{"id":1961,"date":"2018-05-18T17:34:52","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T21:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/?p=1961"},"modified":"2018-05-18T17:34:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T21:34:52","slug":"rot-ruin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/rot-ruin\/","title":{"rendered":"Rot & Ruin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rot & Ruin<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>is the first volume in Jonathan Maberry’s popular Benny Imura series. This novel introduces 15-year-old Benny and follows his adventures as he becomes an apprentice to his zombie-killing older brother Tom, whom Benny has always resented because he feels that Tom failed to save their parents from becoming zombies. (Tom obeyed their mother\u2019s order to take young Benny and run to safety, but it\u2019s a believably teen kind of stubbornness that makes Benny turn his personal survivor\u2019s guilt into anger at his brother.)<\/p>\n

This is a fast-paced narrative full of conflict and vivid imagery, and it\u2019s not surprising that it became a bestseller.<\/p>\n

One of the really impressive things Maberry does in the novel is how he handles his world building closely within Benny\u2019s point of view. The novel is set in the fictional town of Mountainside, California, and takes place thirteen years after the zombie apocalypse. The town and the society within it has deviated considerably from the modern world the reader is familiar with, and so there\u2019s a fair bit of setting to establish here through the eyes of his somewhat na\u00efve protagonist. The twin risks inherent in any type of complex fictional worlds are that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Forgoing\/delaying details about the world can leave readers confused and cause them to disengage from the story.<\/li>\n
  2. Technically adequate world building can end up delivered in long, indigestible expository lumps that slow the narrative down to a crawl.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Maberry deftly avoids both these problems right from the start of the book.<\/p>\n

    At the beginning of the very first chapter, Maberry establishes than in Mountainside, young adults face having their food rations cut in half when they turn fifteen if they don\u2019t take some kind of job. Benny, being a believably stubborn and somewhat lazy teenaged boy, isn\u2019t keen on having to go to work and resents the whole situation. He\u2019s especially resentful when Tom offers him an apprenticeship and sullenly turns his brother down. But he can\u2019t get away from his problem, so he and his friend Chong go in search of some kind of part-time job that isn\u2019t too difficult. But because Benny and Chong are teenaged slackers, they don\u2019t keep any one job for very long, so they work a whole string of them, all focused in some way on dealing with the zombie threat \u2026 and the reader gains valuable details about the world the characters live in as a result. It\u2019s all very smooth.<\/p>\n

    By the time Benny realizes that he really does have to take Tom up on his apprenticeship offer, Maberry has thoroughly established the world of Mountainside and how the zombies work as creatures\u00a0and how human society and social mores have changed in response to the constant threat of their dead coming back as devouring monsters.<\/p>\n

    So, in short, Maberry\u2019s plot\u00a0structure\u00a0ensures that he can engage in world building that\u2019s smoothly integrated into the rest of the narrative. That\u2019s clever, and I\u2019m going to remember that technique for the future when I\u2019m sticking to a single point of view in a longer narrative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Rot & Ruin\u00a0is the first volume in Jonathan Maberry’s popular Benny Imura series. This novel introduces 15-year-old Benny and follows his adventures as he becomes […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[9,132,133],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-horror","tag-jonathan-maberry","tag-ya"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/rotnruin.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-vD","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2612,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/garden-of-eldritch-delights-nominated-for-stoker-award\/","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":0},"title":"Garden of Eldritch Delights Nominated for Stoker Award","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm very happy to announce that my short story collection Garden of Eldritch Delights has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award! The Bram Stoker Awards\u00ae will be announced\/presented during the 4th annual StokerCon\u2122 on May 11th at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The awards presentation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "convention"","block_context":{"text":"convention","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/convention\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"2012 Bram Stoker Award winners","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2012bramstokerwinners.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2012bramstokerwinners.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2012bramstokerwinners.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2012bramstokerwinners.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2012bramstokerwinners.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2012bramstokerwinners.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2702,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/a-secret-guide-to-fighting-elder-gods\/","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":1},"title":"A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"May 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods is a new YA anthology edited by Jennifer Brozek. It contains my story \u201cVisions of the Dream Witch\u201d along with new stories by Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, Tim Waggoner, and other great writers. Cover art by Peter Tikos Here's the full Table of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "publishing"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/publishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ElderGods.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4431,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/limited-editions-of-a-secret-guide-to-fighting-elder-gods\/","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":2},"title":"Limited Editions of A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"April 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Pulse Publishing is celebrating A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods' Bram Stoker nomination by running a Kickstarter of limited editions of the anthology. Backers have a choice of a litho-wrapped (casebound) hard back with Peter Tikos' artwork or a foil-stamped faux leather version. 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The narrative is very much in a dialog with (and functions as a razor-sharp rebuttal to) H.P.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/ballad.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/ballad.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/ballad.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":724,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/what-can-happen-if-you-accidentally-plagiarize\/","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":5},"title":"What can happen if you accidentally plagiarize","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"May 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Most of us first encounter the notion of plagiarism while we're in school. Countless schoolkids unwittingly become plagiarists when they write their first few research papers: they copy verbiage verbatim from an encyclopedia or Web article. 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