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.

Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin
finished November 7, 2012

This is the sequel to Ashfall, in which a volcano in Yellowstone erupts, forever changes life in the United States and brings on an eternal winter.
Alex and Darla have been living with his aunt and uncle and getting by, thanks to Uncle Paul's ingenuity and early preparations. They've been able to grow some food, particularly kale. Kale apparently grows well in harsh conditions.

Alex decides he's got to go find his parents who left to find him.  He and Darla set out on a jury-rigged ski bike  to go towards Iowa. Most likely his parents were headed there as well.

It's a harrowing journey, particularly because of the gangs of "flensers." These are gangs of cannibals who hunt and kill humans for food and to sell to others.

Freaky.   It's an exciting story with some unbelievable elements. I know that there would be many criminals and many people out for themselves in such a disaster, but I believe that there would be more good will and love than is portrayed here.

Still, I liked the book.  I'd like to see Mullin write a book in which the ashen winter begins to subside and people start to get back to "normal."

The Age of Miracles

by Karen Thompson Walker
September 24, 2012

A friend told me about this book. It's an end-of-the-world (or dystopian, as the genre is now called) book that takes place after the earth's rotation slows.  The publisher's description says,

"the world is ending not with a bang so much as a long, drawn-out whimper. And it turns out the whimper can be a lot harder to cope with."

The interesting thing about this book, as with all end-of-the-world books, is how life changes and how people adapt after a world wide disaster.

The first thing that everyone notices is that time goes off kilter. Six o'clock is no longer six o'clock. Hours are no longer sixty minutes.  Things quickly begin to get difficult because life's normal routine must either work by the clock or by the sun's rising and setting.  It's decided that everyone would continue to live by the clock.  Eventually the school day is held completely in the dark.  "White nights" - nights fully lit by the sun - last for hours and hours.
Some people choose not to live by the clock but to continue living according to natures rhythms.  Tensions build and neighbors turn against each other.

As the rotation continues to slow, more problems occur. The earth's magnetic field begins to disappear.  It becomes extremely dangerous to go outside in the daylight hours.  Plants begin to die, animals migration patterns are disrupted.

It's all very interesting, but Walker hasn't really written a science fiction novel. Her book is more of a coming-of-age story for her main character, eleven year old Julia.    Maybe the end-of-the-world is must a metaphor for the process of entering adolescence.  Think about it - sometimes for a pre-teen life is full of disasters. It can feel like the end of the world when that boy you like snubs you or your best friend finds a new best friend.  Julia deals with these and other life problems while dealing with the slowing of the earth's rotation.

I liked the book. It ended a little bit too quickly and too ambiguously. Lots of questions were left unanswered and I'm not sure if that was to keep us thinking or because the author didn't know how to end the end-of-the-world.

This could have and maybe should have been a YA book, but it was cataloged into the adult section of the library and has been marketed to adults by the publisher.

Ashfall

by Mike Mullin
April 2012

One Friday evening 15 year old Alex is home alone, messing around on the computer when the earth starts to rumble and the lights in the house go out. An earthquake? Unlikely, since Alex is in the middle of Iowa. Then all hell breaks loose. The floor tilts and the ceiling crashes in. Later a loud roar sounds out, like a never-ending clap of thunder.  It isn't long before Alex finds out that the Yellowstone supervolcano has erupted and life will never be the same.  He sets out to find his parents and little sister who had gone to visit relatives in Illinois for the weekend.

Ashfall  is the story of Alex's journey to Illinois. It's a survival story as he battles hunger, robbers, sudden winter and ashfall.

I liked this book and hate think that this (the supervolcano) could actually happen.  I wonder, however, if we, as a people, would degenerate as fast as the people in this book.  Almost immediately Alex encounters violent criminals. He also encounters communities of people banded together, but the threat of bad people begins so quickly.   On second thought - looting after Hurricane Katrina or the looting and rioting last year in London in August of 2011 after a protest in Tottenham - I suppose it could happen that fast.

It helps the plot of Ashfall that it takes place mostly in rural Iowa. Along Alex's journey houses are few and far between. This would have been a different story had it taken place in a large city.

Mike Mullin does a good job of taking Alex from spoiled teenager into a manhood forced upon him by adversity. Alex is the narrator of the story and his voice subtly changes as moves through his ordeal.

This is Alex's story, but I wanted to know more about how the nation handled the disaster. We get a terrible glimpse of it when Alex and his traveling companion reach a refugee camp which ends up being more like a concentration camp.  But what about the rest of the country?

The sequel Ashen Winter will be released in October so maybe I'll have my answer then.