Review: EMP plus military SHTF action
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2013
This series is improving as the author hones his skills. With a bit of grammar and spelling editing, this could be five-star.Other reviewers have noted the propensity for Gustav to have his characters sit down and just chat - incessantly - every couple of chapters or so. I wonder if this is simply an amplification of life in LA among 20-somethings these days, or perhaps a wistful projection of a life without the technology to text back and forth all day. No matter the cause, the result is a great action series that you'll have to accept comes to a screeching halt every so often, as the characters "process" what has happened to them.It's also interesting that the series is called Jeremy's Run, as Jeremy tends to come off as a supporting player in this series. Kade, the ex-military and ex-banger from the east side, is featured heavily. Did Kade's Run not slip off the tongue as easily or something?Basic plot and advancement are good - this is an end-of-world story about EMP, and Gustav's descriptions of how things might work in such an event are well-researched. I think he over-dramatizes certain aspects as almost all indie writers do - would that an EMP were to hit America, many experts believe that electronically-based cars wouldn't simply shut off; they likely would go into "limp mode" and be drivable until they were shut off...and THEN they likely wouldn't start again. But it's more...dramatic...to make all the cars go "poof" at once, so you can have civilization break down in 48 hours, I guess.Gustav still needs editing help, as homonym errors continue to creep up in his prose. You don't peak around corners, you peek around them; when you want people to be more tactful, you want them to be more discreet, not more discrete.A little effort there, and perhaps some trimming of the Millennial-style conversations among the protagonists, could go a long way towards making this a real classic in the genre. Certainly Gustav has the right idea, with his suspenseful scenes and his quite surprising plot twist to end Book Two.