Among Madmen is a book that has a creative and entertaining premise, but ultimately falls flat with its execution. First the set up: in the near future a strange disease starts to spread that causes people to totally veg out and become the walking comatose. There is no known cause for the disease or connection between the victims, and it seems to strike at random without discrimination. Soon, some of these veggies start to transform into super-violent psychopaths hell bent on savage brutality – the state of vegetation turns into a state of pure rage for some of the victims, and they became what are known as berserkers. Over a short period of time the United States, and perhaps the world, devolves into a Mad Max-like wasteland with small bands of people gathered in outposts protecting each other and their resources from the berserkers and other marauding bandits and thieves. Sound familiar? I was almost shocked to see how much this premise was akin to 28 Days later, and the film came out a few years after the book.
So yes, I thought I was going to be in for a violent post-apocalyptic tale of survival and action, especially after the great and tension filled opening. The berserkers were like brainless zombies out for flesh, and the bandits were still humans not much better than the monstrous zombs. I found myself devouring the first quarter of this small volume only to find myself reading smaller and smaller chunks as I continued to progress - until by the end it was more of a chore to read than anything.
The main problems with this book stem from the background of the two authors, Jim Starlin and Daina Graziunas, who began and honed their skills as comic book authors and artists. Now, I am not saying that comic book authors cannot write engaging novels (See Neil Gaiman and Greg Rucka for great examples), but I am saying that there is a vast difference between what might make for a great comic book story, and what passes for an appealing and entertaining novel. The authors never really develop any of the characters pass the stage of cliché, nor do they ever succeed in connecting the characters with the reader on any kind of emotional basis – something that must be prevalent in survival stories like this. If the reader never even really cares for any of the characters, than why would the reader care if they survive or not; and if there is no emotional connection, the premise, no matter how cool, is meaningless.
The book also lacks a sense of geography. Once again the main town of Shandaken, like the main characters, never feels fully realized or properly designed. The reader never gets the sense that the town is a real town with more streets, buildings, and places besides those written about during the major set pieces. The surrounding area of the town is not interesting nor is it ever really developed past a series of best-of like collections of scenes from far superior apocalyptic type stories such as Mad Max and Stephen King’s The Stand. I feel the narrative and the setting, like so many comic books, exists only on the pages and I never once felt that this story could be taking place or that these characters could be real people who exist outside of the confines of the book’s covers. I also felt that the authors were never fully committed to deliver what they hinted at in the opening – it was almost as if they got bored with their own story.
And this leads me to my biggest complaint – the book was just flat out boring. A story about a bunch of people banding together to protect their vanishing livelihoods from marauding bandits and zombie-like berserkers should be anything but boring. In my mind I often compared the book to such films as The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Road Warrior and John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, and I noticed that how when compared to other stories with similar situations, Among Madmen never gelled, or created the proper sense of emotion, suspense, tension or violence needed for this kind of genre narrative.
More than anything I was just flat out disappointed with the outcome of the book. Like I said, I had high hopes after the great setup and first quarter of the book. Everything seemed on track for a fun and exciting romp through the blood-soaked streets of a town overrun by the corruption of bloodthirsty berserkers filled with rage. However, what I got was a book full of flat characters, a lack of geography, and a thin narrative that never required me to care about anything happening to anyone in the story. But worst of all, I was just bored. I can deal with bad narratives and paper-thin characters so long as I am having fun, but when a genre book fails to entertain, what is the point?
