Stories like these are often thrown in with science fiction. And while some do have more science fiction elements, like in the Terminator franchise, many would be more appropriate to put in a speculative fiction bucket. There's really nothing in the original Mad Max trilogy, for example, that wasn't functionally possible at the time those movies were made. The only "science fiction" element to them is that they're set a few years in the future. (The first film briefly shows the date December 1984, but was the movie was released in 1979.) Everything is possible and just starts from the speculation of what would happen as society collapses and descends into nuclear war. It's more of a "what if..." story than science fiction.
In Yellow, Nick finds himself conscripted into war. He was too slow to read the signs of the coming conflict and assumed things would just blow over. But only a few pages into the book and he finds himself in a firefight in a supermarket parking lot. His reticence gets him badly shot, and his commanding officer leaves him for dead, going so far as to remove one of his dog tags to send back to Nick's mother. Nick, however, manages to survive and staggers back home where his mother -- rather than being relieved -- is disgusted he's apparently gone AWOL.
The book then follows Nick as he heads farther north, trying to find where his girlfriend said she was heading. He falls in with some other travellers and while they do aid him, Nick soon finds their methodologies dubious. Nick is unable to find out what happened to his girlfriend, despite making it to the address she gave him, and then opts to go to continue heading north to Chicago, where he's guessing the nine-year-old companion he picked up hails from. Nick soon finds himself hunted now by the Chicago police as well, believing him to be from the other side, and after serendipitously finding the boy's home address, the end of the book becomes a race to get the boy home before the police catch up to them.
In some respects, the book follows the basic story that Civil War does. A small group heading across the country, wading through the all-but-destroyed remnants of American civilization. The backgrounds behind the wars are different, but largely irrelevant to the stories. The protagonists' primary motivators in traveling are quite different, which is hardly surprising given that they're radically different characters to begin with. Nick is just a 20-something kid who's basically just looking for a safe harbor, while Kirsten Dunst's Lee is a 40+ seasoned war photographer tyring to document what's going on. (Interesting, as I think on it, that Nick spends the entire book heading north to look for safety, while Lee spends entire movie heading south to get as close to the dangerous front lines as possible. Hard not to read some subtext into that.) The basic similarities between the two stories, I suspect, led to some initial concern on Martin's part when he saw Civil War would debuted well ahead of his book, but the journeys are very different.
I caught another review of Yellow in which the reviewer found it a more believeable set of depictions and events than other stories like Civil War, Rogue State, and 1/6. Whether you personally find any one more believeable than another isn't really the point with any of them though. The idea behind speculative fiction is to get you, the audience, to start considering these ideas. There are so many millions of variables at play with a set-up like this that there is no way anyone is going to be able to predict them with any degree of accuracy. So by having a variety of creators offering up their ideas in stories like Yellow, it helps to get you thinking about what may or may not happen and, more importantly, how you want to react to it. Yellow is the only one of these to show soliders being conscripted. 1/6 is the only one to show the use of drones for surveillance. Rogue State is the only one that shows a targeted use of independent militias. Civil War is the only one that has entire cities acting as if the war isn't going on at all. Are any of these more accurate than another? I don't know. Frankly, I'd rather not find out. But they're all now ideas that I can hold under consideration as various actions play out in the real world, and I'll know to look for signs of them sooner rather than later. Unlike Nick.
The story in Yellow is entirely Nick's journey, and it's told very well. Yes, there is some background on how the war started and how it's impacting both the country as a whole and a variety of specific individuals Nick comes into contact with. But it's really just Nick's story. What he is dealing with. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. This is the first work of Martin's that I've read and he turned in a darn fine job. Nick was a solid character and his journey gave me some things to consider.
Yellow came out in paperback from Dark Horse in December and should be available from any book store or comic shop. It retails for $24.99 US.
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