Exploring The Labyrinth
In this series, I will be reading every Brian Keene book that has been published (and is still available in print) in order of original publication, and then producing an essay on it. With the exception of Girl On The Glider and End Of The Road, these essays will be based upon a first read of the books concerned. The article will assume you’ve read the book, and you should expect MASSIVE spoilers.
I hope you enjoy my voyage of discovery.
13. Clickers II
It’s a truth that cannot be erased by either it’s obviousness, nor its status as cliche; sometimes, events overtake you.
I try quite hard to keep the focus of these essays on the work, in as much as I am capable of such discipline, which, spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read the first twelve, is apparently ‘not very much at all’. But as I write this, American cities are burning because a black man was murdered on camera by a cop, and the political leadership of both the US and the UK are, it’s increasingly clear, more concerned with restarting their economies than they are with the threat to life of Covid-19, an illness that’s claimed 369,000 deaths worldwide, of which 105,000 were US citizens, and over 38,000 from the UK. I’m reading Hunter S. Thompsons’ Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail for the first time. As I type this, my hands and clothes smell of wood smoke. I mean, what’s a fella to do?
Because as I remarked to Brian Keene on Twitter earlier today, the US is basically living through the plot of Clickers II right now, only with Covid-19 in place of killer crustaceans, and with a man in the White House who worships free market economics rather than God; though with equal blind fervour, and with an identical zealot mindset when it comes to protecting the people he is supposed to represent.
And it’s kind of hard to write about the book, for that reason. Because it reads - especially President Tyler - as a kind of larger-than-life, B-Movie extravaganza. I mean that as a compliment, to be clear - this is a novel that is an epic scale creature feature, with scenes of mass carnage and devastation played out upon a national stage. But one of the principal players is Tyler, a cartoonishly foolish, science hating denialist of anything that doesn’t fit his blinkered worldview, and who has somehow become president of the United States during an unprecedented disaster, and who refuses to listen to the scientific consensus, instead insisting that he and he alone knows the truth path, and, I mean… *looks to camera*
What I find so hard to write about is the clash between the buffoonish cartoon and the buffoonish reality. More than once, I found myself thinking ‘Come on, chaps, that’s a bit broad brush even for a pulp novel,’ before remembering some 5am tweet storm, and ending up with the strangest sense of dislocation; as though reality itself had become a B-movie disaster story.
And that was three months ago, and kind of a lot has happened since then, none of which has done anything to make that feeling less resonant.
But I think - I think - that feeling did quite a bit of damage for me, personally, in terms of my enjoyment of the book. Because I feel strongly that the novel wasn’t intended primarily, if at all, as political commentary or pointed social satire. I’m sure, in the original conception, Tyler was intended as a kind of Spitting Image puppet version of George Bush Jr. - a figure of fun in other words; sure, with some resonance for the then-contemporary audience, but equally, a cartoonish figure we could love to hate, as the Clickers chew their way through the population of the US, until, in a glorious finale, MechaClicker (probably not what (s)he was actually called) crawls up to the White House lawn and tears the roof off of the Oval Office like it’s the lid on a can of spam before chowing down with righteousness.
And I dunno, look, maybe it’ll still work that way for you, and if so, I am genuinely happy for you. But for me, evan at the time of reading it, in January, never mind thinking back over it from the heady heights of the end of May 2020, when, well, *gestures at the absolute dumpster fire that is the State Of Things*, the parallels with current events are actually far too close to the bone for me to feel anything much other than a kind of numb shock and crawling horror.
And we’re talking about a book, to be clear, about giant killer crustaceans.
And I just can’t even. In the same way as I couldn’t watch Independence Day for years after 9/11 made montages of New York landmarks blowing up have a whole new resonance that jarred completely with the intended popcorn fun, I genuinely cannot reach within for some alleged objectivity to allow me to talk about this book in anything we might regard as remotely sensible.
And I am sorry about that. I know this one is utterly beloved by many fans of both Keene and Gonzalez, and I’m sure anyone following this series probably had this essay marked out as one they were looking forward to.
And I mean it; I’m sorry. I’m just too tired and sad and angry and scared. And again, to be crystal clear, I am neither trying to bum anybody else out, or cast shade on what flavour of escapist pulp horror brings you joy - I mean, this is a Brian Keene retrospective, for fuck’s sake; I’d better not, right? But since lockdown landed, I’ve barely written a word, and crawling fear has been a constant companion, and King says ‘write what scares you’ and Hunter says ‘tell your truth’ and so, here we are.
Clickers II is almost ceritanly a rollocking pulp horror novel, taking the core conceit of the first book and transplanting it to a national scale, with scenes of mass carnage and gore that will delight connoisseurs of the genre, and a huge cast of characters whose journey through the unfolding nightmare will probably grip and thrill you in equal measure. It’s probably a creature feature B-movie masterpiece in novel form. It’s certainly a fan favourite, and Keene fandom normally knows what time it is.
It’s just for me, right now, at 1:30 am on the 31st May, 2020, it’s simply far, far too close to the waking nightmare we’re all trying to live through for me to feel like I have anything helpful or objective to say about it - except, perhaps, that as much as I am growing to love the man and his work, I’m not super stoked about the notion of living in a world written by Brian Keene, and I’d quite like that feeling to go away.
Sorry.
Next up: Kill Whitey (and I promise that one won’t be a stream of consciousness rant about the state of the world).
KP
I try quite hard to keep the focus of these essays on the work, in as much as I am capable of such discipline, which, spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read the first twelve, is apparently ‘not very much at all’. But as I write this, American cities are burning because a black man was murdered on camera by a cop, and the political leadership of both the US and the UK are, it’s increasingly clear, more concerned with restarting their economies than they are with the threat to life of Covid-19, an illness that’s claimed 369,000 deaths worldwide, of which 105,000 were US citizens, and over 38,000 from the UK. I’m reading Hunter S. Thompsons’ Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail for the first time. As I type this, my hands and clothes smell of wood smoke. I mean, what’s a fella to do?
Because as I remarked to Brian Keene on Twitter earlier today, the US is basically living through the plot of Clickers II right now, only with Covid-19 in place of killer crustaceans, and with a man in the White House who worships free market economics rather than God; though with equal blind fervour, and with an identical zealot mindset when it comes to protecting the people he is supposed to represent.
And it’s kind of hard to write about the book, for that reason. Because it reads - especially President Tyler - as a kind of larger-than-life, B-Movie extravaganza. I mean that as a compliment, to be clear - this is a novel that is an epic scale creature feature, with scenes of mass carnage and devastation played out upon a national stage. But one of the principal players is Tyler, a cartoonishly foolish, science hating denialist of anything that doesn’t fit his blinkered worldview, and who has somehow become president of the United States during an unprecedented disaster, and who refuses to listen to the scientific consensus, instead insisting that he and he alone knows the truth path, and, I mean… *looks to camera*
What I find so hard to write about is the clash between the buffoonish cartoon and the buffoonish reality. More than once, I found myself thinking ‘Come on, chaps, that’s a bit broad brush even for a pulp novel,’ before remembering some 5am tweet storm, and ending up with the strangest sense of dislocation; as though reality itself had become a B-movie disaster story.
And that was three months ago, and kind of a lot has happened since then, none of which has done anything to make that feeling less resonant.
But I think - I think - that feeling did quite a bit of damage for me, personally, in terms of my enjoyment of the book. Because I feel strongly that the novel wasn’t intended primarily, if at all, as political commentary or pointed social satire. I’m sure, in the original conception, Tyler was intended as a kind of Spitting Image puppet version of George Bush Jr. - a figure of fun in other words; sure, with some resonance for the then-contemporary audience, but equally, a cartoonish figure we could love to hate, as the Clickers chew their way through the population of the US, until, in a glorious finale, MechaClicker (probably not what (s)he was actually called) crawls up to the White House lawn and tears the roof off of the Oval Office like it’s the lid on a can of spam before chowing down with righteousness.
And I dunno, look, maybe it’ll still work that way for you, and if so, I am genuinely happy for you. But for me, evan at the time of reading it, in January, never mind thinking back over it from the heady heights of the end of May 2020, when, well, *gestures at the absolute dumpster fire that is the State Of Things*, the parallels with current events are actually far too close to the bone for me to feel anything much other than a kind of numb shock and crawling horror.
And we’re talking about a book, to be clear, about giant killer crustaceans.
And I just can’t even. In the same way as I couldn’t watch Independence Day for years after 9/11 made montages of New York landmarks blowing up have a whole new resonance that jarred completely with the intended popcorn fun, I genuinely cannot reach within for some alleged objectivity to allow me to talk about this book in anything we might regard as remotely sensible.
And I am sorry about that. I know this one is utterly beloved by many fans of both Keene and Gonzalez, and I’m sure anyone following this series probably had this essay marked out as one they were looking forward to.
And I mean it; I’m sorry. I’m just too tired and sad and angry and scared. And again, to be crystal clear, I am neither trying to bum anybody else out, or cast shade on what flavour of escapist pulp horror brings you joy - I mean, this is a Brian Keene retrospective, for fuck’s sake; I’d better not, right? But since lockdown landed, I’ve barely written a word, and crawling fear has been a constant companion, and King says ‘write what scares you’ and Hunter says ‘tell your truth’ and so, here we are.
Clickers II is almost ceritanly a rollocking pulp horror novel, taking the core conceit of the first book and transplanting it to a national scale, with scenes of mass carnage and gore that will delight connoisseurs of the genre, and a huge cast of characters whose journey through the unfolding nightmare will probably grip and thrill you in equal measure. It’s probably a creature feature B-movie masterpiece in novel form. It’s certainly a fan favourite, and Keene fandom normally knows what time it is.
It’s just for me, right now, at 1:30 am on the 31st May, 2020, it’s simply far, far too close to the waking nightmare we’re all trying to live through for me to feel like I have anything helpful or objective to say about it - except, perhaps, that as much as I am growing to love the man and his work, I’m not super stoked about the notion of living in a world written by Brian Keene, and I’d quite like that feeling to go away.
Sorry.
Next up: Kill Whitey (and I promise that one won’t be a stream of consciousness rant about the state of the world).
KP
The first wave was just the beginning . . . The United States is in ruins. It has just suffered one of the worst hurricanes in history, the people are demoralized, and the president is a religious fanatic. Then things get really bad - the Clickers return. Thousands of the monsters swarm across the entire nation and march inland, slaughtering anyone and anything they come across. But this time the Clickers aren't blindly rushing onto land - they are being led by an intelligence older than civilization itself. A force that wants to take dry land away from the mammals. Those left alive soon realize that they must do everything and anything they can to protect humanity - no matter the cost. This isn't war, this is extermination.
