivanna. I'm going with Warbreaker. Maybe Vivanna. Because she's able to adapt quickly. And by the end of the book, she's a pretty badass. So.

Clearly clearly

Jonathan (24:16.152)
So here's the thing, Vassar is actually an excellent choice because in Warbreaker there are zombie type beings called lifeless.

Yeah, you know, I know what I'm doing.

Well, I'm explaining to the audience. OK.

All right. Can I continue? Please. You sure? Yeah, go ahead.

Little more sass, all right, great. So there are these beings called lifeless who are dead people brought back through breaths. So Vashra is actually a very good choice because he has a bunch of breaths himself and those could be used to turn the zombies in this book into your own army to protect you should you find more humans. So you win the side quest story because there's no other great answer for this.

Slava (25:03.406)
What's your second place answer then?

Well, I was thinking about different animes. I was going through the catalog in my mind of who would be a good fit to help me survive. But seriously though, Vashjor's the best choice because he's already dealt with zombies. And if he comes, he's not coming stripped of his power. It's a fictional character, which is why I was cataloging, well, I could pick some Dragon Ball Z character that would take care of it a little bit.

Ooh.

Jonathan (25:36.046)
I think I said something with Dragon Ball Z for Girl With All the Gifts when Abby was on. I think I picked Goku and Bulma, if I remember correctly. So I was trying to find a different anime. Yeah, I might just pick Mickey Mouse.

You can just throw him to the zombie escape. So what'd think of the world in this book?

That's the plan.

Well, it's fun to be in another country. I did like that. I like being like in Spain for this book, away from the typical American centered stuff that we often read. But, and this is where it kind of falls apart for me is, I've met my fair share of Europeans, both in America and overseas, and they don't act like this guy, right? Like now granted, I haven't seen them in dire situations and I'm getting back to character, which we'll get into later, so I'll stop.

The world itself where you're in a place and you're hearing about what's going on, you're able to take a quick flight to go see some family, make some recommendations, try to help them stay safe as well. But like watching society slowly deteriorate, man, just like I said earlier, that was very reminiscent of what most of us lived through in 2020, barring you being like a farmer on a farm and like don't have a radio, something like that.

Slava (26:52.074)
And it was gradual news reports shifting from minor concerns to full blown panic, electricity going out, other infrastructure falling apart, certain websites going down. After a while, the internet's completely gone. The author really unpacked it well. And because we only get snippets of what the protagonist knows, because he's not writing everything down in the journal. He's just writing the stuff that he remembers from the day or the stuff that forced him to write and moved him somehow.

Whatever it was, whatever prompted him to write it, we're only getting those snippets in a journal. We're not getting a full blown exposition of anything. Yeah. So some of the tension, I'll use your quote here, was painfully real. Like the tension in the book was well done, I think.

Full novel, yeah.

Jonathan (27:41.344)
Mm-hmm. For the first part, like the breakdown society. Yeah. That was like, all right. And can you remind me when this blog came out? Do you remember off the top of your head?

Not off the top of my head, but keep talking and I'll look it up.

Because depending on when this blog came out, and I thought it was after, maybe it was, here's the thing, maybe it was before and this blew up after, right? Like, I don't know. Depending on when that came out, it could be, maybe he used 2020 era as kind of like a thing that was inspiration for him.

Yeah, maybe. Well, I just looked it up and I'm not finding anything immediately in the Google search.

2007, it's 2007. So well 13 years before what I was describing and to that credit I think that he did a pretty great job at describing the slow downfall of society. Any other thoughts on the world Slava before we get into how people in the world navigate it and the difficulties they have with their conflicts?

Slava (28:40.641)
I agree.

Slava (28:49.678)
Well, I think we covered it fairly well. What I did appreciate about the way he navigated the beginning, I thought that was real enough, that that seemed realistic. At first, he isolates himself, hoping the situation stabilizes. But when it becomes clear that help is not coming, he is forced to venture out, first for food and then eventually for survival. And then when he encounters the harsh reality of other survivors.

Because people turn into animals in these kinds of situations. That was realistic that I imagined that would happen in any other zombie book. And it does. In any other zombie movie. And it does. So those were realistic and I thought that was done well. And this is unavoidable in a story like this. So this is not like, wow, the author knocked out of the park. I think him including this and spending the time that he did on it is good. Like the infrastructure collapse, no power, no internet, no law enforcement, trust issues.

Yeah

Slava (29:49.528)
Can we trust these people? Like even the girl who almost blows his brains out of the hospital, who finds his cat, the resource scarcity, what he should take, what he shouldn't take, medicine, food, all that, that was done fine. I thought that was good.

Yeah, it almost felt like a D &D campaign a little bit, like, well, my bag only holds so much, and so I have to figure out, I need to carry this, I need to carry that. Now, I think it's because of my time playing Dungeons & Dragons that when he ran into situations, like, Prit got his hand blown off, and he's like, let me give him some morph, some aspirin or whatever he gave him. then later he's like, no, no, this is my point. Later he's like, man, I forgot I had morphine. And I was like, I knew you had morphine.

Now again, this is because I like, when you play D &D, you need to know what's in your bag. If you want to play well, like sometimes like, you can definitely forget because you're playing like once a week usually. And so you have to remember from a week ago what you had in your bag, but it is a normal thing to go, okay. I had morphine in my bag. That's the item that I should give him. But you have to have a good memory and a catalog for that. So I understand why he forgot, but I was like, why didn't you get the morphine out of your bag?

I literally had that thought while I was reading this and then it's like, at the end of the thing when he takes that sharp corner and it all fells out of his bag, he's like, yeah, I should have given him morphine. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea.

His knowledge of medicine surprised me for a lawyer who scuba dives and cries all the time. His ability to react to certain situations like, I need to give him this. I need to bandage his hands. And I suppose anybody could make that logical deduction. Like, yeah, we need to bandage those burned hands. We need to give you morphine if we have some. But when he's in a hospital, it seemed like he really knows what he's doing. And that didn't really suspend my belief in anything or...

Slava (31:36.938)
make the story worse or better but as you were saying this I thought to some of my reactions as I was reading those portions I'm like man he kind of knows more than the character that's been set up thus far should or in my mind should know

Well, it just wasn't revealed that he has any sort of history there. Yeah. this is, the only history that we get at the beginning of the book is like his wife died, he has a sister in another country nearby or town or something like that. His parents are also in another town or country and he's a lawyer. We don't know, and to your point, he also scuba dives. So like, we weren't told, hey, until later when the author started linking it back to his career, like, I learned how to use

a crowbar by one of the people I represented. okay. Yeah. It's believable enough, right? Like, because he's your client and you're his lawyer. Yeah, I just take a crowbar. It's super easy to get into these things. Okay. Maybe he did the same for murderers who needed to like torture his victims or something like that. Needed to, wanted to, whatever. But to your point earlier, like it wasn't explained. And so we're just questioning like, how do you know this? But I agree that

Same, same.

Jonathan (32:51.788)
The isolation is the first thing that people do. Then you start to come to the reality that like all humans are selfish because of survival. And then it's like, okay, well, what are you going to do? And we talked a little bit last time on the ethics of like, what am I going to do? These people are just sick. And it's like, sure. Maybe the first encounter with them, you think they're sick, but once you see your neighbor turn, you just gotta, you gotta do what you gotta do. So I did like the infrastructure collapsing as well. That was a, that was a good detail to cover. It seemed.

a touch unbelievable in the hospital that like, was kind of indefinitely going. Cause it'd been four or five months or something like that by the time he gets to the hospital, if I recall, because it took them a month after they got to the ship and they were sent back out to go get the package. That was a month, he said. Before that, it's like a month or two of survival. That's three months. And so then after they get back, then it's like another couple months. So it's just like, I don't know enough about generators.

And it's kind of a nitpicky thing. It's like, well, somebody has to survive. I was kind of waiting for him to run into somebody else who was human because I just didn't believe he was the last human alive with this, you know, is it Ukrainian guy? Ukrainian guy. So just interesting.

Well we kinda discussed the main character, Lawyer, as we call him. His goals really are to stay alive, find safety. What'd think of the introduction of the cat as a secondary character? Because he is just a cat. He just cat things.

I thought Lucullus really brought this book home for me. His external goal was be a cat and his internal goal was stick with his protagonist, but be annoying sometimes. That really did it. He really hammered it home for me. And if you're ever going sailing, it is always important to bring a cat. That'll make more sense to you in a future book. Red seas under red skies.

Slava (34:35.512)
Alright.

Slava (34:44.482)
Which feature book? okay. There's a cat there too. I'm excited. And then we have our antagonist that's not human. have this unstoppable force, the virus. What I thought was interesting or well done or both was the way there was sort of a slow burn. And it's only because of the POV of the book. Now as the reader, I know it's

They're supposed to be.

Slava (35:13.728)
a zombie book, so the virus is the zombie virus.

You're safe from the virus lava.

Thank you. now. Phew. But the slow burn, as the protagonist writes down what he hears in the news reports, and he's like, why the hell are these people being isolated or even, you know, talked about as the bastards? They're just sick people because he has so little knowledge of what's really going on. Right. That portion of it, I thought was really well done. There was a slow burn to the lawyer realizing, crap.

This thing is not what I think. It's not just a bad cold. And then I'm not sold on this. Once he realizes what these things are, that they're done dead, he still has these sentimentalities like, but they're human and I had to shoot this kid in the head and I'm feeling this and I'm that maybe. And again, not trying to be a fake tough guy pretending I would be Schwarzenegger and you know, or a Terminator in the situation, but it seemed.

This goes back to him crying all the time. It seems he was overly sentimental. Like, you do realize now in this portion of your journal, I know that you know that these things are undead. What's the sentimentality?

Jonathan (36:30.644)
Mm-hmm. The only one that I'll push back on is I understand the kid one, but the people, like, okay, these are just other people who have turned fine. But when he finds like the mom who killed herself because she couldn't kill her kid, and it was like, he was explaining the full detail, was like, wow, it's, you know quite a bit about what's going on here. Like, give me a little more mystery there. And I know it seems like I'm playing both sides of the field here, but.

The kid one made sense to me. At least the first time you kill a kid, I'm like, I get it. Right? Like that's fine. I understand. Children hold this level of innocence for us. That makes sense to me.

Listen, it's a dead kid that is a undead monster. Right. I don't know. don't know.

What I'm saying is like, the kid one I understand, the first time you do it. After that, it's like, no, you just, that's it. They're all monsters, right? Like basically like first exposure, I think is what I'm trying to get out of here. First exposure, I get it. Fine, whatever. But after that, come on.

I sort of disagree. I understand what you're saying. I don't agree with it necessarily, but for me, it stops at the fact that this kid is not a kid anymore, it's a thing. Now, in a movie like American Sniper, I think it's American Sniper, there's this kid with a weapon and the main character of the movie, he has this kid who has a rocket launcher, I think. He has a rocket launcher. You just take him out.

Slava (38:01.686)
And he's a father, the sniper is a father, think, even if he's not. This is a real thing. Yeah, this is a kid. Yes, he's being brainwashed and abused and used by the terrorists. So there is this hesitation for a real reason not to shoot the kid. And I forget if you shoot him or not, but that I understand. It's a kid, irrespective of the situation you're in. It's a war and he's about to blow your ass up. This is a dead kid who's reanimated by.

A virus. They're no longer human. It's a dead corpse of a kid. Do what you gotta do. Put it out of its misery like he did.

Yeah, well even if you don't know that, like speaking from the character's POV, if you think maybe they can be saved, at the moment when they're trying to bite your throat, what's the law? I think it's called Castle Law, where like if someone attacks you in your home, you have the right to defend yourself. I don't know what European law says, but certainly if someone's coming at you and they're highly infectious, then you know, you have the right to do something about it.

Are you guys enjoying today's SciQuest? Make sure to rate us and help spread the word so more people can join us on SciQuest. Jonathan, I got a SciQuest for you. If you were infected with the zombie virus and had 24 hours left as a human, what would you do with your final day?

Hmm. This is like that question. I think we asked maybe during monkey's paw, where it's like, if there were no consequences, what would you do? Was that monkey's paw? feel like that was monkey's paw. The thing is like in this, the consequences are guaranteed at hour 24, but probably based on the description of the book, you really only have 18 hours, maybe less, maybe 12, because it seems like the virus spread pretty quickly. Is that fair? feel like it's fair. I would say.

Slava (39:41.294)
feels like it.

Jonathan (39:58.894)
That's tough because you can't kiss your wife again. You don't want to spread it to her necessarily. Might just write a letter and maybe, I mean maybe, yeah. Or I might go find one of my nemesi and collapse at their door near the 18 hour mark.

brain tap.

Slava (40:17.634)
That's what that was going to be my answer.

You're go find China Mayville and-

That's you. That's you. Mine was going to be find my nemesi, invite him to a party. And the party starts 20 minutes before I turn.

Your ability to time when you're going to turn is impeccable.

I have a German wife, she taught me how to engage time well.

Jonathan (40:39.312)
my gosh, all right, great. But yeah, I'd probably see Fam one more time and then drive off into the ether, I guess. Yeah, do something that gets me put down quickly. Although, it's probably you don't notice after the pain subsides and you died and then you come back, so. It's my guess.

That sounds fair.

Slava (41:00.322)
Yeah. Yeah. No, the turning process is horrendous. You like poo blood and vomit and secrete all sorts of crap out of your skin. It's not a, not a fun, not a fun time.

Yeah, not great. Might go on a killing spree. Get other people who are also infected. Go to like one of the safe havens where they're like trying to treat people and just be like, is not gonna end well. And just try to help humanity a little bit, you know?

work as an intake officer.

you could call it that, but my intake would be with an AK-47.

Outtake, but okay. Outpatient therapist. I mean. For zombies.

Jonathan (41:42.158)
It saves everybody else the pain of having to like put down a loved one. If you know, someone who's also sick is like, this is not going to end well. Let me just help everybody out here. You may not understand at the time, but because if I already know that I've only got 24 hours left and we've really narrowed it down to like 12, I'm going to just go try and do that. And I might not get everyone. I imagine that they have soldiers guarding a place like that. Anyway, this makes me sound like a.

Psychopath?

Yes.

Cause you have to kill the soldiers and that's for the greater good, right Jonathan? So he killed a soldier. No. Sick people. killing the unturned. This is why the safe havens failed because there was one of you thinking the same thing, going to safe havens and effing it up for everybody.

So I just think

Jonathan (42:17.666)
The turning.

Jonathan (42:25.91)
No, no, no, no, no, no. The safe havens took in the sick people. That's their fault. That's not on me. That's not on me. You can't put that on me. I refuse responsibility for that. Let's talk about the chapters chunked up into three main sections. The first signs of collapse, the lockdown phase, and forced to move and be survivalist.

Fair enough. Anyway.

Slava (42:50.104)
Let's do it. So we, we talked in chunks and pieces about the first section, the whole slow burn of the collapse, how it was described, us knowing only what the protagonist has written down in the journal and the escalation again through the POV of the lawyer, but him barricading himself in the home, hoping to wait it out. What'd you think of that? That's something you would do?

Well, that's what we did in 2020. So that happened. I, at the time, sort of lived alone before family moved in. And when I was living alone, I was less concerned about what was going on, because I actually don't watch the news ever. And my life is so much better because of it. So when things started changing, I was like, I kind of have snippets of what's going on, but also can't change any of it. And this is like my philosophy.

for the most part, if I can't change it, I'm not going to worry about it because I can't change it. So I was still going to the gym until family moved in and they had just had their firstborn. And so then rules changed of like, Hey, we don't know what's going on. So we're going to just lay low. So I had to do that even though I was still willing to go to the gym because it was keeping me sane. Cause I was also between jobs during that time. It's very reminiscent of something that I lived through tight quarters, small spaces.

family tucked away trying to figure out like is the the grocery store got enough food in it today so we can go buy some

Grocery stores have no more than four or five days. Most have three days worth of stuff. So that's why there's weekly deliveries.

Jonathan (44:23.896)
Yeah.

That's the normal sorting of grocery stores. That's not even prepping for some sort of global incident like this. Hard to say, but the neurotic people who are like, my God, the world is closing down, go there first and buy as much as they can. The bummer thing for them is if the power goes out, all the stuff you bought's worthless anyway.

like the story of a guy and this is off the internet so who knows how if it's true or not but if it is it's great during the covid he bought up a crap ton of hand sanitizer and then marked it up like 700 % on Amazon store and then his store was shut down and he couldn't do anything with it he sold a few boxes and then everything kind of came back to normal

And he just was left with like $16,000 worth of that. That's what you deserve. You piece of shit.

Yeah, I heard that story and this is the type of story where I'm like, from a business perspective, like supply and demand, respect, as a human, that's not a great move and literally will brand you for life as a terrible person.

Slava (45:41.614)
Now, if he bought extra, I don't blame him from buying a little bit extra. Let's say he bought a few boxes, not whatever it was, an exorbitant amount of boxes he bought. Let's say he bought a quarter of that. And when supplies were running low, he sold it and find a little bit of a markup, not 700 % or whatever it was, not triple the amount. Right. Okay, fine. Doesn't really make you that great of a person or even that great of a business guy because f*** your business.

because the world is going through a pandemic, but okay, I could buy that, but the fact that he just bought out stores and bought out supplies, you're a garbage person.

And Slava hopes you're listening to this.

You're not the hustle bro. You're not the hustle bro that you think.

I hope you're listening to this episode.

Slava (46:28.78)
I hope you are. Make sure to rate, like, and subscribe. Asshole.

You

Ring that bell. With your sanitized hands.

Bing bing bing

yeah, he ended up I think having to donate it because he couldn't sell it anymore. But the thing is, and this, we won't go fully down this, but I think that there is an ethical line that we need to hold in terms of like people's health and profiteering. I'm looking at you, Big Pharma. Okay, that's it. I'll stop. Anyway, moving on.

Slava (47:05.696)
You don't want to in a plane crash, right?

boy. I'm not actually, thankfully.

But not important enough today I'm playing Crashers Jonathan.

Slava (47:16.184)
But as we move forward in the lockdown phase, I thought that was pretty well done too. Now I'm going to give a lot of props for this section, just like I did for the previous section, irrespective of my feelings about the protagonist. I think the way certain things started to go down, just a quick nod back to the infrastructure falling apart. I think as it was locked down, the world, his town, and him being isolated and then him being stuck with his wife's stuff.

And the slow reveal, that's where we get most of the reveal of him realizing, this is more than just a cold. It's more than just a disease. That was pretty well done. And I think here's where if we're doing a rewrite of the novel, there's people freaking the hell out, not knowing what's going on. And then there's a turn in the book and you get this journal entry from a guy and they're like, so lawyer guy wrote these five things in his journal.

That helps us understand what's going on in front of us. I thought the slow burn in this section was also well done because it continued through until he decides to leave to survive. goes through the boat. from the beginning to the boat, that slow burn was really well done. I think him losing it and crying in this portion of the book, that was fine. I was like, yeah, I understand. Your wife died five months ago, six months ago, 10 years ago. It doesn't matter. You're stuck with her stuff.

The world's falling apart. You don't know what's going on. You're isolated. Doesn't look like you have a lot of friends except for your sister, her husband or her boyfriend, a few other people. All right. This is where the guy has a mental breakdown or some sort of breakdown. I chef's kiss for this portion. I like the way the events unfolded and more glimpses that we got of the world in this section. I thought it was pretty good.

Yeah, and I think you made a really great example earlier when you were a first responder for your job at the time and you saw the streets are empty. It's easier to get to work and stuff, but like this is exacerbated tenfold or a hundredfold, right? Where it's like whole cities are shut down and even the military is understaffed at this point, right? And collapsed.

Slava (49:39.33)
Yeah, one correction. I wasn't a first responder. I worked with first responders. But nonetheless.

Well, the category is the same because that's how they, whatever, it doesn't matter that in 2020, the category was the same. were told to go do something because of the way that things were going on when other people were told to stay home. I'm not saying that Slava was drawing blood during the pandemic, only with a baseball bat.

That's fair.

Slava (50:04.536)
So, drawing out.

to protect his family at his house.

beating COVID victims.

Just, okay, all right, enough of that. Anyway, when he was forced to move and leave, and I really think he should have left a little bit earlier than like once he dealt with his neighbor. Man, that's the time. You don't lay low again after that. Leave. It's time to go. It's time to move. so that forcing him to leave, what surprised me though a little bit is up until he chose to leave, like I knew that he liked his cat.

No, you li-

Jonathan (50:41.4)
But when you think through, this is like a survival game now. I'm not sure how I'm going to bring my cat. I think it's interesting and difficult that he brought you, Hollis, honestly. Because it's like, that's an extra, specifically because it was a cat, not a dog. Like dogs, theoretically you've trained and they listen to you, right? Cats do whatever they want. So it's like, that's an even bigger risk or like random variable.

in terms of like trying to survive at the same time. So one thing that I wish was a little more, I guess I'll say prominent is like the vastness of his looking for people after he gets the boat and he's kind of wandering around. Cause I just felt like he, he discovered that I forget what the name of the ship is, the brigand ship with all the other survivors. It just felt like he found that too quickly.

Maybe, but I'm also like was kind of expecting this to be a white room novel of sorts. Like not completely right. But definitely partly, you know, like segments of it because it felt like from the start of meeting the guys on the ship to bringing the whole package back. I don't know. That part just didn't really seem believable because we didn't know what was in the package. It just seemed like a, like an unnecessary side quest that didn't lead anywhere. It was like, Hey, go do some busy work.

That's how it felt to me.

It kind of turned into a MacGuffin that wasn't that interesting.

Jonathan (52:14.722)
The only interesting thing we got was a Ukrainian who knows how to fly a helicopter, who has a helicopter nearby, which honestly I believed, right? Like the European countries were in disarray in like the late 2000s, or sorry, the late 90s, early 2000s. And so like, I'm like, yeah, I mean, that seems believable. Refugees was a normal thing. People had to chip in for their armies, for their countries as best they could. That actually seemed believable to me. The broken down helicopter part.

Okay, fine. You need to, you know, that's, that's fine. The whole like ship captain and RPG and I was like.

I get it, but also I don't get it. You know?

Yeah, same. I'd be remiss if we didn't mention this before the end. This guy is like, what, late 20s, early 30s?

I think that sounds fair. Yeah, probably early 30s mid 30s

Slava (53:11.936)
It's quite unsettling.

Because he was married too, right? like he both has a law degree and he's married.

Yeah. It's quite unsettling to use the quote from that reviewer that I mentioned earlier from Ghost Flower Dreams. It's quite unsettling when he finally meets two female survivors, the nun and Lucia, the 17 year old girl. He starts talking about her breasts and how great she looks underneath the sweater she has on. Yeah. It's just weird. And I don't buy it that, he's hard up or he's this Don Juan that

You know, can just pull it girls really quickly. The way he sets it up in his internal monologue is like, I was just really horny and I'm paraphrasing because I haven't had sex in a while. It's like, there's nothing set up for that either. And you mentioned this for some of other complaints that I had. There's nothing set up that he was this guy that just had many, many girls. He like cried looking at his wife's stuff. So he's monogamous. He was really committed to this woman. All of a sudden.

He meets a 17 year old girl who's clearly 17 and even states explicitly that she's 17 and she goes, ha ha, almost 18 as normal teenagers do. And he's like explicitly sexually attracted to her. I don't think this works. This is weird. Stop doing what you're doing.

Jonathan (54:36.546)
This is why as a book, it needed to get a rewrite. As a blog release, I honestly would be like, okay with it. Right? Because it's like, you're, I, this is me assuming he's writing these one by one, right? Like he doesn't know what's happening next. He's like, well, there should be kind of a love interest and, it's this young girl. Like, okay, fine. I get it. I understand. But I, I, the thing is my, my point is like, I would believe it more in a blog format.

21, which doesn't have to be 16.

Jonathan (55:06.016)
at her age, not changing anything else, but just that it's a blog format where it's like, he's not sure what he's writing next because it's unplanned. It's like when you and I do the off the cuff stuff here every week, we don't pre-plan like, he's going to say to Slava this week. It's just like, what's, what am I writing this week? Right. For the blog. And that's the thing that came to mind, which is why I would believe it. Now granted, I agree with you. think that she should be a little older, but it's like, I get it in a blog. I don't get it when you just copy and paste this into a book.

If you wanted to make her a little bit ditzy, a little bit girly, a little bit sweet, you could still make her of age. Don't make her a 17 year old girl.

He also even addressed that she was almost raped by the guards or the military.

That was believable. was, I don't find any fault with that because human beings are garbage people in situations like this and sometimes just in regular situations. The other thing that kind of bothered me is his sexualized description of the naked zombie woman who was supposedly of age and it was kind of, kind of hot, I guess to him. He described her breasts and her body and her type, her figure as she was stumbling around.

the streets looking for brains to eat or whatever. What the hell is going on? That was like the first little radar beep. And then I let it go. I'm like, all right, maybe, maybe I thought this guy is hard up. His wife is dead. He sees a beautiful woman. She's all zombie up. Fine, fine, silly, but fine. And then he has this moment with the 17 year old and I'm like, all right, guy, what are you doing? I just thought it was unnecessary and weird.

Jonathan (56:48.16)
Yeah, and I, yeah, I don't know.

This review I looked at before we started recording, because I wanted to find some other people who had a problem with the character and to bring it into the conversation. As I was listening to that on the bus, was like, oh, this is, this is just strange. It's not two teenagers liking each other and this other 17 year old kid going, Ooh, another girl. finally somebody my age. Oh, and she's cute. It's a fricking 30 year old man who's been married before, fawning over a teenager talking about her breasts. But I'll, I'll end it there. just thought it was. Right.

Well, and here's the thing. Because this is a survival book, I don't think that we would have as big of a problem with it if you showed us that over six months they got close to each other. Right? Like if it was a slow fade and they're the last people on earth, okay, a little more believable, I think.

Sure, and even then there's a way to do it where, right, he's not a weirdo. Because if she started developing feelings for him, because she's a young girl and he saved her and he's this older man and she started getting feelings for him and he said, you should stop doing this, what you're doing here. That would have been fine. Like giving her the crush is understandable because teenagers go through weird freaking phases and do weird stupid things.

But him as the instigator, even if it's in his own mind, that kind of turned me off.

Jonathan (58:11.534)
This is why I said the thing about the blog though, because if he's writing the blog, he's just like, oh, there should be a romance thing. What if this? But in revision.

then give her, give her the crush, not him.

I'm just saying like I can understand why he'd write it this way. I'm not justifying it I'm just saying that like it makes sense to me why he'd write it this way in a blog format What's the go? need to add some romance or whatever. These people are the last two people on earth He's not gonna sleep with the nun. So Okay Anyway, there's ways to have done it better. We don't like how it was done, but I understand how it was done I Understand in blog format. You're just kind of writing off the Fine, whatever

But anyway, this

leads to a question because we're both saying that some of the rules of society should remain for regardless of a breakdown of society. So if you had to create a rule book Slava for surviving your first three months of the apocalypse, what would your top three rules be?

Slava (59:10.658)
Number 1. Keep your horny thoughts about teenagers to yourself.

He did in his journal, which you and I read. So great. He did number one.

If I had to create a rulebook for surviving the first month of the apocalypse.

yeah, first month, not first three months, but I don't know, the rules should also apply to-

in the next two months. And the next two months and the next two months. That's a good question. You caught me off guard. Why don't you go and I'll think about it.

Jonathan (59:39.682)
So the first one is I'm taking one from Zombieland. Always do a double tap. You got to make sure these things are dead. You got to make sure that they're no longer alive. Rule two is never leave the house without a weapon or never go out without a weapon. Rule three is you have to vet survivors and gain their trust. And then rule four would be always bring an empty bag to carry back important things with you. And then the unspoken rule is

Go find weapons. That's rule zero. Go find weapons. And the thing is like, and this is something I've never seen in a zombie book is after like someone who's survived, let's say we'll call it a year. You got to start rebuilding society because society is kind of how we have protections. Safe havens didn't work. So how do you start building like a society that roots out all the zombie people and.

You know, it's almost, I almost think of like medieval times, like, all right, we got to build a castle wall. Then we'll build a castle. Now this is our safe space that we can live in. Someone's got to start farming the rebuilding of society after the fall of the apocalypse or the fall of society through an apocalypse. Like I've never seen a book about that. You know what I mean? Anyway, you're cheating with your three rules. So what are they? Well, I see your eyes darting left and right on your screen. Yes.

Jonathan (01:01:17.154)
This episode sponsored by Brita.

Yes, and survival books. Go to an abandoned Barnes and Noble and find some survival books, so you know which plants to eat or not eat. The next one, kind of connected, if it smells worse than you, don't eat it. And then the final one is, always have a dumb friend. A loyal, trustworthy survivor is great. A friend who is slightly dumber than you and slower than you is even better. Pretty much your insurance. When things go south and something needs distracting or sacrificing,

Well, sorry, Todd.

I was gonna call him Kyle.

or Kevin. Sorry, Kevin. You knew what you were getting into.

Jonathan (01:01:58.752)
Karen.

Yeah. What are your guys' top three rules though? Drop them in the comments. How would you survive the apocalypse for the first month and what would your rule book be?

Thanks for joining us on this Side Quest. Make sure to share this episode with your fellow book lovers and join the conversation on Instagram and YouTube. And we'll see you next time.