Just Finished Reading: The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J Walker (FP: 2014)

 

Like most other people Edgar Hill barely noticed the news that there was ‘something wrong’ with Saturn’s rings. A year later he even missed the late night Government Warning thanks to an argument with his wife and the bottle of wine he finished off on the sofa. In the morning, complete with hangover, he knew that something was ‘off’ though. The local newsagents and shop was shut and the thinner than usual Sunday papers hadn’t even been picked up. The headline was pretty obvious though. IMPACT IMMINENT – Take Cover. The confusion lasted a few minutes until the easily recognisable air-raid sirens started going off across the city. Hastily grabbing some random supplies from the now looted shop Edgar ran home and managed to get his family into the basement just as all hell broke loose above them. Rescued a week later by units of the Army, Edgar found himself in a world unlike anything he had experienced except in bad TV movies. Hundreds of meteors had slammed into the Northern hemisphere destroying large parts of Europe and North America. The end of the world as he knew it was just something he had to start dealing with. But as a failing husband, failing father and failed office executive he really wasn’t sure he was up to the task. What made it worse was that neither his wife nor the other survivors thought he was up to it either. But when his family were rescued and flown to safety hundreds of miles away those left behind had a long way to travel and not long to get there. With roads smashed and transport at a premium there was only one way they’d make it in time. They were going to have to run across the length of the country – over 500 miles from Scotland to Cornwall. They’d better get started…..

There were many things I liked about this usual post-apocalypse novel. The main character Edgar wasn’t a hero – at all. He was just an ordinary guy, completely out of his depth just making it up as he went along. He survived the end of the world almost by accident and it looked like he wasn’t going to survive very long. All that changed when his wife and children were taken away from him and he made the decision to get them back – no matter what, including the fact that he knew that other people didn’t think him capable of making it. The running across country was very well handled even if some of the (very few) people they met along the way were clichés out of central casting. A few things did raise my eyebrows a LOT. One was the fact that there was talk (or possibly a plan) to evacuate the UK. Even if 50% of the population had been killed in the impact that’s 30 MILLION refugees. Can you imagine evacuating that many? Even with 75% dead that still 15 MILLION people left alive. You don’t evacuate those numbers. You bring in what people need in situ!! (Oh, and there was a brief one-liner about evacuating EUROPE. That made me chuckle, a LOT). Naturally Government just vanished as usual. At least there was some mention of London being heavily hit as well as region centres in Birmingham and Manchester. But even if National Government had been taken out some kind of local government somewhere would have survived. Even if taken completely by surprise – at from government TV warning and newspaper reports it looks like they had at the VERY least 12-24 hours’ notice – they would’ve had some sort of disaster plan they could have put into effect. Any local government that DID survive would have been in contact with any other government survivors to co-ordinate things and start consolidating some sort of action plan.

Without giving too much away there was a whole section in the middle where the runners are captured by what would be a local warlord in Manchester. Apparently the locals had fought with the police after the impacts and won. So they took over. They had fences, guns (rifles, shotguns and pistols) and had some engineers rigging anti-personnel mines to deter other gangs from attacking them. I was putting words into the characters mouths when I mused – ‘This is all very well, but what are you going to do when the government arrives in tanks?’ Which they would have – eventually. Any local military units would naturally look to proper civilian command and join them. With their equipment, training, organisation and abilities they’d get things up and running again pretty quickly. I’d guess that even with 75% dead and a similar amount of physical damage there would be a centralised government within a year or two at most. National government would be back up and running within 10-15 years (25 at the outside) and things would be back to ‘normal’ 25 years after that. Maybe I should write THAT kind of end of the world scenario!?!

Anyway, even with the above caveats this was a pretty decent apocalypse told from the PoV of the everyman – out of his depth and just trying to do his best despite knowing he wasn’t really up to it. Dramatic in parts, funny in others this was (generally) a pleasure to read if sometimes formulaic. It did have a good ‘tone’ to it though which helped make the whole thing seem much more realistic than most of this sort of tale. I shall be looking forward to the sequel. Recommended.