Welcome Back Old Friend!

Ah of all the post apocalyptic characters you've ever wanted to spend more time with surely Gus, The Mountain Man has to be right up there among the very best. And he's back! But of course this isn't quite the same Gus that we first fell in love with, he's sober for a start. Who knew as those brilliant people at the AA set up their programs and their meetings that all you really needed to do was to survive a few years of a zombie apocalypse? That's as designed by Keith C Blackmore of course, ordinary zombie apocalypses need not apply! He's also a slightly more banged up Gus but the brilliant news is that while he has changed a bit he's still that flawed mound of human being that we've come to love.



Being out walking, driving, running and falling over with The Mountain Man again has been a real highlight of my listening year so far. This book takes the series in a whole new direction, with added weirdness. Yes, I know a series that has brought us playpens full of gnashing heads and even that maternity ward nightmare has found new ways to be weird, you have been warned! Most of the time it's been very much about how the day to day is transformed with ordinary people in extreme situations but the series took on a gradually grander scale as the enemies became increasingly human. This one propels us even further along that line with more sci-fi elements tagging into it and after a reasonably Gus-paced opening the action starts coming thick and fast with a feeling more akin to something like the Arisen series than The Mountain Man by the end.



But never fear there is plenty of that special brand of humanity that only Gus can bring and when he's teamed up with Collie Jones, a woman as scary as the apocalypse itself, his heart is just as much at risk as his miserable skin. Blackmore is a clever writer and while the story behind the apocalypse is explored a little more he finds ever new inventive ways to torture his long-suffering hero and drag at his heartstrings. You really are going to want to sit poor Gus down and pour some of the Captain's remedy down him on more than one occasion during this one.



The performance, I really don't need to say anything other than it would have been a crime if Podium had chosen anyone else and I would have done a Collie Jones on them if they had!



So, a bit different in character, a bit more Sci-fi in nature but it's still Gus and Blackmore is still throwing every kind of viscera at him that you can imagine with Gus actually ending up smellier than he has ever been before at times as hard as that is to believe.



Just wonderful.