Tank Bread 2: Immortal (2013)

"No. There are others, though. In other parts of the world. We won the battle, Else, but not the war." - The Courier

Nine months after the Courier gave his life to destroy the evol hive-mind former tank bread Else is preparing for the arrival of her baby. A storm strikes after the baby is born and Else is flung onto a road to hell in order to find her baby, who disappeared during the tempest. Her journey will lead her into contact with one of the last Koori tribes, onto a pleasure cruiser with evols in command, and finally into conflict with someone she knows who is preparing to unleash the next apocalypse.

Can Else find her place as the saviour of the last remnants of humanity and can she lead them to safety in an increasingly dangerous landscape? The evols aren't the only dangerous things in the Aussie bush, besides the fauna there's a scientist who hasn't learnt anything from history and humans who are happy with their new reality and see no need to change it.

Okay just a quick catch up for those who haven't read the first Tankbread novel or who have memory loses. The zombie apocalypse has gone down, Australia is pretty much being depopulated by the walking dead - just like having a Liberal government really, and the zombies can get back rudimentary thought processes by consuming living tissue. Some mad scientist came up with the concept of clones grown in tanks to feed the hungry, hence "tankbread". Okay everyone up to speed - let's move it along here people.

Tankbread 2: Immortal breaks down into four parts, which is actually quite episodal when all things are considered. Else having her baby then losing it and her journey to finding the purloined infant, not really sure if that constitutes a "hero's progress", but whatever. Else battling the zombie hordes and human subclass on board the boat. Else and survivors fleeing inland and eventually finding a certain place she has visited before. And finally Else facing perhaps her greatest challenge, a human scientist who has simply lost it completely. Each block of the novel works as its own narrative but hangs together in the overall novel structure without too many problems, though the society developed on the boat is slightly forced, how long since the breakdown of civilisation are we talking anyway?

On the bright side of the zombie mind Paul Mannering's narrative romps along at a fair old pace with the story not lagging at any stage. The Author doesn't bog us down with unnecessary description, or deep introspective examinations of the human condition, Mannering gets what a horror is all about, story and getting where you are going with a minimum amount of detours to appease whatever Literary Gods the English Lit departments of various institutions believe exist. So plenty of action, description as needed, and fully drawn characters. I'm not actually after more from a penny dreadful, so Tankbread 2 was working for mine like a brought one.

While the first novel in the Tankbread trilogy, yes there are three novels in the series now, dealt with Sydney's urban landscape by and large this novel is fixed firmly in the "bush", one of those weird places in the Australian psyche. We may all harbour random notions about going bush, but truth be told the largely urbanised Aussie population has a fundamental apprehension of the hinterland. Mannering dials into this, which also explains the zombie horde being thinned out, in an altogether unsettling way. Yes the zombies are flesh eating monsters, yes you have more to be concerned about from your fellow survivors, but underlining this is the Aussie bush as a harsh and all together deadly place. Mannering might not spell out the dangers but like the survivors of the zombie boat party, no one is altogether comfortable traipsing around the "outback".

Ultimately Tankbread 2 reflects the ending of the movie Mad Max 2, there is a safe place up North somewhere, but that's not the conclusion to things, that's the light at the end of a particularly dark tunnel and as horror fans we aren't all that interested in going into the light to be honest, the dark tunnel presents far more interest. The Author inherently grasps that truism of horror literature, happy endings are for the romance end of the literary spectrum, horror is about getting down and dirty in the trenches. So yeap the novel in question knows exactly what genre it's wallowing in, and is having a marvellous time in doing so.

In terms of gore, yes this is a zombie outing end of day, Mannering keeps a lid on it, there are no blood drenched scenes of carnage at the undead dinner table. However the Author does enter into some pretty chilling horror concepts that will have some readers having a few restless nights as they relive the scenarios. Try, for example, a society so dysfunctional that new born babes are feed to the zombie overlords, now that is a troubling concept considering the human race is headed toward the brink of extinction, a sort of undead lemming leap of deranged social norms. Surprisingly, in one of those switches in horror tropes I personally find satisfying, Else turns out to be a force of chaos entering a deluded yet ordered society. I would love to get Stephen King's take on the whole thing, taking into account his Apollonian/Dionysian literary concept. Assuming here you can breakdown the whole boat society as being strangely Apollonian. There's a bunch of other themes sinking the blade into the novel, this isn't a critical site find them for yourself, but end of day Mannering keeps the disturbing level rocking.

Sex isn't part of the shenanigans Mannering has happening in his narrative, though there is a rape scene that might have the usual femnazis up in arms as it defines one of the male characters. Okay personally I might be against rape as a trope in horror where it isn't really necessary, but in terms of the post-apocalyptic novel it does define the breakdown of society to a more primitive and savage state of being. Make your own mind up here, not making a value judgement myself.

Tankbread 2: Immortal was a fast paced read that kept yours truly glued to the page from the first paragraph to the last paragraph, well taking into account we're in page turner territory, shut up you know what I mean. Paul Mannering has once again nailed a zombie novel that breaks the bindings of normal undead literature, delivering an excellent narrative in the process. If you are going to read one zombie novel this year then I implore you to seek out a copy of this novel, you are not going to regret the decision. Paul Mannering's Tankbread trilogy matches Max Brooks' Word War Z, finally some decent undead literature that dares to take the whole subgenre deadly serious.