Extinction Journals

Early this summer, I had just finished two mammoth tomes (Truman by David McCullough and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - both excellent and 996 and 910 pages respectively) so I was looking for some "light" reading. Not topically, but size wise. And Extinction Journals, at 76 pages fit the bill.

Extinction Journals is the third book by Jeremy Robert Johnson, a highly talented writer of the bizarro genre. I've reviewed his other two books, Angel Dust Apocalypse and Siren Promised in this blog so I guess you can call me a fan.

Extinction Journals picks up where the "The Sharp Dressed Man At the End of the Line" leaves off. For those of you unfamiliar with that story, it can be found in Mr. Johnson's short story collection, Angel Dust Apocalypse. Without giving too much away, we meet Dean in the last days before World War III, a young man who believes that he can survive the aftermath of a nuclear war if he's wearing a suit made of cockroaches. As the story ends, Dean is proved correct.

Extinction Journals follows Dean around as he makes his way through the nuclear bomb ravaged wasteland of what was once the USA. He struggles to find food and water, all the while wondering if his "suit" will, out of desperation and hunger, turn on him. Along the way, he meets a new god, borne out of mankind's collective unconscious. Neither Dean nor the reader is sure whether or not he's hallucinating, but considering he just survived a nuclear war we have to give him some leeway.

Ultimately, Dean meets other entomologically enlightened individuals who are struggling to put some sense to this brave new world. At that point, they must decide how life will exist, post-humanity, or if it will exist at all.

JRJ has a knack for characterization, even if those characters are a bit twisted. Dean is a nice enough guy, but one has to really be out there to conceive of fashioning a suit out of cockroaches in order to survive a nuclear war. And his descriptions of the nuclear wasteland are convincingly real, making you shudder (and question Dean's desire to live to see it).

The story was way too short. While readers don't need to be familiar with the short story that preceded this novella, it definitely helps. Adding it as a preface, while driving up the publishing costs, would have enhanced the reading experience for new readers of JRJ's work.

I also had a feeling of repetition between Dean's encounters. It was as if he were stumbling upon the same old irradiated buildings he wandered into earlier.

Lastly, I was hoping for more of an exploration of the relationship between Dean and his suit. I really couldn't get the sense that the symbiosis between man and roach was evolving until the very end. Maybe evolution itself works like that. Rather than gradual changes, we get abrupt "do or die" situations.

While I enjoyed this book, I feel that, for the reasons stated above, it falls short of JRJ's previous works. Newcomers should pick up his earlier works first before coming here. Fans of JRJ's work will still want to add this to their collections.

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DED