When the Power Is Gone by P.A. GlaspyMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
I hate to trash a novel, particularly when the majority of the reviews on it are absolutely glowing. With that said, this was just....well....unfortunate. The premise here is that an apparent EMP has been detonated, leaving a wide divide between the haves and the have-nots. The perspective of subsequent events is from the “haves”, preppers who spent years building up stores for just such an event.
The story opens with a VERY brief introduction to two of the main characters—Ann and her son Rusty. When the power goes out, it takes less than a minute for this Tennessee mom to realize what has happened. It was just too....quick I guess. From there, the “happy coincidences” just keep rolling through. Russ, Ann’s husband, is conveniently close to home and also realizes that this is a catastrophic failure of the entire power grid. Rusty, conveniently, hasn’t yet boarded the bus for school. And the supplies and equipment this family, in conjunction with a mirrored family of three, has managed to accrue! They’ve built Faraday cages, grown tons of their own food, raised rabbits and chickens, and hoarded enough “stuff” to tide them over for years. When the novel starts telling us about their preps, easily stored food and loads of water, I was buying in. When we are made aware of the fact that this family has even changed the axels on a truck to allow it to carry more weight, purchased plywood sheets to cover all the windows should that even be necessary, purchased sun showers by the half dozen and started colonies of bees at a nearby farm, it just seemed a little far fetched.
Look, this writer has promise. A good editor and some tweaking, and this could actually work. For me, however, it appeared to be more of a propaganda piece written to cast a positive light on preppers. It was preachy, the writing was basic, and the premise, whilst intriguing, was just not fully developed enough to make this a viable stand alone.
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