While real-world catastrophes have arrived with distressing regularity this century, fictional stories set after the seemingly inevitable apocalypse have grown more popular than ever.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one: Grizzled loner and kid make their way in an unforgiving land
Fiction: Imaginative post-apocalyptic journey in “The Way” is more focused on the ends than the means.
For the Minnesota Star Tribune
November 29, 2024 at 2:00PM
There’s surely an element of privilege to this trend, but you can’t fault anyone seeking a bit of escape in post-apocalyptic TV shows, video games or novels. Fans of the form will likely find something of interest in Cary Groner’s novel, “The Way,” which draws liberally from beloved tropes, but the novel’s world-building lacks the intricate craft that defines the genre’s most memorable tales.
The setup for our hero’s journey is standard fare: Solitary man heeds the call to adventure that can potentially save humanity. Will Collins has spent 14 years alone at a Colorado dharma center after 2034′s Mayhem — a bird flu pandemic followed by “a brief, limited nuclear exchange” and a bunch of resurgent diseases — wiped out 80% of Earth’s population.
When he gets a mysterious email from his ex-girlfriend’s father, 52-year-old Will decides he’s been on his own long enough, hitches up his mules to a Ford F-150 truck body and sets out for California. But not before stopping by a local hospital where, per the email’s instructions, he is anesthetized so a mysterious capsule can be hidden somewhere on his body, a capsule that might contain the cure for the deadly Disease X, an “almost infinitely mutable” illness that can manifest via symptoms ranging from the development of pale skin to going “crazy for about nine months.”
Initially, Will’s only companions are his cat, Cassie, and his raven, Peau, both of whom he learned to converse with shortly after they appeared at the dharma center a few months back. Soon enough, he gets tasked with the safekeeping of 14-year-old orphan Sophie, who is uncertain exactly when she was born but knows she will be forced into prostitution the day she turns 15.
As our Lone Wolf and Cub make their way across the American Southwest, they must contend with not only the pursuit of one-dimensional baddie Buck Flynn, he of the pale skin and unknown motive, but the resurgence of the natural world, specifically the fauna that have made the most of the past 14 years without humanity.
To wit, thousands of bison roam Arizona and Nevada, along with camels and tigers and bears, oh my! And it isn’t just Mother Nature putting in the work, as the products of pre-Mayhem mad scientists have also appeared in the wild, such as the glowing crocodiles that populate Rocky Mountain rivers.
“The Way” does not lack for creativity — the raven even has sex with the cat — but too often, its rules, discoveries or coincidences seem contrived solely to facilitate the plot. Email still works, as does the entire meteorology infrastructure that enables Will’s watch to tell him the temperature, but only one town has electric lights. Google is gone, but a slower start-up search engine called Snail exists.
Even an untended solar array and the Eden it powers remain perfectly functional, though no one has come across them for 14 years. The result, in “The Way,” is like watching two people navigate an escape room. Everything exists for one purpose and there’s never any doubt it will all work out. That’s just the way it is.
Cory Oldweiler is a freelance writer.
The Way
By: Cary Groner.
Publisher: Spiegel and Grau, 294 pages, $29.
Local fiction: The Hugo resident says he doesn’t fret too much about reviews, or about how his books are going to end.
