 So de-evolution by Max Brooks. He is the guy that wrote the zombie survival guide in World War Z and he Managed to make Sasquatch scary. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long I really mean that. I'm not like being facetious. I'm not trying to make a joke or anything He made Sasquatch scary like Bigfoot or the Yeti or the Yaoi is it is that what they're called in Australia wait? Hold on a sec. I want to check. Yeah, the Yaoi. Okay, so that's the Australian name for it But like yeah, most cultures have tales of some sort of big like ape-esque man that walks around in the wilderness and we've heard plenty of myths and legends about it over the years and like They're not real. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to break it to you, but Bigfoot isn't real and neither are ghosts Okay, I that's that's a separate discussion. I don't want to get into ghosts right now But I just I just hate that people act like they're real, but the point is Sasquatch is not real, but in the evolution Max Brooks basically says like hey, what if they were real? What would they be like and then he Basically sets the stage for this one specific incident where a bunch of people were killed by a pack of Sasquatches or troop Heard whatever you want to call it The story is essentially that there's this small community in rural Washington state like up in the mountains somewhere the exact spot is never specified but They're up there. They're very cut off from civilization and then one day Mount Rainier erupts Which is that is possible like I don't think it's likely in our lifetimes But it is possible and that causes tons of issues all over the state So like Seattle and a couple other bigger cities are like cut off from the world And so rescue services and everything is focused on that but at the same time the community of Greensboro is Cut off as well. It has no communication. The one road in or out of town is covered by magma flow and They are running low on food. That's their main issue at first. However as the days go on a Troop of Sasquatches is also fleeing the disaster and they're making their way closer and closer to this community and while They're basically like primates, you know where they're mostly vegetarians like they mostly fruits and such But if they need to they will eat meat And so they start finding dead animals all over the place that were killed in bizarre ways and then the Sasquatches see Oh, there's all these humans Food now just like World War Z. This book is written as though it's non-fiction You know, it's not written in the same way as World War Z. Which was a series of interviews. This one is written Kind of like what was that book called into the wild, you know Where that dude disappeared into Alaska and died and the author basically just investigated his life and What caused him to do that and what happened up to that point or like a bunch of other true crime novels that are out there This one is like the author is Investigating what happened in Greensboro because everyone there went missing and they don't know what happened to them And it cuts back between his investigation in the present and the journal that one of the people there wrote and my only Real issue with this book and even then it's not a big issue is that The journal takes up a little too much of it. I would say like Okay, it's a journal that is that has way more detail than a regular person would write in their journal I get that I can suspend disbelief for that. That's not a huge issue There's plenty of other books for that same issue comes up, but you just you just got to roll with it That said I do wish there had been more time spent on the author in the present Investigating things because he it's mostly just two interviews that he makes like There's one with a park ranger who figured out what was going on and is basically going into detail about hey Here's why we never found these guys. Here's why they're here's how they were so cut off Here's why they were in so much trouble, etc And then the other one is an interview with one of the people who went missing one of her brother And he's also convinced that like yep sasquatches went in and killed people even though that sounds crazy to your average person He's very convinced of it. So Those two interviews are really good. I just wish there had been a little bit more of it other than that I have basically no complaints. This is like a perfect Max Brooks horror novel because a lot of people forget that when at the Time when the zombie survival guide in World War Z came out zombies That was before the zombie craze so no one really cared about them and they They were seen as kind of silly They were seen as just shambling slow dumb corpses that went brains and that was it But max Brooks was one of the first people at least one of the first people in this century Who really stopped and said hey? What if these guys like really were just out to eat human flesh wouldn't they be kind of terrifying and like they are But as long as you're prepared for it not that big a deal and sasquatch is kind of the same way It's just that in this the people are not prepared for it like even though they're way out in the middle of the wilderness surrounded by wild animals, they're kind of a New-age hippie commune sort of thing and so they don't have any firearms or anything and Like I said, they didn't have much food prepared a pretty big theme of this book Just like with World War Z is how most people are just generally Unprepared for disasters or at least most Americans are generally unprepared for disasters Like not just us as individuals, but like our government and our society as a whole just Don't know What to do or rather we aren't ready to do what we need to do in case of an emergency You know, we don't have enough food stocked up that won't spoil like you know canned goods and such we don't Our grocery stores Need constant deliveries or else they will be just out of food altogether. I'm sorry. Meadows is running a little bit I hope I'm not touching it too much But and if you're out in the middle of the wilderness and you're surrounded by even if we forget Sasquatch for a minute If you're surrounded by bears and mountain lions and stuff you kind of need to have some sort of firearm around like I'm sorry. That's just that's just the case that said the journal is told much more like a traditional narrative You know like we have a main character Katie the one who's writing it When she first arrives at the community She gets to know everybody and introduces them all to her journal, which is written kind of for herself and kind of for her psychiatrist which Okay, it makes sense why she would actually be keeping this and why she would be writing down so much because it's a way for her To deal with her anxiety. So okay, I buy that and it also talks a little bit about like her marital problems and everything which I Get why they put that in I just didn't care that much like it wasn't an issue really I just I was never into it and then there's the eruption and then being cut off and then realizing okay we got to Make sure we have enough food and stuff. So we have to ration things and then there's the slow build-up of like Hey, there's some weird animals out there and most of the other people think like it's a bear guys. It's fine but then Finally the Sasquatches reveal themselves and they all think well shit now. What do we do and then the rest of the book is Impressively intense like the last book I read that really had me this Gripped in there and my heart beating this much and I had to periodically stop and just take a couple of deep breaths I'm really not exaggerating when I say that the last book to do that was Metro 2033 Which is really sell the book by the way you check that out But even if that one is written on the weir But devolution is much more straightforward with its plot and with its characters and so it's just It's very very intense like even if I wasn't in love with most of these characters Most of them were just fine the one exception being most are who was this Woman who was in the Yugoslav Wars or rather she was a civilian in the Yugoslav Wars So she's the one that when the disaster happened. She's like hey, we need to prepare here's what we need to do We need to ration our food and all that so she was pretty good The rest of them are just kind of there, you know But that said it is pretty great to watch the Sasquatches like Attack people and them have to try and find a way to fight back properly So they you know build some homemade weapons and they prepare themselves and these things are way bigger and stronger than us And they're extremely intelligent as well and they want to eat us so Shit we got a we got to get rip It all seems like the humans are de-evolving a little bit Which I don't know maybe I'm reading a little bit too much into this But like when the humans start building spears and axes and short swords and stuff It seems almost like they're reverting to some Pre-civilization hunting society which used to presumably deal with the Sasquatches because There's actually some bits in the interviews later where they talk about how Maybe the Sasquatches were some sort of giant ape that lived out in Asia and they came over to North America many thousands of years ago around the same time humans did and they Sort of evolved alongside humans, I guess like there's an explanation given which uses Africa as an example and it's like hey Those animals they're evolved alongside humans like so before we were really even humans and then up to the present day So they were able to find ways to survive against us Whereas the rest of the world a lot of the big animals like mammoths died out because they got hit with us when we were You know intelligent and when we had technology and weaponry and when we had social cohesion so we knew how to hunt and stuff and so that's a really really fascinating idea and It basically says that yeah the Sasquatches They evolved to learn how to be really good at hiding so that they could I mean whether they're prey or predators that's a good skill to have in nature and they also learned like eat meat and eat veggies because Well that that's also just a good thing to have but the main question is were did they follow after humans as food? Or did they run away from humans and it's it's kind of left ambiguous But we know in the present. They'll be willing to eat humans. So it's just it's a really a really creepy idea you know and Well, I've rambled on a little bit enough, but basically just yeah, it's a really creepy story really Bizarrely plausible because you know it's Max Brooks. He just puts a lot of detail out there and overall Well, just really good. So if you're a fan of horror if you're a fan of Max Brooks I would say check this one out Special thanks to all of my patrons whose names you see here including my $10 up guys Appo Savalainen Andrew Dixon Ashley Watson Ava tumor be Quinn brother Santotis Christopher Quinten Emily Miller Joel Johnny St. Clair Madison Lewis Bennett Ronnie Taylor Briggs tobacco crow Tom Beanie tofer Wheeler and vaivictus man that that list is getting long Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye