This short book follows a few groups of survivors as they struggle for life and liberty following the ‘Day Zero’ event that has taken down North America.
I think John Birmingham is an Aussie writer who just really really loves destroying the USA. I swear every novel of his that I have read finds a new and awful way to take down the states. Fail State (which I now see is actually #2 in his ‘End Of Days’ trilogy) continues this theme in fairly predictable and uninspiring ways. There’s a boat full of people looking for safety. A small town cowering behind a self-made barricade. A couple of single moms and their kids driving to hopeful safety. A few others I cannot be bothered recounting.
You know the drill here: cyber attack on America by the Chinese (why? I dunno. Reasons.), bands of plucky upstarts trying to get to safety, lots of men talking or thinking about their dicks, everything is very very unrealistic, there is of course a Token Aussie who’s super humble yet super skilled at everything while he casually saves the day (A Mate-y Sue, if you will). Ugh.
Consider this my last foray into the terrifying offerings of both John Birmingham and Kindle Unlimited. I’m out. Done.
Burn it all down.
1 protein bar hard-on or whatever out of 5.
As an aside: Kindle Unlimited is filled with trash, and Kindle generally needs to get much better at labeling when a book is part of a trilogy or, at the first least, is not the first in a series. Not that it would have made much of a difference in this case…. Bah humbug.
