Except for the slow start, I think it began to get crazy abut chapter 3, This book is. sensational! Max Brooks gave me a thrill, characters jumped off the pages. The story was tight, fast paced and actually believable! Imagine that Mt. Rainier exploded and Seattle and Tacoma are covered in ash and mud and lava. Imagine the other side of the mountain remains relatively unaffected. The animals are running for their lives, people who were camping are either dead or looking for a way out. Imagine that on the "unaffected" side, there is a little experimental enclave of 5 families who are living away from the crazy city life but still with modern technology. Solar electricity, methane heating (from their own pooh), drones that bring in orders from the city (a'la Amazon). Of course they can and do travel back and forth to the city when they need or want to. Not a cult, just a group of people who want to have the advantages of modern life without the noise, overcrowding, etc of actually living in the city. Now. Rainier erupts, using their radios they keep up with the chaos... this is where the true nature of the characters come out. This is where leaders fall apart and others shift into new positions in this small community. This is where Sasquatch comes in. Driven from the mountain with the other wild life, this species decides that the humans will be easy prey- they are hungry, humans are small. Yes, I am so oversimplifying the story. I wish I could better convey the story. But I can only do what I can do. Sasquatch vs human. Both on the edge. Both desperate to live. And so they fight. In Devolution, we are witness, through the brilliant writing of Mr. Brooks, of how people change to meet a crisis. I thought I knew how it was going to end, I didn't. The epilogue kept me going and I'll be thinking about this story for a long time. Read the book. Only reason I gave it 4.5 stars instead of 5 is because of its slow beginning. After that, it is a 6 star story. (read less)

Except for the slow start, I think it began to get crazy abut chapter 3, This book is. sensational! Max Brooks gave me a thrill, characters jumped off the pages. The story was tight, fast paced and actually believable! Imagine that Mt. Rainier exploded and Seattle and Tacoma are covered in ash and mud and lava. Imagine the other side of the mountain remains relatively unaffected. The animals (read more)

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks is set in the deep Pacific Northwest forests near Mount Rainier in Washington State. The story is set in a small, isolated community developed specifically for technologically-dependent people. They are suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a volcanic eruption. Then in addition to lacking outdoor survival skills and resources, they find themselves being attacked by a group of Bigfoot. While usually any writing about the legendary Sasquatch emphasizes that they are shy, solitary creatures, in this book they are like a tribe of chimpanzee, following a female leader and working together as a cohesive unit. The story is dark and violent so words like “fun” and “enjoy” seem rather inappropriate but this stylish, dark, and captivating tale certainly pleased me. This isn’t a slow build up to excitement, the imaginative story quickly became disturbing and frightening. I live in the Pacific Northwest and do not for a moment believe in the Sasquatch but as a scary monster story, Devolution is very well done. The author doesn’t bother with questions like “how did they get here?” or “where did they originate?” he simply jumps into this story of super-predators driven by hunger, stalking and hunting a group of lessor beings. As horror stories go, this one is a good one. (read less)

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks is set in the deep Pacific Northwest forests near Mount Rainier in Washington State. The story is set in a small, isolated community developed specifically for technologically-dependent people. They are suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a volcanic eruption. Then in addition to lacking outdoor survival (read more)