Tag: Books

“The Girl Who Owned a City” Review: Brilliant Survival Details, Troubling Politics

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Verdict: Worth reading, especially for anyone who loved it as a kid, but read it as something to argue with. Its practical survival details are some of the best in children’s fiction. Its message about ownership and leadership is one the book endorses far more uncritically than most readers will.

The setup

O.T. Nelson’s 1975 novel, his only published book, imagines a plague that kills everyone over the age of twelve. Ten-year-old Lisa and her younger brother Todd are left to survive in suburban Chicago, where gangs of older kids quickly start raiding homes for food. Lisa organizes the children on her street, and eventually leads them into a high school she renames the City of Glenbard, which she fortifies and runs.

What it gets right

Many readers remember this book for decades because of its practical details, and so do we. Lisa thinks like a real survivor: she checks stores for medicine, not just snacks; she figures out where farm supplies would be stored and goes to get them; she teaches herself to drive; she organizes the kids into work crews; she thinks about defending a building before anyone attacks it. For a child reading it, the message that you can figure things out and take care of yourself is thrilling, and the book’s step-by-step problem-solving still holds up.

Where it gets uncomfortable

Nelson was a committed free-market libertarian, and the novel is openly a vehicle for those ideas. Lisa does not just lead Glenbard; she owns it, because she thought of it first, and the book treats that claim as obviously correct. When other children push back and ask why it is her city rather than theirs, the story mostly frames their objections as confusion that Lisa patiently corrects. The rival gang leader, Logan, conquers the city but can’t run it, because the children won’t work for him, and the book presents this as proof that Lisa’s way is right. It is a fascinating argument, but it is an argument, and the book never lets anyone make a strong case against her.

Lisa is also implausibly prescient. She anticipates nearly every problem before it happens, while most of the other children exist to need her guidance, which makes the story feel more like a thought experiment than a novel at times.

Who should read it

Survival fiction fans who want a quick, unusual read; adults revisiting a childhood favorite; and teachers or parents looking for a book that will start a real discussion about leadership, property and fairness. Pair it with Lord of the Flies for a very different answer to the same question: what happens when children run the world?

Did you read this one as a kid? Tell us in the comments whether Lisa was your hero, and whether she still is.

“The Four Horsemen” Series Review: Laura Thalassa’s Apocalypse Is a Romance First

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Verdict: If you want a romance with an apocalypse in it, this series delivers, and it gets better as it goes. If you want apocalyptic fiction with a romance in it, look elsewhere. And know going in that every book is built on a captor-and-captive relationship, which will be a dealbreaker for some readers.

The setup

Laura Thalassa’s four-book series imagines the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arriving on Earth to end humanity, one at a time, each in a different part of the world. Each book pairs one horseman with a human woman:

  • Pestilence: Sara Burn shoots the plague-bringing horseman off his steed, only to learn he can’t be killed. He takes her prisoner instead.
  • War: When Jerusalem falls, Miriam Elmahdy is spared by War himself, who claims her as his wife and takes her into his camp.
  • Famine: Ana and the cruelest of the horsemen are drawn to each other despite everything he does.
  • Death: Death kills an entire town at once and finds a single woman left standing: Lazarus Gaumond, who cannot be killed.

What works

The premise is bold, and Thalassa commits to it. The horsemen are genuinely frightening, and the destruction they cause is not softened. Each book is a road trip across a dying region, and the real question underneath every romance is a good one: is humanity worth saving? The books answer it differently each time, which gives the series more weight than its covers suggest. The four horsemen each feel distinct, and Death ties the series together by finally explaining why the horsemen came and what it would take to stop them.

What doesn’t

The apocalypse is mostly backdrop. If you come here for the mechanics of survival, how people find food and shelter and hold communities together as the world ends, you will find very little. The story stays tightly focused on two people.

The bigger issue is the core dynamic. In each book, the woman is held by a supernatural being who has destroyed everything she knows, and the romance grows out of that captivity. The series is aware of this and works hard to give its heroines agency and moral force, often making them the reason the horsemen change. Some readers will find that convincing. Others won’t get past the premise, and that is a fair reaction.

The books are also explicit. That is a feature for the target audience, but it is worth knowing before you hand one to a teenager who liked the cover.

Who should read it

Adult fantasy romance readers who like enemies-to-lovers stories and darker themes will likely devour all four. Readers looking for survival fiction, or who dislike captive romance, should skip it.

Have you read the series? Tell us in the comments which horseman’s book you think is strongest.

Apocalypse Reading List: Ten Novels and Four Real Survival Books Worth Your Shelf Space

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Every apocalypse fan has a shelf of end-of-the-world fiction, and it is worth asking what each book is actually good for. Some are great stories, some are great warnings, and a few contain genuinely useful ideas about how people survive. Here are ten we’d keep, with a quick take on each, followed by four nonfiction books that belong on the same shelf.

The fiction

World War Z by Max Brooks (2006). Told as interviews with survivors from around the world, it treats a zombie war like real history, covering logistics, politics and how different countries cope. The most thoughtful zombie book ever written, and a surprisingly good study of how institutions fail.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006). A father and son walk south through an ash-covered, dying America. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and the bleakest book on this list. It is about love more than survival, but its picture of scavenging in a world with nothing left is unforgettable.

The Stand by Stephen King (1978). A weaponized flu kills most of humanity, and the survivors split into two communities. The plague chapters are the most frightening part; the later good-versus-evil showdown is more of a matter of taste.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014). Twenty years after a flu pandemic, a traveling troupe performs Shakespeare for scattered settlements. The gentlest book here, built around the idea that survival alone isn’t enough, and people need art too.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead (2011). A literary zombie novel following a sweeper clearing Manhattan block by block. Slow, strange and smart about trauma and the urge to pretend the old world is coming back.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979). Earth is demolished in the first chapters to make way for a highway, which makes it technically an apocalypse novel. The funniest end of the world ever written, and the source of the most famous survival advice in science fiction, about always having your towel.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1990). An angel and a demon who have grown fond of Earth try to stop the Apocalypse. Pure comedy, and a good palate cleanser after The Road.

The Martian by Andy Weir (2011). Not an apocalypse, but the best book ever written about solving survival problems one at a time with math, duct tape and stubbornness. Its problem-solving mindset is exactly the right one.

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. A comic series in which everything with a Y chromosome dies at once, except one young man and his monkey. Clever about what actually collapses when half the population disappears, from airlines to power plants.

The Walking Dead comics by Robert Kirkman. Grimmer than the TV show and more focused on the central question of the genre: once you’ve survived, what kind of community do you build?

The nonfiction

Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales. Why some people survive accidents and wilderness emergencies and others don’t. The most useful survival book we know, because it’s about the mind.

The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. How real people behave in disasters, from fires to plane crashes, and how to train your own reactions.

A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. A history of the communities that spring up after disasters, and a strong rebuttal to the idea that people turn on each other.

The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell. A guide to rebuilding civilization from scratch after a collapse: agriculture, medicine, chemistry and power, explained from first principles.

What’s on your end-of-the-world shelf that we missed? Tell us in the comments, along with the one book you’d save if you could only keep one.

“The Hunger Games” Review: Still the Best Survival Novel Disguised as a YA Hit

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Verdict: Read it, or reread it. The Hunger Games is a better survival novel than most books shelved as survival fiction, and its critique of spectacle has only gotten sharper with age. The love triangle is the weakest thing in it.

The setup

Suzanne Collins’ 2008 novel is set in Panem, a nation built on the ruins of North America, where a wealthy Capitol rules twelve impoverished districts. As punishment for a past rebellion, each district must send two children every year to the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death. When her younger sister’s name is drawn in District 12, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place.

What it gets right: survival as competence

What sets this book apart for us is that Katniss survives because she has real skills, and Collins takes them seriously. Before the Games, Katniss is already feeding her family by hunting illegally with a bow, gathering wild plants and trading in the black market. In the arena, the things that keep her alive are mostly unglamorous: finding water before dehydration sets in, knowing which plants are edible and which kill, treating burns and infections, sleeping where she can’t be easily reached, and keeping track of her own exhaustion. Water is a genuine crisis in the first days of her Games, which is more realistic than nearly any survival thriller manages.

The book is also honest about what scarcity does to people. District 12’s hunger is not set dressing. It shapes every relationship Katniss has, and it explains why she is so pragmatic and so slow to trust.

What it gets right: the audience

The Games are not just a punishment; they are entertainment, and Katniss quickly learns that surviving them means performing for the cameras. Sponsors send gifts to tributes they like, so likability becomes a survival skill. That part of the book reads even more pointedly now, in an age of reality television and social media, than it did on release.

Where it falls short

The romance between Katniss and Peeta is deliberately ambiguous, since she is partly playing to the cameras, and that is clever. The love triangle with Gale back home, though, feels obligatory, and later books lean on it more than the story deserves. The worldbuilding outside the arena is also thin; we learn little about how Panem actually works beyond District 12 and the Capitol.

Who should read it

Anyone interested in survival fiction, including adults who skipped it because of the YA label. The violence is real but not gratuitous, and the book is short enough to read in a weekend.

Have you read it recently? Tell us in the comments whether it holds up for you, and whether you think the sequels earn their ending.

“The Maze Runner” Review: A Great Hook That Keeps Its Secrets Too Long

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Verdict: Worth reading for the premise and the pace, especially for younger teens. Adult readers will likely find the characters thin and the mystery frustrating, since the book withholds information mostly because the plot needs it to.

The setup

James Dashner’s 2009 novel opens with a boy waking up in a rising elevator with no memory except his first name, Thomas. He arrives in the Glade, a walled clearing populated entirely by teenage boys who have arrived the same way, one per month, for two years. Every morning the stone walls open onto a vast maze that rearranges itself at night, when monstrous creatures called Grievers hunt anyone caught inside. The Gladers have spent two years mapping it, looking for a way out.

What works

The premise is excellent, and the first act is genuinely gripping. The Glade itself is the most interesting part of the book for a site like ours: the boys have built a functioning little society, with farming, livestock, cooking, construction, medical care, strict rules and a council that enforces them. Watching how they divide labor, punish rule-breakers and keep order without adults is the best survival material in the novel, and we wished the book spent more time on it.

The pacing is relentless. Short chapters end on cliffhangers, which makes it a fast read and a good pick for reluctant readers.

What doesn’t

The mystery runs on characters refusing to explain things to Thomas for no good reason. The Gladers know a great deal about how their world works, but they keep telling him he’ll learn later, and the only real reason is that the book wants to save its answers. That gets frustrating fast.

Most of the characters are also defined by one trait. Minho is tough, Newt is steady, Chuck is sweet, Gally is hostile. Teresa, the only girl to arrive, is given very little to do in this first book. And the invented Glader slang, meant to make the society feel lived-in, often reads as a way to avoid swearing.

Finally, the ending explains part of the mystery and then opens a much bigger one. It is a setup for the sequels, not a resolution, so be prepared to keep reading if you want answers.

Who should read it

Readers around 12 to 15 will likely love it. Older readers who enjoy a strong premise and don’t mind thin characters will have a good time. If you want a deep post-apocalyptic world, start with something else.

Did the Glade’s society convince you? Tell us in the comments how long you think it would have held together without the Maze.

Love in the Time of Apocalypse: Why Romance Thrives at the End of the World

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Romance is one of the best-selling genres in fiction, and some of its most devoted readers like their love stories with the world ending in the background. Post-apocalyptic romance is a whole subgenre, full of survivors falling for each other among the ruins and, in at least one popular series, women falling for the Horsemen of the Apocalypse themselves. Why does this combination work so well, and is there anything a survivor can actually learn from it?

Why the apocalypse makes a good romance setting

  • The stakes are built in. When every day might be the last, every choice to trust someone matters. Romance runs on stakes, and the end of the world supplies them for free.
  • Forced proximity. Two people stuck together in a shelter, a car or a long walk across a ruined country is one of the oldest setups in the genre.
  • Enemies to lovers. Scarcity creates rivals, and rivals who are forced to cooperate are another romance staple.
  • Hope. Romance promises a happy or hopeful ending, which is exactly what an apocalypse story needs to stay bearable.

If you want to see the subgenre taken to its extreme, read our review of Laura Thalassa’s The Four Horsemen, where the romance and the apocalypse are the same character.

What love stories get right about survival

Romance novels are not survival manuals, but the best ones are about things that genuinely matter in a crisis: learning to trust, communicating under pressure, repairing a relationship after a fight, and choosing to stay with someone when leaving would be easier. Disaster research consistently finds that people with strong relationships cope better with prolonged hardship. Love is not a luxury at the end of the world; it is one of the reasons people keep going.

Escape is a survival tool

There is also a simpler reason romance belongs in an emergency kit. Long crises are exhausting and frightening, and a few hours lost in a story is real relief. That is not weakness; it is how people have always rested their minds. Paperbacks need no batteries, survive being dropped, and can be traded.

Planning to ride out the end of the world with someone? Our list of questions to ask your partner before the apocalypse is a good place to start the conversation.

What’s your favorite post-apocalyptic love story, in books, film or TV? Tell us in the comments.

Summer Reading List ['17]

Posted on by tavia.

Summertime means longer days and more unstructured leisure time to do what you will with. Since scientists love to remind us that children get dumber over the summer months because they spend all their time riding their bikes in the street and stealing from convenience stores, schools love to assign Summer Reading Lists.

Summer Reading lists are great but they tend to be geared at children and highly filtered by “The Man.” Also, they always leave out graphic novels…

With that in mind, I’m going to generate my own! I have read all these books so don’t kick me in the junk if you hate them; they’re on the list of books I plan to read or think someone should plan to read.

In Case of Survival Summer Reading List [2017]

Continue reading “Summer Reading List ['17]”

REVIEW: Wool by Hugh Howey

Posted on by anninyn

Wool by Hugh Howey is set in a post-apocalyptic world where people live in vast, underground silos.

In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo.

 Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.

 To live, you must follow the rules. But some don’t. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who infect others with their optimism.

 Their punishment is simple and deadly. They are allowed outside.

 Jules is one of these people. She may well be the last.

Review copy provided by Random House through NetGalley

A note: This is actually the Wool omnibus, collecting  Novellas 1-5 of the series originally self-published by Howey. I’m new to the wonderful world of Wool, which is shocking considering my status as one of the main reviewers at In Case of Survival. However, it has a lot of what I like in a series – a female protagonist, a post-apocalyptic world, an assault against oppressive regimes.

These things are my catnip. So, how does it pan out for me?

Continue reading “REVIEW: Wool by Hugh Howey”

Prepare you mind for the apocalypse.

Posted on by tavia.

Author Feature: John Xero.

Posted on by anninyn

Long-time readers may remember John Xero from his brilliant short story Ragestorm Requiem. Well, those of you who liked it will be pleased to hear he has a book out. This is The New Plan is a collection of his short stories and flash fiction, and what’s even better, most of them are apocalyptic or dystopian in some way.

As for why I’m not reviewing this, John Xero is actually a personal, real-life friend of mine, so I don’t feel like I can. Still, taking that into account, I still think it’s a bloody good book. Just bear in mind I’ve known him for long enough that I pretty much have to say that. (No, seriously, it’s great.)

We asked him some personal questions, because we’re always secretly judging people by their answers.

 

 

 

1. Who are you, I mean, really?

Presumably this is where most people say, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” The truth is so numbingly boring you’d probably kill yourself just from hearing it…

And so I become this adventurer, I travel to worlds, chat with gods and spacemen, witness wars and births, dance with stars and mourn over broken cities. And do I send you back a ‘wish you were here’ postcard or a lame ‘I <3 the Multiverse’ t-shirt? No. I bring you back stories.

That doesn’t really answer the question, does it? 😉

 

2. What is it that you do?

When I’m not stumbling into timeslips, lunching with deities (minor and major), or practicing my interstellar cartography, you mean? 😉

Well, OK. I play games, I read comics, I sell books, I write. My day job is bookselling, I run the science fiction and graphic novels sections for a branch of Britain’s biggest bookselling chain. And I get up extra early every morning to write.

Writing is my great passion. I love stories and storytelling, and I just want to give back some of the excitement and thrills other writers have given me over the years.

 

3. When did you first realize you wanted to do that thing?

Ah, I kind of made this difficult to answer now, didn’t I? Let’s start with the bookselling…

I dropped out of university the first time round, struggled to find a job, and ended up in data entry. Yay. Then I applied for a job in this awesome little SF and cult shop called Kulture Shock, and I got it. Surrounded by the stuff I love, all day, and getting paid for it? Yes. OK. I can do that. And have, ever since.

I started writing in my late teens. Told myself it was worth pursuing if I could stick it out and write a book.

I wrote a book.

I daren’t look at it, I do have it somewhere, but I’m sure it’s awful. It started me on the path though. I fell in love with writing. I’m not in a rush to get anywhere, but I’m slowly getting somewhere, I think, and that’s fine.

 

4. Where are you from (and how do you feel about that place?)?

I don’t really know the answer to this. I’m mostly English with a dash of Scottish, but then English is a medley of so many things already. My dad built roads, so we moved around a fair bit. I guess you could say I grew up in East Anglia, I’ve settled in Norwich though, just about the most parochial city you’ll ever find, but it’s a beautiful place and I’m happy here.

 

5. Why would you make a good apocalypse party member?

Why do tribes need storytellers and shaman?

Do you want your party to be the one that descends into savagery or the one that sparks the rebirth of civilisation?

Need a modern set of moral and cautionary tales for living in a dark and dangerous new world, ones that maybe incorporate the ideas of a golden age and a bright future? Come to me.

So it probably helps that I’m a thinker and a problem solver. And I’m physically fit and capable, so I won’t slow folk down when there’s running to be done.

And basically, I’ve already walked the dusty grounds of a thousand apocalypses in my mind, you need my experience…

 

Blogs at xeroverse.com

Tweets at @xeroverse

Editor at 101Fiction.com