FantasticLand: A Novel

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They had been dressed up in princess and mouse costumes, posing for pictures with little children just the day before, and now they are stabbing each other with the props and hanging dead bodies as warnings to the other "tribes" off of teacup rides?

The book is written as this sort of book research, by a journalist named Adam Jakes. He assembles the accounts of what went so horribly wrong through interviews with subjects ranging from a 'FantasticLand historian' to many survivors, to the infamous leader of the Pirate tribe. I stopped reading this for my own sanity and the sanity of my boyfriend. I kept scoffing and sighing and let-me-just-read-you-this-ridiculous-part-ing. I really did not like this. yeah, five stars, what of it? i was ready to give this one five stars just on premise alone: a massive hurricane in florida isolates an amusement park full of workers entrusted with keeping an eye on things after the customers have been evacuated, and despite having plenty of food, water, medical supplies and shelter, once they are rescued by the national guard a month later, the place is destroyed, many have died, the survivors are injured, and on top of the staggering property damage, there are also corpses hanging from wires, heads on spikes, tales of spectacle-murders, cannibalism, and the warriors-style themed-gang affiliations and epic battles that led to all this violent devastation. This story is told in a documentary style, a reporter shares with us the thoughts and commentary of survivors that stayed in a Florida theme park to care for it after the storm hit. It has a 'Lord Of The Flies' feel, but ... not. Tragic survivors that overreact to their situation in every wrong way possible. But the simple answer is yes, I have thought about revisiting the world of FantasticLand. I don’t have a manuscript or a firm plan necessarily, but yeah, there are a lot of things I think could be expanded upon.If you haven’t seen that movie, you really need to rectify it immediately or there’s a possibility I will defriend you. j/k. *cough* maybe *cough*) The concept is excellent, built on the premise that society is 3 days' food from collapse at any given point. Take a group of 200 young people, isolate them from the world for the first time, split them into groups with no centralised leadership... yup, I can get onboard with this reality. One limitation of this form, however, is that we don't get to spend much time with each character. In some cases, that's just fine--yikes!--but in others, it seems like a missed opportunity. There are also a few extremely intriguing story elements that surface briefly and then vanish with the next interview, only to pop up later on. That can be great fun, or frustrating, depending on how much we want to know, and sometimes I wanted to know more. You can really believe that these are all different people giving an account of their experiences, also making it easy to split into sections to listen to during commutes etc. (I totally didn't do that, I spent all of Sunday afternoon cleaning out kitchen cupboards just so I could keep listening to it).

Okay guys, I DNF it about 40%. I was listening to the audiobook and that was really cool. The narrators' voice was emotional, they got right into the story. I loved it when they screamed or cried when they've read the story for me. It has some moments of goriness, but this book is a scarily thoughtful illustration of that 'right set of circumstances' so you feel yourself being swept up in the panic and violence.

I think World War Z is probably one of the most important horror novels in the last 20 years, both for what it was and what it wrought. I know the Walking Dead comic came out before it, but is there still a zombie boom without World War Z? I’m not convinced there is. AIPT: Did FantasticLand‘s narrative end up going places you didn’t expect when you started writing it?