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Posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 19:51:49 GMT by: MEGAT0N
Posted under: review apocalyptic book

Year: 2009
Writers: nova
Amazon: link
Review by: MEGAT0N
Rating: 6 out of 10

As Chanda Phelan discovered while researching her masters thesis, the apocalypses portrayed in fiction generally tend to reflect the fears of the day - nuclear or biological war was big from the 50s until the 80s when end of the world scenarios began to reflect more natural or ecological causes. Given that trend, and the financial turmoil we've seen for the last several years, it's not surprising that we're starting to see post-apocalyptic novels where society's fall is precipitated by a world-wide economic collapse.

American Apocalypse: The Beginning sets its story in a near-future United States where the current economic problems continue to worsen until the ties that hold our society together begin to unravel. Businesses are failing, unemployment is rising, parks and parking lots are filling with the homeless, governments can no longer afford to provide even the most basic services.

The descent has not yet turned into full-fledged collapse when we meet our main character, Gardener. That's not his real name though, it's a nick-name he earns after (justifiably) killing a man with a garden trowel. It's clear Gardener doesn't have many qualms about killing when after getting beat up by a group of men camping in a park, he buys a sword on Craigslist, and hacks them to death as they sleep.

I wasn't thrilled with his thirst for vengeance or his methods, but more I didn't like the way he was already resorting to murder when the societal situation was still mostly normal. I could see if there was general lawlessness by then, but there wasn't, that's just how Gardener is; he says it himself many times in the book, he just doesn't care about anything. But I stuck with it, and Gardener started to grow on me a bit. He's not very likable, but he's honest to himself and what you see is what you get.

I also had issues with some basic plot lines that I thought were a bit implausible, and the fact that the economic factors contributing to the collapse of society were never fully explained. It's just kind of assumed that things are getting worse, but we never really know exactly what's going on. For example at one point, it's explained that when purchasing goods, there is a cash price and a gold price, but that's the first time we ever see anyone pay gold for anything. I've since found a time line of the major aspects of the economic collapse on the author's site, but I wish more of that explanation had been in the book.

The book started as a series of posts on the economics blog, Calculated Risk, and was later expanded and edited into a novel, and in terms of technical composition, you can really tell it didn't go through the standard writing and editing process. Even in the bound version I read, I found an error in grammar or punctuation every few pages, and once even an entire paragraph out of place.

But even with it's flaws, I'm still glad I finished it. As long as you don't expect it to be entirely realistic, it's a quick, but fairly enjoyable read, and if you really get into it, the sequel is in the process of being re-written and should be available soon.

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