Sunrise

by Mike Mullin
June 29, 2014

Sunrise is the final book in the Ashfall Trilogy.  The cover shown here for Ashfall is different from the original cover. But I'm glad they changed it. The three covers are so well done and, after reading all three, are very significant to me.

Sunrise continues the story of Alex, Darla, and the community they formed along with Alex's family and others he and Darla met along the way.
They have set up a routine. Life is hard, but when the book begins it is fairly predictable.  If all remains the same then it's just a waiting game for the ash to leave and things to begin getting better.
But in the wild, every-man-for-himself ways that have formed, post volcano, predictablity isn't something that stays for long.

Alex and the rest have been successful with building greenhouses and acquiring food.  Their success attracts more and more people, including refugees from the town of Warren. They've been attacked by a gang from the town of Stockton - "The Reds" - named after their psychotic leader, Red.
Alex tries to convince the citizens of Warren to build a wall for fortification. When that fails he tries to convince them to join his group in forming a new community near a group of wind turbines. They can build a safe place to live with more greenhouses and even electricity.

The  mayor of Warren, the aptly named Mayor Petty, is adamant that his town is fine and that no teenager is going to tell him how to run things.  Yea, we'll see how that turns out for you Mayor Petty.

Alex and company are successful in building a new community and it grows and grows.  So, Sunrise becomes about rebuilding society after total destruction.  It's about the basic nature of human beings - good and bad.

This was such an interesting read and very exciting.  I'm sorry the series is over.   I would love for Mike Mullin to write even a separate novel  - not necessarily about Alex and Darla - speculating about how the nation built itself back up. Or if it ever did.

Maybe the message is that after such a total disaster, nothing will ever be the same.