Ashfall (Ashfall, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Oct 22, 2011 Regina rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, post-apocalyptic, first-in-series, ya, arc-publisher-netgalley-edelweiss, natural-disasters

End of the world story? I am THERE regardless if the book is about zombies, nuclear fall out, or mass pandemic. But, if the end of the world story happens to be about a natural disaster – say like a massive volcano eruption – then I am in heaven. For me, this book is the best of everything in one of my favorite genres. It is a young adult book with a male main character, set in a location I know intimately well because I grew up there, and involving a super volcano eruption and its aftermath. So End of the world story? I am THERE regardless if the book is about zombies, nuclear fall out, or mass pandemic. But, if the end of the world story happens to be about a natural disaster – say like a massive volcano eruption – then I am in heaven. For me, this book is the best of everything in one of my favorite genres. It is a young adult book with a male main character, set in a location I know intimately well because I grew up there, and involving a super volcano eruption and its aftermath. Some survival stories detail the day in and day out of how to survive and some focus on how ugly the world has gotten due to the devolution of human nature – Ashfall incorporates both.

The story begins as many young adult books do, the hero of the story is alone because his parents are gone for the weekend and well, the world ends. The hero is forced to try and survive on his own and he begins a quest to locate his parents. I loved that this story is a rural setting. So many end of the world and survival stories take place in urban settings. The placement of this story in a rural location was not only unique and refreshing but it allowed for the feeling and atmosphere to grow that the characters were alone, stranded and nobody was coming to help them.

The hero is not perfect and he is not able to do everything well; in fact he is pretty much a normal teenage kid. The setting is rural eastern Iowa and north western Illinois and the super volcano erupts in Colorado, spewing ash and emitting horribly loud booming noises 900 miles away to where this story takes place. The entire Midwest appears to be effected by gray skies, extremely cold weather, demolished infrastructure, lack of government and authority and a complete lack of incoming food shipments. The people there are forced to survive. What happens next is the hero’s attempt to make his way through a wasteland, his interactions with people he meets (very bad and some very good) – he has nothing to aid in his survival, except for his basic level of knowledge, his hope that his parents are alive and ….. (drumroll) …. his expertise practical knowledge of tae kwon do. A second character is introduced at some point through the story and she is absolutely amazing, she is truly a heroine. For me, she made the story.

One of the interesting aspects of the book is how the author incorporated issues of corporate greed and deference of government power and authority to private corporations. A third of the way through the story, the characters arrive at a refugee camp, I am not going to post any spoilers, the camp is not run by the United States government, but instead by a private corporation that has been given power and authority to act as a government and is paid with federal money; thus, the outsourcing of federal and military duties to private corporations. And the clear motive of the company receiving the outsourced job was not to help or support society, but instead to profit. This storyline is very subtle, but it is written in a way that draws out emotion and shock. The theme could have been easily over done, but instead it was treaded over lightly enough to provide readers with a visceral reaction and wonder what would happen right now as the result of a natural disaster? Would the scenario Mike Mullin sets up be the one to happen?

So why 4 stars if I loved this book and I have marked it as a favorite? Well, I found the beginning difficult to access as a reader; I was not invested until the crisis began. But once the event happened, this book quickly became one that I could not put down.

The story ends without concluding the characters’ tale, but it does end with hope and it ends without a cliffhanger. I will definitely be reading the next in the series. And note to Mike Mullin if you happen to be reading this, since I am from the area in which you set your book I am more than happy to consult with you. Additionally, one thing you might want to consider is the geographic area for the setting of Ashfall has several nuclear power plants (several!) – how are these plants affected by the eruption of the super volcano?
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Apr 21, 2012 Dichotomy Girl rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ya, 4-and-a-half-to-5-stars, own-kindle-read, dystopia-apocalyptic, 2012, favorites-previous-years

Halfway through reading this, I felt the need to inform my husband how woefully unprepared we are for the coming apocalypse.

We don't own a shotgun.

I don't know how to slaughter my own meat, or cook over an open fire.

And I am completely ill equipped to deal with the inevitable downfall of society.

Once I accepted my inadequacy and accepted that I would most likely be one of the first casualties, I could sit back and enjoy the story of Alex's battle for survival on his journey to find his parents a ...more

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Oct 20, 2011 Literary Ames rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1st-in-series, read-in-2012, young-adult, male-authors, free-read, netgalley, arc, kindle-other-sources

What would happen if the supervolcano at Yellowstone erupted?
Ashfall attempts to answer that question by following Alex, a typical 15-year-old boy from the day his world falls apart at home alone while his family are over a hundred miles away visiting his uncle to his quest to be reunited with his family.

What about a supervolcano erupting is so devastating?
Ash. Lots and lots of toxic ash. It covers fields, pollutes the waterways, inhale too much it can kill both animals and humans. It's consiste ...more

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