A correctional worker and doomsday prepper named Hank is caught in the middle of an EMP delivered by foreign attackers.
He must work to keep his family consisting of his daughter and brother safe in a time of desperation while the fabric of society unravels in front of his eyes - witness to the anarchic behavior of those around him.
Hank will need to bear the dangers of scrounging for food, water and supplies while trying to remain on the move while he convinces his family to trust him with their safety using the underground bunker he had been developing over the years, not far from where he worked at the correctional facility. Hank will soon realize, in this new dangerous world - he has more enemies than just the ones responsible for the EMP attack.
I hope this ends up as "the horrible book at the beginning of a good author's career which he tries to hide and which obsessive fans seek out (e.g. Stephenson's The Big U)", but it's pretty bad. I like EMP stories, I like post apocayptic/survivalist stories, but this one had dumb characters, illogical plot, and was exceedingly tedious to read.
The audiobook, run through "virtual voice", was actually less bad purely on mechanical factors than I was expecting, but worse than gpt-4 reading text directly. But honestly, an AI could have created a better story start to finish.
I liked the book. Hank is a semi prepper. But seriously, who would build a bunker near a prison? Right when it gets exciting....It ends. 50 pages. Less than 30 minutes of reading.
Seriously, what prepper has no food or weapons? And what prepper wonders why there are cars by the side of the road after an emp attack? The only saving grace is that it is only 50 pages. That's 30 minutes I'll never get back.