★★★☆☆ Standard viral apocalypse novel, but with a trick

The Drift

CJ Tudor

I read a bunch of reviews praising the originality and creativity of C.J. Tudor's new novel The Drift. So I was disappointed when I began reading to find that it was a bog-standard zombie apocalypse novel. Yes, there are zombies, although the characters use a different word for them.

The story unfolds in three threads told from three points of view: Hannah, Meg, and Carter. Hannah and Meg were on their way to a place called "The Retreat" (Carter is already there) when a mishap halted their transportation and trapped them inside in a snowstorm. Hannah is trapped in a crashed school bus. Meg is trapped in a stalled cable car suspended above a mountain. There are several other people in the bus and the cable car.

This was my first, relatively minor problem with The Drift. The Hannah and Meg threads were almost interchangeable. In each vehicle we have our intrepid point-of-view narrator, our take-charge young man, and our annoying whiny young woman. As I read, I literally had difficulty keeping straight which particular whiny young woman and take-charge guy we were hearing from at any given moment. They became somewhat more distinct later.

Everyone lives in a world with a deadly (74% lethal -- most of the survivors become zombies ) and extraordinarily contagious virus, for which there is no vaccine and essentially no treatment, once symptoms appear. This virus has already brought about a collapse of civilization. Everyone in the story is worried about infection. In fact, we quickly learn that some are already infected.

I could not find anyone to like or admire. The characters are ruthless, beweaponed and very, very violent. Also, they are selfish. If The Drift has anything that can be called an "ethic", it is this: "Do ANYTHING you must to survive." In the world of The Drift, survival is the only virtue. "You're either a good guy or a survivor" is a thought that appears multiple times. Since everyone is in danger and they have limited resources, this leads to a lot of conflict -- the familiar post-acpocalypse novel playbook.

The book was rescued somewhat by the way it ended -- the way Tudor brought her three threads together. It turns out she was playing a trick on us right from the beginning. She reveals the trick near the end and then the story mostly makes sense. It was a good trick and fooled me (I didn't really start to figure it out until about the 80% mark), so for that I will give The Drift three stars.

So, to summarize, we have here a violent viral apocalypse novel with one redeeming feature: a clever story-telling trick.

I thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reader copy of The Drift. This review expresses my honest opinions. To be released 31-Jan-2023.

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