Review: "The Stand" meets "Hatchet"
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2014
"The Stand" meets "Hatchet"What would you do if you were dying of the flu in a worldwide pandemic, with no surviving friends or family to care for your beloved –and immune – little boy? What if you were immune to the virus killing off the world’s population, but it wasn’t your own child you were called upon to care for, but a complete stranger’s child? What if you were a man who had lost his entire family, including his pregnant wife, and you were approached by a desperate, dying mother who begs you to care for her child?A.R. Shaw has put a twist on the apocalyptic survival tale with the story of Graham, a man who has lost everyone he loved – first his wife and their unborn child, then his mother, then his sister and her four-year-old daughter, and finally his much-loved father. While Shaw alternates between characters, slowly introducing new characters to the mix, Graham is the focal point of the story.An interesting but sensible addition to the apocalypse-tale is the presence of Preppers. These people are not necessarily immune to the virus, but thanks to their careful preparations followed by fast action when the pandemic struck, they were able to escape and remain uninfected. Unfortunately, those who are immune – like Graham – are still carriers of the virus. Even the most casual contact with the immune Carriers could cause the death of the Preppers. This adds another layer of tension to the end-of-the-world scenario crafted by the author.Honestly, I debated between rating this three stars or four because “The China Pandemic” could have done with another round with the red pen; there were some typos/misspellings, random commas, and other minor editing errors. But the book is readable, and the storyline is compelling enough that I was willing to let my inner editor skim over the mistakes (not always an easy thing for me to do), so I went with four stars based on the strength of the plot and characterization. There are also times when the reader has to be willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story when characters behave in a way that doesn’t necessarily make sense (to me, at least – but then again, I’ve never survived a worldwide pandemic, so I can’t really say how I’d respond in that situation).In some ways this book reminded me of a combination of Stephen King’s “The Stand” merged with Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet” – while the apocalyptic killer-flu theme is similar to The Stand (one of my all-time favorite books), the manner in which the characters survive is much more nature-based, like Hatchet. Shaw does a great job with the little details that really pull the reader into a story. One section I particularly enjoyed was a description of a dog and the way his ears continued to move “like some sort of radar detection device put on autopilot” after he fell asleep.The conclusion of the book was simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful. I grew to care about the characters, and want to continue following their stories. Fortunately, this is the first book in a series (Graham’s Resolution, Book Two: The Cascade Preppers is listed as “coming soon” on the author’s website), and I’m looking forward to reading the next book as soon as it’s released.