Shelter

Call me morbid but I do love a good mass extinction event. On paper, that is. Watching the characters scrabble about trying to understand, to regroup, to exist. Be it zombies, plague or entities from outer space, I’m signed up for the ride. You’ve only to read / watch Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead or Stephen King’s The Stand to observe how man can return to his baser instincts when the chips are down.

Into the field comes Dave Hutchinson’s Shelter – Aftermath, the first of a new series from Solaris. My interest is piqued by the setting – we’re not present on the day, week, month or even year of the cataclysmic events that caused the end of the world as we know it – we’re a century or so down the line. And we are in Little England. A Little England armed with pitchforks, guns and suspicion. Actually, we’re not even in the whole of England – we’re looking at the fractured south through our anthropologic microscope. No one knows what’s happening in the wilds of my dear old north.

First came The Sisters – broken up asteroid strikes that trashed the earth, burnt and scorched it into ruin and then destroyed the eco-system as we know it. Weather erupted that destroyed our green and pleasant backwaters. We then drop in a century later to observe the devolution of man from what had gone before. Limited technology. No factories. Suspicion and clusters of half starved humanity who don’t know what – or who – may be living over the next hill. Feudal communities in various stage of expansion and implosion. And did I mention guns? Lots of guns – which I will admit felt odd to this Little Englander used to a society in which they are mostly prohibited.

We see three communities dealing with their own issues – Guz, a former naval base that has weathered The Sisters fairly well and is eying neighbouring country for both intelligence and possible expansion while placing quotas on the intake of said neighbours even when they are starving (sound familiar?). There’s Thanet, in Berkshire, where feudalism and back breaking farm work are alive and well and the local populace appear largely content with their lot. And the third – a dictatorship run by Frank Pendennis that is being observed for Guz by spy Adam whose travels pull the threads of these individually myopic southern communities into a more rounded sense of place and time. Oh, and then there’s Morty. Not Monty. Morty. You’ll have to read the book to find out about him though I will tease and say he’s kind of a post-apocalyptic Trash-Can Man without the nuclear resources.

Hutchinson crafts this story with great skill, highlighting how one small act can cause a catastrophic ripple effect that no one perhaps wants but that becomes impossible to stop. He observes the little details of humanity beautifully – those chinks and flaws that begin to crumble under the weight of hardship and loss. And he writes funny, pithy interactions with a generous helping of anglo-saxon to leave us in little doubt of where our characters stand.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Aftermath and I note from the blurb at the back that it is paired with a future book release due in August 2018 from Solaris – Haven by Adam Roberts. . There are plot breadcrumbs laid throughout Aftermath that seem to lead us to the north of England. I can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on this and see what is happening in my neck of the woods in parallel with Hutchinson’s tale.

With great thanks to NetGalley, Rebellion Publishing, Solaris and Dave Hutchinson for the advanced copy for review. This review is entirely my own opinion.

This book was well written and very fun to read. The characters were great and I enjoyed the world building. The author does a great job at introducing the characters and moving the plot along. There were a few things that I didn't like, but it wasn't enough to really sway me one way or the other. It's definitely a story that I can get lost in and both feel for the characters. It is definitely a go-to novel that I highly recommend to anyone who loves a great read. Definitely a highly recommended read that I think everyone will enjoy.