Ashfall (Ashfall, #1)

by Mike Mullin

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice. —Will Durant

The pre-Friday world of school, cell phones, and refrigerators dissolved into this post-Friday world of ash, darkness, and hunger.

It’s hard to fall asleep when Zeus is machine-gunning thunder at you.

Everything would be better tomorrow. I thought: a new day, a new dawn would have to be better than this. I was wrong. There was no dawn the next day.

Hunger of choice is a painful luxury; hunger of necessity is terrifying torture.

“A librarian can’t live by books alone, and I wouldn’t eat them if I could. Feel too much like cannibalism.”

The Grim Reaper had visited me again, had even poked me with his scythe, but Darla had dragged me by the hair from his dark kingdom.

I’d been getting way too much practice at leading impromptu funerals.

For the first time ever, I felt ashamed of my species. The volcano had taken our homes, our food, our automobiles, and our airplanes, but it hadn’t taken our humanity. No, we’d given that up on our own.