Devolution

by Max Brooks

Published:  June 16th 2020

Read: August 21, 2021 

   
This is a book about Bigfoot. Or should i say “Bigfoots”, plural.  I was pushing for heavier stuff earlier in this year and Devolution was a nice distraction from that. 

A story of a group of Silicon Valley yuppies who dream to live off the grid up in the mountains around Washington in a totally self sustaining green neighborhood. Supplies are flown in via drone drops to ensure everyone can unplug while being fully stocked with all sorts of fancy organic foods.  Suddenly a local mountain, Mount Rainier, erupts and causes the town of Greenloop from the to become isolated from the rest of the world. As luck would have it the same eruption awakens a group of Bigfoot monsters who proceed to attack the town.  What proceeds is a lot of blood turmoil politics and ingenuity from a group in a classic horror story setup. You’ve got the underestimated old woman, the directionless schlub who gets his act together in the face of people getting torn into pieces, and the over confident Executive who may or may not be getting torn into pieces. Devolution was a fun romp that i thought to my self should have been a quick B movie or a TV show. After doing a modicum of google research i realized the story was exactly that but reworked into a book when the project couldn’t be produced.  The story is overall fairly fun and just a touch topical in the setup.   I do have a gripe that the title “Devolution” means absolutely nothing in the context of the story, and the footprint motif is even more confusing. I was rallying for some sort of story that humans “devolved” into apes but alas all this devolution could bring was Bigfoot mania.