The 14th Reinstated

by Bryce M. Towsley

The 14th Reinstated, a new novel from Bryce M. Towsley Bryce M. Towsley’s new novel, The 14th Reinstated, is ripped from today’s headlines and the plot is eerily close to what is happening in the world today. This book lays out a frightening and dark scenario of how the world may look in a few years, and readers will pray it is not a prophecy of the future. It’s an action – adventure – mystery novel with all the elements of a rollicking good gun, knife and fist fights, desperate chases, pretty girls, likable heroes and mysterious evil doers trying to take over the world. It is set a few years after the world suffers social and economic collapse. There has been a total meltdown and horrible social wars that killed millions. The protagonist is just trying to rebuild a life with his family and neighbors when he is sucked into the most evil and vile of plots. The book opens after he has shot an assassin who tried to kill him. He was looking for his kidnapped niece and the assassin was waiting in ambush. The hero should have been dead before the book even really got started, but the bad guy picked the wrong man to mess with. This is his first clue that something is not what it seems and when thirty more men show up to finish the job he knows he is trouble. As the story develops he discovers a most unimaginable horror that has been perpetrated on the world and realizes that he and his friends are the only people who can stop the bad guys from finishing the job. While an action book with a mystery plot, it’s also character driven. The people in this book come to life as the pages turn. Some of the characters will make you laugh, others will make you cry, but they all will jump off the page and into your heart. The 14th Reinstated is a complex book that is also a primer on survival after social collapse. As the protagonist figures out how to survive the hordes bent on destruction, the lessons he learns serve as illustrations for those who worry that we may be headed for a real collapse. The 14th Reinstated then morphs into an epic adventure as the small group struggles against all odds to save the world from a terrible, bleak and dark future. This book is set in Vermont and New England, but has a world-wide scope with excursions into exotic places like Africa and Korea. Sometimes things come out of left field and hit the readers like a brick wall falling on their heads. One chapter is sure to have most men sleeping with a night light on for months after they read it. The 14th Reinstated is sometimes shocking, often funny and never boring. It will have you tearing through the pages with its hard charging, adrenaline pumping action and leave you breathless at the end. Bryce M. Towsley is a highly respected writer in hunting and firearms circles with his byline appearing on hundreds of magazines articles and multiple books. Unlike so many other fiction writers, he gets the “gun stuff” 100% correct, so that the fight scenes ring true. His descriptions of the habitat and terrain are written with a hunter’s and naturalist’s eye for detail. When he describes a desperate chase through the mountains it is clear he has walked the same ground he is describing. His keen insight into world politics helps to build a very believable and frighteningly plausible scenario. The characters ring true, almost as if he knows them all personally. The resulting matrix is one of the most intriguing, thought provoking and action packed novels in years.

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2012

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read,entertaining story. DON’T KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND! Lead rather than follow and work tow

Heading in the wrong direction when you could do the right, push pass the bad! Will the truth win out?

[Albert E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written post apocalypse story

Well written post apocalypse story with:
>. Surprises and big reveals
>. many characters that you care about
>. Some that you were glad to see die
>. Room for a follow up story

[Karla Buff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it

I've read some of Bryce's outdoor type books.

I knew this was a post apocalypse story but it was nothing like I expected with the early chapters being about survival and the remainder being on a mission.

All in all, it's a very good read.

[Kyle Pratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel begins after The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI). Due to a severe depression and government malfeasance the world financial systems, currencies, governments and business, all collapsed more than ten years earlier and nothing has replaced them. People struggle along in small communities and with a barter economy. Outside of the protected towns and villages violence is common.

The author, Bryce Towsley, is by his own account, “an unrepentant gun nut” and “avid, world-traveling hunter.” He wrote this novel in first person and seems to have written much of himself into the main character. The protagonist’s brother, Bradley, plays an over-the-top foil character that strained believability for me.

While Bradley and a few points in the story strained suspension of disbelief for me, overall the concept is sound and most of the characters were believable and interesting.

This is Towsley’s first novel. According to several sources, in the last two decades Towley has published, “hundreds of articles in most of the major outdoor and gun magazines and is listed as field editor in several of the top publications.” Clearly he can write non-fiction, but his fiction writing skills still needs some work. Weak writing is common in the TEOTWAWKI genre and writing non-fiction is a vastly different task than writing fiction. I’m not saying that The 14th Reinstated is a bad story, but it could have used a good editor, both to tighten the dialogue, suggest a few changes, and eliminated some grammar errors.

In the general fiction category The 14th Reinstated is a weak 3-star, but In the TEOWAWKI genre it is a four-star novel and I can recommend for fans of that genre.

[James Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw the author on a plane I was working on , and he told me about book . Bought it the next day , and couldn't put it down.