Powerless

I was looking forward to reading this book, as the theme of a CME induced catastrophe is a bit unusual in the genre.

Some observations: communications were basically unimpaired in this book. Governmental authorities were able to easily gather information and implement policies quite easily. It appears that only cell phone and landlines were affected (in addition to satellites being fried). The president basically had a very accurate picture of everything going on, and was able to easily communicate with his counterparts around the globe. And this within a week of the CME, so very little derangement of the infrastructure.

The president also seemed far too concerned about what allies were doing, and taking actions to retain American credibility. It's doubtful most northern hemisphere nations would care what the US was up to.

Threatening South Korea with a trade war seemed ludicrous. After the destruction of the grid, it's dubious the US would be in any position to maintain any sort of international trade (how would payment transfers be conducted in the post-CME world).

Importing a few generators here and there would not restore the US grid in three years. Think of replacing every generating station, nuclear power plant, substation, and most likely even transformers in local neighborhoods. When there is no basic electric service, food production has broken down, and the cities are in chaos.

There is no sense in the book of how far society would fall and how long it would take to rebuild. Quite frankly even were the grid reparable within three years, whole areas of the country would have become no-go zones for the federal or State governments.

Too many story lines that ended in dead ends, and too much attempted character development where it did not contribute to the story, or help us understand the actions of the characters. For instance, what is the point of showing the reader's flash-backs regarding Zeke's first wife? This comes up once or twice in the story line and vanishes. It doesn't help us understand his actions.

It seems that food was fairly easily procurable, by hunting a few deer or turkeys, even though the CME occurred in autumn, after the growing season. Clearly in addition to civil unrest, there would be starvation on a mass scale.

For me this was an unconvincing look at the probably results of such an event, although it's still an okay read as far as entertainment goes.

For a more plausible variation, Forstchen's One Second After is a better and more developed story.

There are many good things about this book. It is fast paced and realistic. There was a good variety of characters. But I have two issues with it:
Number one: Some of the characters are mentioned once and there is no follow up. Due to the theme of the book you know their outcome but there were no updates on their situation.
Number two: The size of the print made it very difficult for me to read. I don't require large print but this was smaller than most prints. if I had known this when I ordered it, I probably would not have ordered.

In the genre of 'apocalyptic' situations this was fair to poor, Frankly, I found it somewhat underwhelming when covering the consequences of losing the whole power grid. While at times the author could have truly taken the story to illustrate what could happen, he fell short. The story simply ends at the beginning of a worsening situation. The population of the United States in 1890, when no one had electricity but everything was set up to live without it, was about 63 million of which 64% lived in rural areas. Today, the population is around 323 million with less than 19% living in rural areas. Can you imaging what that implies in terms of mass migration and riots if no food can easily be grown or distributed? This book gets nowhere close to the real problems all this would imply. It jumps from a few weeks into the beginning the situation into finishing with a 'three years later' ending where everything is back up and running, including manufacturing. Please..... A huge part of the US population would have died in the interim from untreated diseases and violence. Let alone the question of would the US even survive as a political entity.

Mr. Washburn could have done a lot with a good set of characters, but he fell short.

The first day of events were very realistic, kept me riveted...I thought, wow...this is going to be great. I really liked how the stories intertwined. Then we skip to "one week after". After reading several chapters, I almost put the book down. I thought it was very unrealistic of what events would actually take place. There would be so much looting and rioting across the country, and how many people have supplies to last even the first week? No electricity, no running water, no food...there would be so many people starving and getting diseases from having no proper sanitation. Then after 3 years everyone is just about hunky dory...come on now. I really wanted to like this book, but it just doesn't feel realistic.

I could not put this book down. I stayed up till 3 am reading this book. I could not stop until I had read the entire book.

I really, really enjoyed this book. I confess I bought his other book, Cataclysm, at a local book store and also thought it was one of the top books in this genre. After reading Cataclysm I immediately ordered Powerless and can now strongly recommend both books if you are reading for pleasure. One of the characteristics I enjoyed in both books was they are not written to be instructional manuals on survival. I have frequently lamented the tendency in disaster novels to try to instruct the reader in boring survival techniques...if I wanted to learn how to tan a bear hide I would buy a book on tanning! Washburn does not bore the reader with that type of writing, he fills his pages with plot and not instruction. Have fun reading these two books and I look forward to Washburn's next novel.

Wow. This could happen. Kept me on the edge of my seat. A must read.

Review

The story line is very good overall. I love the Okie connection. Providing different viewpoints was entertaining as I tend to lock in on just my viewpoint in life.
The hospital and medical was good though again I foresee a 60% casualty rate to disease, lack of medication, lack of hygiene and weather. The heat and cold will kill the old, young and compromised. 40 was old before electricity.
There is a lot of truth to it in the power grid, short comings, repair and parts.
I'm not so much sure about the human aspect though. The author is a hopeless romantic and reminds me of Louis LaMour. Women who want sex during a crisis!?! Daily stress throws most out of "want" so that's a polka dotted unicorn.
The saber toothed polar unicorn for me was politicians that actually care about others and would stay on ship till it sank or they bailed it out.
A trip from Durant to Dallas would be much more firearms than ball bats and filled with death. Perhaps I'm a little harder having been overseas and seen men at their worst in crisis. I was surprised at the lack of firepower in the story given the amount that's actually out there especially in our region. The "mad minute" will last a while till the call of duties thin themselves out with Tacticool gear.
Hunting deer might be more like eat all the cows first then dogs IMO. Deer are hard when taking into consideration of exposure time, man hours needed for work etc. Preserving large amounts of meat takes more than just "salt". You need the right kind of salt.
The non subtle signals to prepare with water, food, first aid, self protection and realistic living conditions are probably welcomed by anyone reading this. If not then re-read the chapters where folks don't make it due to a series of mistakes.
This is a much more positive outcome than I expected. I'm not of the belief that recovery is possible with the lacking of people though it wouldn't stop me from trying. It makes you wanna yell Merica at the end.

Good read

Great story line, captivating. Well worth the price and time.