Book Review: As Wind in Dry Grass

As Wind in Dry Grass by H. Grant Llewellyn is the story of Albert Smythe, an eccentric, retired truck driver (after 20 years) who lives a self-sustainable life on his rural Indiana farm, and his survival after TSHTF.

This story is a bit unique in that it has two waves of events that alone could take down our society. The first is an apparently well-planned attack on the trucking infrastructure – terrorists – it’s not known if they’re domestic or foreign – plant bombs on hundreds of long-haul trucks and in their cargos, causing a lock up of that system that eventually crashes the economy.

My guess is most people don’t realize how vulnerable our trucking and rail transit infrastructure is, and how much we rely on it since the advent of just-in-time delivery awhile back. IMO, when any competent bad guys figure this out, we’re screwed.

The terrorist induced collapse was followed by some sort of global pandemic that finished off the job of collapsing civilization.

Albert, a man with no family ties, had been a frugal trucker who saved for 20 years, then retired to his rural Indiana farm where he had live stock, small scale farming, generators with lots of fuel, etc. He also constructed a hidden bunker on his property, and stockpiled weapons, ammo, etc. He had no family, wife, children, etc.

His perfect life ended when the terrorist induced shortages caused FEMA, backed up by local officials, to devise a plan to confiscate from local farmers their food stores. Without getting into too much detail, Albert ended up killing the FEMA reps and local authorities that came to take his food, and became a guerilla fighter. Then the global pandemic came and everything got even worse.

There are a lot of good preps detailed in this book. It’s also one of the best written self-published books out there.

However, the tinfoil hat conspiracies are in full force, complete with UN forces terrorizing Americans, raping and killing at will to restore law and order for the government. There is a long, somewhat bizarre rant on this topic. There is also a lot of racist talk/sentiment that detracts from the book.

A major flaw is the UN occupation (with U.S. government permission) – it doesn’t make sense, there is no logical reason or goal. It’s unlikely UN nations would be able to field troops after a financial collapse (that would affect the global economy) and a global pandemic, especially considering the U.S. funds most of the UN.

Good writing and interesting scenario, but I’m not comfortable with the racist rants and UN conspiracy theories. If you can ignore those aspects, it’s a good read.

Book Reviewe: The Jakarta Pandemic

The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly is the story of a family in suburban Maine during and after a global influenza pandemic that kills off a large portion of the population and causes a temporary societal collapse. The main character, Alex, works for a “major pharmaceutical company” (just like the author) that sells a Tamiflu variant, and he is much more aware of what’s going on and the potential outcome that most. Alex is a former Marine officer and a prepper.

Well described is the likely slow, useless approach the government would take as the healthcare systems is overwhelmed, the slow breakdown of services as deliveries stop, the riots that would take place, suburban neighbors bugging out, the influx of refugees who drift in to take up those residences, and neighborhood tensions over food supplies. I won’t go into too much detail here, see the description and reviews at Amazon.

Alex makes several mistakes which I assume are to server readers of examples of common pitfalls. He has a bit of a temper and shoots his mouth off. Example; let himself get into an argument with a neighborhood hag wanting to collectivize and redistribute food supplies, leaving a lot with the impression he had ample supplies. He doesn’t set up security very well (not realistic for a Marine). Example; they all sleep through most nights, no guard set.

This book is well reviewed at Reflexiones Finales and Bison Survival Blog. Both describe Alex as a “yuppie” prepper, which is apt.

Alex is also politically an extremely unlikely representation of a former USMC officer; a left-leaning, Fox News bashing, vegetarian. It’s not impossible, there are some, but as someone who’s been associated with the military in one way or the other for over two decades, I can tell you it’s rare, particularly among officers.

Problem areas. I read the Kindle edition, which has a few editing errors (even after it was re-edited), but I’m generally not too picky about that. The dialogue between family members was flat and mostly irritating, and it was difficult to tell who was speaking at time as there was no real change in style. The biggest flaw of this book is that it took only a few months for the government to resurrect itself and start services flowing. I find this highly unlikely for today’s overly complex and interdependent system-of-systems that make up our civilizations.

Overall recommended. A plausible scenario and there are areas (preps and mistakes) to learn from. If you have some left-leaning family or friends you’d like to convince about prepping, maybe this a good book to give them; the main character has similar views as them, but is prepared with food and fuel stocks, alternative energy, has and knows how to use guns.

Book Review: American Apocalypse (series)

Over a year ago I bought a PDF version of the first installment of the American Apocalypse series by Nova. It was a slow starter (despite the Amazon description of “fast paced”) and horribly edited like a lot of self-published books, but by the end it had me hooked. The series currently has four main installments and one short segment that covers a summer of the main character’s life (the only portion I didn’t read).

This is a slow economic collapse scenario where the main character, Gardener, an IT specialist, becomes unemployed and learns to navigate the new reality of a declining America. Gardner’s socioeconomic position slowly worsens and he’s forced to life off the grid for awhile. He eventually hooks up with an Asian organization working IT issues and is accepted into that “clan.”

During this time he makes his first kill (a pedophile), and is assigned a mentor to teach him the ropes of self-defense and security (Max). He also hooks up with a young, Asian female leader of the clan (Night), and makes friends with a young Asian gamer who is part of the clan (Ninja). It’s nitty-gritty and mostly realistic. He eventually becomes a baddass killing machine.

The second volume was recently re-released as American Apocalypse: Wastelands (formerly just volume II). First thing I noticed was a VAST improvement in the editing, much improved the reading experience. In this volume, Gardener grew into more of a killer/survivor, and the slow collapse turned into a fast collapse.

It’s in Wastelands that the problem with this series comes about. Let’s look at the description of the book on Amazon:

Starvation, violence and death run rampant in the remains of our once-proud country. Federal troops, commissioned to protect the homeland, have turned their guns on the lawless population. Citizens find shelter in government safe zones while ruthless gangs enforce their will outside the camps.

When the military transforms Washington’s life-saving food bank into a gun collection center in order to disarm all but the soldiers themselves, riots ensue. Weary of the militaristic government’s intent to render the citizens defenseless, America’s remaining patriots begin a mass migration out of the camps in search of refuge.

American Apocalypse Wastelands tells of a young man discovering the role he must play to defend himself, others and his country as everything around him crumbles.

Anything about a Norse god (Freya) being introduced into the series? No? That’s odd, because at the end of the book that’s exactly what happens – a supernatural element is introduced.

The very last page of Wastelands has this note from the Author (abbreviated):

The introduction of Freya, a supernatural being, may have confused or even bothered some readers… This isn’t and was never intended to be a survival book…

The author also claims to be writing about “possible scenarios” we may encounter in such a collapse.

Bullshit. It’s his series, he can write what he wants. But none of the book descriptions (on Amazon) say anything about the supernatural element, it’s borderline false advertising. This is Fantasy, not survival or apocalypse fiction. You need to know that before starting.

The third and fourth books are okay. I had to skip about 25% of the text dealing with supernatural elements and was very annoyed by that.

The good of this series; it makes you contemplate what a slow collapse might look like and how you might fit in. It’s not pretty. You will get an idea of what hordes of hungry and desperate people might do – rampant looting, murder, rape, and cannibalism (a lot of that). It will put you in the prepping mindset and make you want to move from overpopulated areas.

The bad has already been noted – the bait and switch with Fantasy for a survival book. The books are also not quite full-length, so you’re essentially paying hardcover price for a longish regular book, it’s just broken up into four smaller books with smaller prices.

My recommendation; if you can live the a couple of Norse gods (Freya and Thor) doing magical stuff, go for it, it’s 75% good. If not, pass, there are a lot of other survival/apocalyptic fiction books out there without the supernatural baggage.