Mark Kirkbride’s Game Changers of the Apocalypse is a strange one. After a soon-to-be-married couple have a fight and break up, they suddenly find themselves alone in the world– everyone else has mysteriously vanished. As they wander the desolate landscapes of an emptied London, strange things begin to happen. The suspense builds slowly, but before you know it, Greg and Polly are in an all out flight for their life as they try to survive a mysterious and powerful entity that seems to be pulling their strings.
There is a lot to dissect here. Truth be told, I had some trouble with the first half of the book or so. The scenarios tend to be far fetched and a bit wacky. Apocalyptic stories are probably my favorite subgenre of horror, so I have a very high bar in this category. But then I realized that it wasn’t meant to be completely serious. It’s a tongue-in-cheek, yet rather heartfelt tale full of hijinks. If you go in with this in mind, you’ll have a blast. If you prefer your horror to be totally serious, this probably isn’t a great fit.
One further nitpick before I get into the good stuff. I could not stand Polly, the lady love-interest. She treats Greg very poorly, constantly berates him for everything he does in effort to save their lives, and he is never good enough. Exhausted and on the run from a horrible fate and bloody death? Greg finally finds a car with keys in it! Of course Polly hates the car he found and just has to let him know. This sort of interaction is fairly common throughout the book and it drove me a tad mad. However, I recognize that there’s a solid chance that Kirkbride made Polly unlikable on purpose. The entire book reads like a satire on relationships and classic apocalypses.
So, onto the good stuff. Kirkbride has a peculiar and immersive writing style. The tone is light and the narrative moves quickly. Kirkbride makes interesting use of syntax in a unique and definitive way. He keeps things flowing quickly with short, sweet sentences and paragraphs, making the entire thing seem more like a running narrative than a written documentation of events. There are also some absolutely eloquent gems to be found within. The combination of the quick, fleeting sentences interspersed with a few hauntingly pensive lines here and there truly adds to the emotional depth of certain scenes. I think that it is this particular writing style that kept me so engaged in the book. Whatever it was, I flew through this one in a few short days. It kept me on the hook and turning pages. Once the action starts, Greg and Polly’s situation drastically changes so frequently, you almost feel out of breath for them.
As I mentioned, apocalypse stories rank among my favorite of all time. I love the books, movies, comics and games. And I can honestly say that nobody has done it quite like Mark Kirkbride. It’s almost as if Kirkbride’s chief goal as he was writing was unpredictability. As the namesake suggests, he changes the game, time and time again. I can fairly guarantee that you will be kept guessing at every turn. And no matter how strange and full of weird twists and turns the journey is, the ending even tops everything that comes before.
I had a lot of fun with Game Changers of the Apocalypse, once I got past my few hangups. I would certainly classify it as weird horror, edging into sci-fi. If you’re alright with some zaniness mixed in with your spooks and thrills, look no further. Despite the crazy weirdness, Kirkbride also manages to incorporate a hefty amount of emotional oomph, especially in the final act. The horror was largely psychological in the first act, and moved more into survival horror territory in act two. All said and done, I sincerely doubt that you’ll regret giving Game Changers of the Apocalypse a shot. You’ll be sure to enjoy the wild ride.
Home Grown Horror 