⭐⭐⭐
I really wanted to love Devolution. The premise is pretty much exactly the sort of thing that should work for me: an isolated community, a volcanic eruption, people cut off from the outside world, and then a group of Sasquatch deciding that the humans have wandered a little too far into their territory. It sounds like the setup for a really entertaining monster survival story.
And, to be fair, there is a lot about this book that I liked.
The style is probably my favourite thing about it. I really like the way Max Brooks presents the story as a reconstructed account, with Kate Holland’s journal making up the bulk of the narrative, while interviews, reports, and other pieces of information are added around it. It gives the whole thing a documentary or true-crime feel, which worked brilliantly in World War Z, and I can see why Brooks wanted to use a similar approach here.
The problem is that the style sometimes gets in the way of the actual story.
There is just so much exposition. A lot of the information is interesting, and Brooks clearly knows his stuff, but I kept reaching the point where I wanted something to actually happen. Then, when something finally did happen, it sometimes felt as though I’d almost missed it because I was still wading through all the information surrounding it.
There were quite a few moments where I found myself thinking, “Right, okay, I understand this now. Can we get back to the monsters?”
That’s probably my biggest frustration with the book, because when Devolution is actually doing the Sasquatch horror stuff, it can be really good. There are some genuinely creepy moments, particularly when the characters realise they’re not simply dealing with an animal wandering around the woods. The Sasquatch are presented as proper creatures rather than just mysterious hairy monsters that occasionally appear to scare somebody, and I liked that. I just wanted more of them.
More encounters, more stalking, more uncertainty about where they were and more of that classic “something is out there in the woods” horror. Instead, there are quite a few stretches where the book steps away from the central story to explain things to me.
The same goes for the volcano. The eruption of Mount Rainier is such a fantastic starting point for this story, and I kept expecting it to play a much bigger role. You’ve got an isolated community suddenly cut off from civilisation because of a catastrophic natural disaster, and then you’ve got Sasquatch entering the equation. That’s an absolutely brilliant horror setup.
I would have happily read a book that spent much more time dealing with the eruption itself. What does it feel like to be trapped in a community when a volcano erupts? What happens when the roads disappear, communications go down and people realise nobody is coming to rescue them? How do they cope when food and supplies start running out?
There are elements of all this, but I wanted the book to really lean into it. Instead, the volcano sometimes feels more like the mechanism that gets the characters into position for the Sasquatch story rather than a major threat in its own right. That’s a missed opportunity, because a volcanic eruption is terrifying enough without adding a monster.
The characters are reasonably interesting, and I liked putting this group of wealthy, technology-dependent people in a situation where all their modern conveniences suddenly become useless. There’s something satisfying about watching people who have designed their lives around being comfortable and self-sufficient discovering that they aren’t quite as prepared as they thought.
That survival aspect works well, particularly as the characters adapt to their situation and realise they’ll have to change. But again, I think there could have been more. I wanted to see the community completely break down, the characters making desperate decisions and the transition from comfortable modern life to genuine survival horror.
Most importantly, I wanted the Sasquatch right in the middle of it.
The pacing was probably the biggest reason this ended up being three stars for me. I didn’t dislike the book at all. Brooks has a very readable style, and the documentary-like approach is genuinely interesting. It’s just that the book spends too much time telling me about the story rather than letting me experience it.
When the actual horror arrives, I sometimes felt like I’d been pulled away from it just as things were getting interesting. That was especially frustrating because the Sasquatch are genuinely creepy when Brooks focuses on them. The idea of creatures that are physically powerful but intelligent enough to observe human behaviour and exploit weaknesses is much more frightening than simply having big monsters running around attacking people.
I think Devolution would have been a much stronger book if it had trusted its central premise more. You don’t need to spend quite so long explaining the history of Sasquatch sightings or repeatedly stepping outside the story to remind us that this is supposedly a reconstructed account. You’ve already got a volcano erupting and a group of Sasquatch hunting people in the woods.
Just let me have the monster story. That’s what I kept thinking while reading it. There is a really good horror novel buried inside Devolution. In fact, I think there is probably a great one. The combination of Mount Rainier, an isolated community and Sasquatch is fantastic, and the documentary format gives it an interesting twist.
Unfortunately, the book spends too much time building around that central story rather than simply letting it loose.
So, three stars. I liked the writing style, the documentary approach, the setting and the basic idea. There are some genuinely tense and nasty moments, and when Brooks focuses on the Sasquatch, the book can be exactly the sort of monster horror story I was hoping for. But there was too much exposition for my liking, and it sometimes felt as though the actual horror was being interrupted just when it was getting interesting. Ultimately, Devolution feels like a book that could have been so much more. Give me more volcano, more Sasquatch, and more people desperately trying to survive in the woods, and give me less explanation about what I’m supposed to be scared of. Because the premise is already terrifying enough.
Gareth Ellis - Author 