Review: While Sometimes Captivating, Yesterday's Gone is a Muddled, Fragmented, Profane Mess
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 14, 2013
Yesterday's Gone Season One is a meandering, disjointed post-apocalyptic tale reminiscent of some of the schlockiest of B-movies. In its defense, I think this is exactly the tone the authors were shooting for, and, if so, they succeeded in high fashion. Readers who are searching for a fresh voice to supplement their diet of King, Barker or Straub would do well to look elsewhere. The story, seemingly pooled together from varied segments of a long list of superior predecessor's work, isn't bad: a mysterious disappearance of most of the world's population leaves survivors trying to make sense of black smoke, slick-skinned zombie mutations, talking trees, vanishing objects and collective dreaming. A great many of these plot elements are left dangling, and the first half of YGSO truly felt like it was being made up as it went along. Yet, there is an intriguing allure to the rubbish in literature's clothing. The characters prove to create many threads that are entertaining, and the decision to tell the story from these disparate viewpoints is undoubtedly the strongest aspect of the serialization. However, this isn't quite enough to elevate the work from the lower echelon of the horror shelf. The dialogue and the pontificating of the players are perhaps semi-realistic, but are so painful to read that it's hard to enjoy.  Time pressures can often lead to sloppiness, and it is evident here. There are a number of missing words, contradictory tense, and some misspellings, but more aggravating than that is the continuous use of the same words in a repeated, repetitive, repeating pattern of repetition. In one sequence about  of the way through the season, there is a sequence where everyone's favorite murderer, rapist, crackpot, Boricio, refers to his opponents as survivalists or survivalist f*$%s no fewer than 14 times in his short chapter. At one point, it's used 3 times in 5 sentences. I'd be remiss here if I didn't at least note the excessive, unnecessary and offensive profanity. It's beyond any necessary stretch of the imagination and certainly doesn't add anything to the work. Undoubtedly, it pulls the work even further down the ladder of credibility by making it seem like filler of the laziest order.  The sad part is it's largely unnecessary. A little dab will do you. Creating a dark character doesn't have to be vile. Anton Chigurh is one of the darkest, most heinous characters in modern literature, but his utterances of profanity were minimal if not altogether nil. Unfortunately for YGSO, the idea was far better than the execution.  2  stars for this one.