Similarly with the Jay Bonansinga novels, The Walking Dead: Typhoon by Wesley Chu was another way to live within Robert Kirkman‘s undead world without having to fully be entrenched in the lives of Rick Grimes and his crew. Typhoon is that great new perspective on the universe Kirkman created in the comics.
In the aftermath of the zombie virus outbreak, what remains of the Chinese government has estimated that one billion walkers (called jiangshi) are currently roaming through the country. Across this dramatic landscape, large groups of survivors have clustered together for safety in villages and towns that have been built vertically as a means of protection against the unceasing wave of jiangshi.
Before this devastation, Zhu was one of the millions of poor farmers who left their rural roots for the promise of consistent employment in one of China’s booming factory towns. Elena was an American teaching English in China while on a gap year before beginning law school. Hengyen was a grizzled military officer of some renown, and a passionate believer in his nation’s ability to surmount any obstacle.
But with the settlement’s 3,000 mouths to feed and the scavengers having to travel further and further in search of food, Zhu ends up at his home village, where he is shocked to find survivors. Does he force them to join the settlement or keep their existence a secret?
Meanwhile, Hengyen is tasked with the impossible: fortifying the Beacon against a 100,000-strong “typhoon” of walkers header their way. Even though he realizes that the Beacon hardly stands a chance, Hengyen is a believer and will stand with his compatriots to the very last, bringing him into conflict with Zhu, who intends to flee the path of the typhoon and make for the safety of China’s dramatic mountain ranges before it’s too late.
With the Bonansinga novels they weaved in using The Governor and Woodbury, both seen in the comics as well as television show, but with Typhoon its all from scratch. What it was like during the zombie apocalypse but in another country, in this case China. What makes this type of story based in this universe work so well is not having to have any knowledge heading in and allow this novel to just sit where it is and enjoy.
What longtime fans get from The Walking Dead: Typhoon is a new look at what it was like after the world fell apart in another country, as we get mostly Southern, as well as Western United States in most of the original stories. But it’s not just the physical location that sets Typhoon apart, but there are different cultural significance to things and political motivations that make Chu’s story in The Walking Dead universe stand on its own. This is something that those who have read from the start another place to engulf ourselves in the undead.
The benefits of Chu’s The Walking Dead: Typhoon is also its downfall. What I loved about reading this story also reminded me I wanted to know what was going on in Woodbury with Lilly Caul or with Rick’s ragtag group of survivors. While I cared for these characters, meticulously crafted by Chu, they weren’t the characters I have grown with. This made it a bit harder to follow there journey. This is less of a failure of the story and more of a personal fault, something that makes the story great for those without a ton of previous The Walking Dead reading (or watching).
The Walking Dead: Typhoon succeeds at telling a zombie story after the fall, mostly due to not attempting to retell the Rick Grimes story. Wesley Chu expands on the universe created by Robert Kirkman in a meaningful way, delivering a fresh, culturally rich story that shows the world as a whole is a terrifying place at the end.
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Typhoon is available at bookstores everywhere from Skybound Books. The audiobook, narrated by Feodor Chin, is available at Libro.fm!
