Reading Without Light
- Posted by e4 on May 26th, 2008 filed in Books
[ This is a guest post from Chile at Chile Chews. She reviews the book Last Light by Alex Scarrow mentioned here previously. ]
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It is impossible to tell you much at all about this book without spoilers. If you don’t wish to learn the whole story, stop reading now. Go read some of the brief reviews online or the description on the author’s website.
*** MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW ***
Adding another layer of danger into the mix is the hitman tracking Leona to silence her once and for all, as he felt he should have been allowed to do when she stumbled into the wrong hotel room years before. She made the mistake of emailing a note to her father in Iraq that she had seen one of those three men on television and recognized him. The men have been keeping track of Andy ever since he wrote that special report for them. Leona is now a danger to them.
It doesn’t take long for the government to realize it is woefully unprepared for this artificial Peak Oil situation. The country is dependent on imported energy and food, and there are inadequate supplies on hand. Instead of calming the public, the Prime Minister blows the news conference by letting slip that the situation is dire. Not surprisingly, panic erupts in the street with everyone immediately rushing to stock their pantries. The government starts taking steps to control remaining oil supplies (reserves and petrol stations) by shutting down all transportation and highways, while pulling their soldiers out of Iraq to help protect these meager supplies from the public.
Jenny is now stranded away from her children and Andy is stranded in Iraq. The journey home for each is harrowing. Andy must get out of a foreign country with diminishing military support and increasingly hostile natives. Jenny’s journey highlights the difficulties of trying to travel when all avenues of standard transportation have been cut off. The public is not happy and quickly overwhelm traffic control efforts. Any source of available food or water, for the water taps soon stop flowing, is quickly looted. Mob mentality takes over when resources become scarce and people become desperate. The bodies start piling up. And this is only a few days into the disaster.
Leona and her brother bunk down at the house of a family friend while the city turns into an urban hell around them. Rioting in the streets makes venturing out dangerous, and rampaging gangs have taken over the neighborhood, looting one house after another on their street. The hitman continues narrowing in on his target, searching to find where they are hiding. When the vicious gang focuses on their house, they are slowed down by the boobytraps set for them. Once they make it inside, there’s no sign of Leona or her brother but it is just a matter of time before their hiding place is discovered. Of course, just in the nick of time, someone runs off the gang. The parents soon re-unite with the kids and we breathe easy for just a moment.
There is a final face-off with the hitman and the family, ending in the death of the hitman and critical injury of Andy. In the build-up to this last fight, the hitman murders an associate of Andy’s and reveals the extent of power held by those who employ him. A core group of 12 directs human history, intervening to move it in whatever direction they wish. They are the ones who orchestrated the peak oil situation.
As the story was unfolding, I kept wondering who might benefit from rioting, lawlessness, and mass starvation. The only plausible explanation my sweetie and I could come up with was population reduction. Sure enough, this turned out to be the motive for their machinations. Dwindling oil supplies required a massive reduction in the number of people on the planet in order to support the lifestyle desired. However, they failed to consider the events would take on a life of their own and spiral further out of control than they wanted. Nor did they consider the difficulty of bringing the damaged infrastructure back online to return to a petroleum-based world.
The book ends with the family, minus the father, living in a new community eighteen months later. The group that took them in was not composed of preppers or survivalists, but rather historical re-enactors that had learned the old skills of everyday living for their avocation. In a new world, it became their vocation as they did for themselves what oil used to do for them.
This book was a terrifying and suspense-filled ride. While I doubt we face the likelihood of an artificially created peak oil event that drops us off a cliff like this, it allowed the compression of the concepts and consequences of peak oil in a short time span for the book. I found myself stopping my reading occasionally to go put up more food. I cooked my last pumpkin and will be freezing the puree today - after making another double batch of muffins. I juiced grapefruits cleaned off from my tree. And I encouraged my sweetie to work on some kind of storage for extra water. I also swept through the house one more time, letting go of additional books, multimedia, and art.
The book was a reminder of how fragile our current way of life is. Without oil or easy energy resources, everything grinds to a halt. The majority of people do not have a clue how to survive without supermarket food, water flowing from the tap, power, or motorized transportation. They panic and behave in ugly horrible ways. Gangs and tribes form quickly and rampage when the trouble-makers realize there is nobody to stop them from indulging their every evil whim. Even individuals start to question why it matters if they do the right thing. This book strongly reinforced the message others have put forth that community is as important as preparation for a more sustainable, lower impact, post peak oil life. (It also made me want to get the heck out of this city numbering over a million people!)
If you want more, check out the forum on Alex Scarrow’s website. He’s considering writing a sequel…
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