T. C. Sherry

Remnant is the final book in the Rick Drummond story line (Distance is the fourth book in the Deep Winter series, but covers another perspective & character) unlike the first two books, a good portion of this book involves military action as the stuttering remnants of the United States descends into civil war between the constitutionalists of the United States of America and the fascists of State of America.

The beginning of the book has the same style and pace as the earlier books, however once Drummond is drafted into the military things certainly seem to pick up in both pace and action. It's hard to say if this is better than the last book as the subject material is of a different nature (raw survival & community building versus civil war & descent into chaos) it is definitively as good though, and quite a riveting tale. In some ways it reminds me of William Johnstone's In The Ashes series in terms of the post-collapse fighting, but it's been a decade since I read those books so my recollection could be foggy.

At any rate, Remnant was a good cap to the Rick Drummond trilogy, although I did think the miraculous new technology used in the ending was a bit out of place considering the entire 732 pages painted the picture of a nation barely able to hold it together, let alone innovate an advanced new technology.… (más)

Shatter continues on from Deep Winter, where the Drummond family find themselves in the midst of a collapsed society after a catastrophic earthquake which set off catastrophic volcanic activity which in turn led to the economic collapse of the United States.

The first book was reasonable, but this one was really good I though, vastly more interesting seeing the protagonist having to adapt and improvise versus the shenanigans in the first book where virtually every adversity faced led to him getting yet another stored doo-dad from the barn or basement.

The worldwide military tensions present in the first book ratchet up further in this installment leading to additional adversity for the struggling society in the Spokane Valley.

All in all it was vastly better than the first book and actually a good story, I do think you would need to have read the first book though to get the most out of this else you'd be starting in the middle of nowhere without a frame of reference. The religious aspect continues in this book, it's starting to get a bit preachy, but doesn't detract from the story too much.… (más)

Much like Boyd Craven's Good Fences, Deep Winter also features a protagonist who miraculously has the good fortunes to have a garage and barn containing virtually every need and desire for thirteen people when the earthquake hits Spokane and follow on economic collapse takes down the country.

I find novels where the character has literally everything for the unfolding survival situation a less interesting than others, there's no real struggle per se, yes he has to move into his barn because the house is damaged and things are pretty crap but nearly every adversity faced results in going to the basement, shed, or an outbuilding and grabbing one of the multitude of things he has stored away. I get that there are people out there like this, but I feel like people having literally everything (excluding livestock) would be in the extreme minority.

Asides for this, it's a pretty alright novel if you're not expecting much in the way of character depth. There's a multitude of religious references but it seemed to manage not to become preachy which is good.

There was a small plot error where the main character gets a struggled to get a fold up trailer out of a poor storage position, then parks it in a far more accessible place, only for it to be than back at the original position ~100 pages later for them to struggle all over again getting it out. Not that big a deal but noticeable.

Overall, entertaining but nothing outstanding.… (más)