TOO SOON: Where is The Road taking us?

While I’m at work in finishing up some future installments of TOO SOON for Where the Long Tails Ends, here is another oldie but goodie, this time focussing on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and what the book’s popularity means. It’s a piece I’d like to expand on someday. Here is a sample:

We have become addicted to information – the noise that it provides – whether it be the truth, misinformation or disinformation; as long as the noise continues. You can find a lot of faults with I am Legend, especially if you’re a fan of the original source material, but even the most jaded viewer was moved by the awful beauty of a silent and desolate New York City. The monsters were pale in comparison to Dr Robert Neville’s failure to obtain information outside of the city, and thus keeping him isolated from human contact. EvenThe Happening takes the time to address the claustrophobic seclusion the breakdown of information provides so readily. King’s technophobic Cell offers a variation of a zombie scenario, but the biggest threat to the protagonists is how long it takes them to piece together what is happening in a world without communication. The Walking Dead’s ability to remain unpredictable is largely based on the protagonists’ inability to know if help is truly on the way. The underlying premise of Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is how – ten years after the zombie war – the information is put together and presented.

Read the rest right here.