The Never Ending Interview: Day Eleven

One question a day will be addressed, for as long as it remains interesting to me, and the questions keep coming.

Today’s question was asked by Matthew Wilson aka @COLORnMATT.

Matthew: How come you hate it (Zombie stories)?

Bill: For two reasons. First, zombies aren’t interesting villains. They’re mindless. They have no agenda, no plans, no hopes and dreams. They are bacteria, bent on world domination for no other reason than that’s the extent of their limited programming. A sprig of ivy is also programmed to mindlessly cover the entire Earth, only failing because of all of the competing forces arrayed against it. While that might be a mildly interesting fact, I’ve no desire to see any film, or read any book about ivy’s quest for world domination. It’s boring. Just like zombies.

Second, and this is the big reason, then, if the threat is mindless and boring, one would think the interesting story is to be found in those survivors fighting against the threat. To which my answer is: Yes, that would be nice, to see a story about clever and resourceful survivors determined to live, to defeat the zombie menace, and triumph.

The problem is, after any number of zombie films, TV shows and stories, I’ve yet to see one about clever and resourceful people. Every one so far has been about

idiots who don’t deserve to live, because they always do the stupidest possible things in the face of what should be, or could be, a manageable threat. Even in stories that posit there are groups of more clever and resourceful groups out there, fighting the good fight, we seem to be stuck in a genre in which we aren’t allowed to see those groups. We, for reasons beyond my understanding (other than it seems to be locked in as a staple of the genre), have to follow the exploits of morons. I quickly get tired of watching dramatic conflict generated by idiots doing suicidal things. Please, for once, tell me the stories of the better, smarter ones.

I’m not saying every zombie story has to be about stupid people. I’m only saying, so far, every one I’ve tried has been. After a while, one begins to trust the pattern.

To every rule, the occasional exception, which is why I haven’t abandoned all hope. In the opening scene of the very first of the Game of Thrones books, we’re introduced to the zombie threat, which will be hanging over our heads for (what looks like) the entirety of the series. My immediate reaction was to put the book down and forget it, for all of the reasons mentioned above. However, it was George RR Martin, who had a proven track record of delivering good stories, so I hung on long enough to see the first hints that the zombie menace wasn’t alone – that they were, and would be, under the direction of a group of really bad fellows called The White Walkers, who weren’t mindless, who did have a specific agenda and a plan to bring said agenda about.

Now that’s a fine new take on a tired old premise. Yes, there are mindless zombies, but they happen to be a weapon in the hands of intelligent villains. Good for you, George.

That took care of my first of the two objections to the genre.

There’s also some promise that, after a few terrible blunders in the face of an enemy the still living people couldn’t and quite bring themselves to credit (which is fine – since I don’t mind heroes that make terrible mistakes, but I can’t forgive those who are incapable of learning and adjusting to the early blunders), the doughty men and women of Westeros will be able to step up and deal with the threat in reasoned ways.

I’m also looking forward to the movie World War Z, which promises (or at least the trailers hint at the possibility) that this will be a story of smart people in the face of a nearly overwhelming calamity, which is a fine sort of story to tell.

We’ll see.

Now that I’ve told you what I don’t like and why, let me point you towards something I do like. For one of the best stories ever about an isolated group of men and women facing a seemingly overwhelming monstrous force read the book Legacy of Heorot, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes. Before picking up this book I would have sworn that a story with three authors couldn’t possibly be worth reading (according to the always reliable “too many cooks and the resulting soup” rule), but it turns out I was not only wrong, but horribly so.

Heorot is about a group of us colonizing a new world and what happens when they encounter a monster. (Spoilers now.) They make a lot of mistakes at first.

As a result the first encounter with the monster nearly destroys the colony. But these characters aren’t zombie-story idiots. The survivors adapt, learn and overcome, because that’s what we do. And when their solutions create even bigger problems… well, that’s where the tale gets really exciting.

Niven, Pournelle and Barnes have written a template for monster stories that, if it magically became the template to replace the one currently dominating zombie stories, I’d be a much happier reader.