The Walking Dead, Vol. 5: The Best Defense

If you're a fan of the series, this volume is a must-read, but if you haven't read any of the other Walking Dead books, I wouldn't recommend it, as a lot of the emotional punch of the events would be lost.

The last volume of WD ended with the main characters establishing themselves within a prison, which you would assume is the safest possible place to be when the undead have taken over. The problem with ‘safety', however, is that it's not good for conflict, and therefore for drama. This results in Glen, Rick, and Michonne leaving the prison to attempt to rescue the crew of a downed helicopter. In doing so, though, they encounter a sadistic town and their lives become endangered.

I was very torn on this book - on one hand, I'm always a fan of writers who work on ongoing series, and are willing to put their characters through hell, and make permanent changes to them, and we see a lot of that here, between Rick's loss of body parts and Michonne's extremely brutal, horrific rape. It's definitely clear that these characters will be affected by the evil done to them in this volume for a long time. It's also an exploration of a common theme in horror fiction - that, as bad as the monsters might be, it is humanity that is the real monster - but given how close we have grown to the characters, it is one that's extra effective.

On the other hand, however, there were some things that I definitely didn't like about this book. The character of the Governor, I thought, became kind of over-the-top in his evil - he seems to be someone without any sense of morality or goodness in him. While I don't have anything against psychopathic villians in general, it seems odd that he would become a leader of the community that he has, and that they would all go along with the brutality that he encourages. I also didn't like the cliffhanger nature of the ending, but I suppose that can't be helped.

One of the things I find extremely interesting about this series in general (and this volume of it in specific) is that, while the characters repeatedly state that they're in a new world, which requires them to take on a new morality and new social outlook, they repeatedly cling to their old lives - whether it's Lori's repudiation of polyamory, or Rick's insistence on playing the ‘hero' role. I'm not sure if Kirkman's trying to create a parallel between the humans and zombies by doing so, or if he's trying to create a larger commentary on the inertia of human nature and morality, but it's interesting to see how it will develop further in future volumes.