Book Review: The Flood by David Sachs
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, you know, just to be upfront about that sort of thing.
The Flood by David Sachs is difficult to describe. At it’s most obvious, it’s a disaster tale, quickly followed by a post-apocalyptic story of people surviving against incredible odds, you know, like Survivor, if there were no cameras, no support system, and if people were actually afraid for their lives. Okay, well, yeah, so not really at all like Survivor.
At the start of the book, one could easily be forgiven for expecting this story to read out like a novelization of any generic disaster film, where we see the entire world on the brink of extinction. But this story is not about the destruction of the world. In fact, it’s about humanity, about survival, and ultimately about how the world itself works, although on a much smaller scale. If you can call a cruise ship small.
Speaking of the cruise ship. Something about the setting Sachs has chosen for this novel, specifically, a cruise ship (if you didn’t figure it out), seems so incredibly perfect for the story he’s telling. Not only do we get a sense of space, while also getting a complete sense of claustrophobia, but you also get the brilliant juxtaposition of ideas, between the cruise ship, which should be about relaxation and freedom from stress, and the reality of an outside world that may no longer exist, which causes everything opposite to occur within the bows of the ship.
But honestly, even if you don’t go for clever idea concepts and the absolute antithesis to tropes (meaning that Sachs does everything completely opposite of what the cliches of such stories would have you do), you’re still going to get a heckuva thrill ride that will leave you clamoring for more.
