Tooth and Nail

I just finished reading Mr. Craig Dilouie's Tooth and Nail (http://www.infectedwar.com/) for the second time, and I really dug it. The story is fantastically gritty, emotionally charged, and brings up many of those oh so fascinating psychological implications of people trying to survive an event of this nature.

*Warning* Spoilers

Much like the 28 Days movies, and other stories, this is a scenario where we aren't contending with actual zombies, but infected living who have become mindlessly (and suicidally) homicidal. Differently though, Tooth and Nail tells the tale almost strictly through the eyes of various military personnel.

The story does a wonderful job of humanizing the soldiers. It offers glimpses into the emotional and psychological struggles of both enlisted men and commissioned officers alike. Through disintegrating command structure, ambiguous rules of engagement, and an erupting urban population of fellow countrymen, Tooth and Nail beautifully demonstrates just how fragile even the world's most advanced military force could be under these circumstances.

One of the central themes that stood out to me was the critical importance of information, or in the context of this story, situational awareness. This is poignantly illustrated through the increasing isolated (and abandoned) pockets of soldiers who are struggling to simultaneously protect the country and populace they signed up to serve, obey the orders coming down the chain of command, and make sense of the unexplained insanity that they are witnessing first hand.

Something I really enjoyed about Mr. Dilouie's scenario was how folks didn't simply wake up one day to cannibalistic neighbors, but that it emerged amidst a global flu pandemic that was already wreaking havoc across the planet. The significance of this is twofold.

First, the pandemic obscured the significance of the emerging larger crisis. Scientific efforts were being poured into battling the flu, with the incorrect belief that its cure/vaccine would also take care of the, at the time, secondary incidents of folks going all mindlessly violent. I do not know that this error is one that could have been recognized any more quickly than it was in the story, but it allowed the real threat time to take hold.

Secondly, the incapacitation of the country's workforce crippled its ability to continue functioning and protect itself. Decimated local government, law enforcement, and medical services gave the epidemic free reign to incubate and propagate. As Mr. Dilouie described, medical centers themselves simply added fuel to the fire by providing hotbeds of infection, and huge numbers of defenseless victims.

To touch on just one sample of absolutely fantastic imagery in this story, readers should look forward to the depictions of the massed groups of infected. Until we talk Peter Jackson into taking a stab at the zombie apocalypse, film just hasn't properly depicted the ridiculous numbers of infected one could find in a major urban center.

In this instance, New York City, with its millions of inhabitants, is not going to simply have scattered packs of infected roaming about and surrounding pockets of survivors. Instead, as Tooth and Nail describes, massive hordes of infected could be sweeping through the city like tidal waves. Attracted and drawn together by their own activity and noise, these stampeding herds of thousands could overrun and shred anyone in their path. Mr. Dilouie's words paint a beautifully horrific vision of this phenomena.

The trouble with reviewing a scenario this engaging is that there is so much that could be commented on, but I just cannot practically address it all. So to at least hint at some of the other goodies in Tooth and Nail, you'll be treated to questions on the logistics of withdrawing the entire U.S. military from overseas, the legal (much less moral) ambiguity of changing rules of engagement, the hazards of desertion and mutiny, the capacity to cross any line needed to hold a fighting force together, making the absolute sacrifice to preserve critical assets, and much much more.

To wrap this up, I just have to offer my compliments to Mr. Dilouie, and encourage anyone who shares similar interests to pick up a copy of Tooth and Nail. A fair bit of military jargon aside, the story is a quick and highly entertaining read that depicts a wonderfully dark and moving tale. Check it out.