Book Review: Survivors

Survivors (1976) by Terry Nation is the story of those in England who survive a pandemic that wipes out over 95 percent of the earths population (also a TV series in the UK).

This novel starts off like a lot of pandemic apocalypse novels, everyone is slow to understand what’s going on as public transportation fails, the electricity goes off, and civilization slowly falls apart. Unlike a lot of similar stories, some of the survivors in this got sick and pulled through, in addition to those immune to the disease, a various of the bubonic plague in this case.

Value to survivalists? Middling. Survivors find each other and form small communities. Some fight each other. The collect/hoard the trappings of civilization, and try to farm. All pretty predictable. There are a few lessons here and there.

Also some problems.

• Although the main characters are concerned about bandits and raids, they never organize a guard schedule and security is very lacking, even after being attacked.
• They speak of using gasoline several years after collapse, with no mention of stabilizers, which may or may not have been around in the 1970s.
• The main characters decide they cannot maintain a sustenance level due to the climate and decide to move to Italy, hoping for warmer weather. First, those in the past could live there, why not them? Second, why would they think groups in Italy would tolerate immigrants?

It’s an entertaining read, but not really a survivalist story. The ending has a twist that is so improbably and so unnecessary that it also disappointed. Overall not recommended.

Book Review: Tooth and Nail

Tooth and Nail (2010) by Craig DiLouie is the story of a U.S. Army unit quickly redeployed from Iraq to New York to help restore order and fight a flu-like pandemic. Then things get crazy when some flu victims develop a fast acting rabies infection.

The pandemic starts as a respiratory infection with a high mortality rate. A small percentage of those infected develop a type of rabies that becomes active in hours rather than days or weeks. It shares a lot with regular rabies:

As the disease progresses, more specific symptoms appear and may include insomnia, anxiety, confusion, slight or partial paralysis, excitation, hallucinations, agitation, hypersalivation (increase in saliva), difficulty swallowing, and hydrophobia (fear of water). Death usually occurs within days of the onset of these symptoms.

It’s unknown if the rabies virus was modified for medical purposes (apparently viruses are often modified and used to target/kill various diseases) that accidentally got loose, or created by some hostile government or terrorist organization. In the end, it doesn’t matter; it’s highly contagious and hordes are infected.

So not zombies, but people with rabies, hypersalivating, and doing whatever they can to bite – but not eat – you. And they die in a few days. The only semi-believable variation of the zombie apocalypse scenario; a genetically modified rabies virus.

An excellent and maybe original idea, really badly executed.

Writing was so bad I had to force myself past the first few chapters. The dialogue, especially among unit members, is not realistic at all. Sorry, but you can’t write this much Army infantry dialogue and be even a little bit realistic without multiple f-bombs, just not possible.

There are other problems with the book not worth mentioning – read the three star and below reviews at Amazon to get an idea. Overall of little or no value to survivalists. If you’re a zombie junkie, you can probably ignore the stilted dialogue and enjoy the gore.

Book Review: The Last Centurion

The Last Centurion (2008) by John Ringo is set in 2017-2021. The narrative is first person “blog style” by a U.S. infantry officer who goes by “Bandit Six” (nickname and the “six” indicates he had a command) stationed in Iran.

The plot: when a deadly flue pandemic strikes the world – 30-60% or more mortality depending on the area – almost all U.S. forces worldwide are called back to the U.S. to help prevent a collapse. At the same time a global cooling cycle sets in that reduces harvests and causes a couple years of global famine.

For survivalists this book sort of rides the fence due to what IMO is a major flaw in the premise; fiftyish percent mortality with many more sick and away from work for days or weeks doesn’t cause the U.S. to collapse. I throw the BS flag on that. It’s convenient for the storyline, but completely unrealistic.

Given the description of the pandemic, there is no way fuel, rail, power, comms, etc. would still be up. At one point CONUS military bases are said to still have power and so be preferred places to live. Problem is almost all bases are on grid power, with generator fuel for only days and maybe weeks. Small detail overall, except to survivalist.

Although I belong to another service, I worked with Army folks for nearly 20 years and can tell you he absolutely nailed the way Army officers talk. It’s an organizational culture thing, could probably cut out a few dozen pages if the f-bomb was scrubbed from the book. Anyway, the author got the Army-speak and organization right as far as I can tell.

Read the Amazon reviews, most of the negative ones are left-wingers all ass hurt about what the book says of their views. Ringo does get into somewhat boring detail in some political and other areas, and a pandemic plus global cooling is probably unlikely, but the military action is pretty good. If the lack of apocalypse when there should be one doesn’t put you off, it’s a good read.

Other Retreat Considerations

It’s probably been beaten to death, but population is the first thing I consider when contemplating the need to bug out. I’m on the east coast and it would not be pretty in a collapse scenario. Here are some stats, and a nice map of why that show some population bulges in places you might not expect;

One thing I have not heard discussed much about retreats is flooring. Carpet is great, but with no electricity my guess is carpet will quickly become filthy. For a retreat I suggest hardwood or tile, or linoleum if the first two options are too expensive. Laminate floors can’t handle moisture well so I suggest against them in any case. If you must have carpet, have good wood or tile underneath.

If you build your retreat or do any remodeling, might want to cluster water pipes centrally. For example, have the kitchen on one side of a wall and the main bathroom on the other side. Don’t put water lines in remote parts of the building if you don’t have to; someday you may be able to heat only a portion of the structure and don’t want those lines freezing.