Review: Enjoyed despite the problems
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 24, 2013
The story is about a small town in Wyoming reacting fast to a nationwide plummet into TEOTWAWKI.  Bob (owner of a sporting goods store), George (owner of a market), the sheriff and a Colonel in the National Guard all quickly lock down essential resources (food, weapons), start training the townspeople in defense and locking down borders.  That's the setup.The author's bio explicitly states that his grammar and spelling pretty well suck.  It's true.  The writing is very colloquial and a little uneducated, which didn't bother me one bit.  But, it'll drive the grammar police crazy. I would read this author's other books in a heartbeat if that was the only problem.The storytelling was enjoyable.  A little bit preachy but not enough to irritate me.  The 'if you don't work, you don't eat' (unless you're really old or young) ethos was mentioned about 25 times and I'm on that bandwagon, so no problem.  He does get a little enthusiastic about how heinous liberals are and how evil entitlement programs are, but it was mentioned as the point of view of specific characters in the story and wasn't just a general diatribe and most importantly, it didn't stop the flow of story.The book was interesting and fun.  Not sensational, but definitely enjoyable.  There was one big problem that I can't explain without divulging the plot, so quit reading here if you don't want to hear it.----------------------------------********************Spoiler Below******************-----------------------------------------The big problem with this book is that it is all setup and no payoff.  The whole book is about preparation.  It's good at that and interesting.  But the book ends just when the preparations are in place.  In the middle of a paragraph.  Without any indication that there is a continuation of the story out there or in the works.  So, here we have this small town in lock-down, as prepared as they can get against the coming gangs and hordes of people fleeing the city, and it just stops!  That's not a story!!!!  It's a teaser for a story.  The only conflict and resolution is a minor scuffle with a small motorcycle gang (it occurs outside of town and it's never any threat to the town), throwing a few townspeople out of town for their bad attitude and that's it.  There's no blurb at the end saying the story continues.  No promise of future installments with this group.There are rules of writing a story: The beginning is exposition (setup), the middle is a brewing conflict, and the end is resolution of the conflict - and there better be all three of those stages even if it's part one of a bigger plot.  That's a story arc - meaning a story that goes somewhere.  This story goes nowhere.  A smart author, even if it's a serial, has a story arc because otherwise, nobody will bother buying the sequels.  And an author doesn't go off and write a half dozen other starts of series and leave his readers hanging out to dry.  Or, rather, an author who does that really does it at their own peril.  If you screw your readers, they'll screw you back.  I thought maybe the other High Country Journals in different areas would eventually intersect with this story, and that's possible but doesn't resolve the big problem with this book.Typically, aside from the story arc, it's required that the characters somehow grow or overcome internal things that were holding them back.  In other words, there has to also be character arcs in a story.  Let me give a dumb example.  Think about reading a book about a character taking a bath.  And, you're reading along and getting to know the character.  Then, the character steps out of the bathtub.  And the story ends.  That's what happened in this book.  As a reader, you say WHAT? That can't be right.  Where's the story?  Meaning, where's the conflict.  There isn't any.---------------------------------*********************End Spoiler********************--------------------------------------------The trouble is, I enjoyed the story, despite it's issues.  But, breaking the "rules" of story-telling is probably going to keep me from buying any future books by this author.  And, that's a shame.  The author has real potential for writing.