Book Review: Rebel Radio by Boyd Craven (The World Burns #5.5)

A raw and gritty standalone novel in The World Burns Saga. Can be read on it's own or as a companion after The World Burns 5: The World Bleeds! Life after an EMP puts the USA in the dark ages is not an easy one. Life is dangerous and difficult enough without humans preying on each other. Don, an alcoholic and a gamer girl called 'Z' make an odd introduction together and find themselves thrust into a survival situation neither of them are prepared to endure. A ghost from Don's past surfaces, one who's responsible for his pain and suffering. Can both Don and Z endure in a world that has gone crazy, when all they want to do is keep on living?

My Review: 
Part of my goals for reading in 2018 is to finish with The World Burns series and this was one that had been waiting for my attention for a while. It is a stand-alone book in the series about a gamer girl called Z who finds a radio which puts her in touch with Blake and Sandra at the Homestead on their Rebel Radio broadcasts, helping her to survive in the EMP aftermath. When she goes to the aid of alcoholic Don, she finds another friend to survive with.

Z has been alone since the couple she was living with were murdered, and she has been sneaking around town, trying to avoid Reno's motorbike gang who are always looking for supplies and unwilling women. She witnesses Reno's group killing some soldiers on the street and she loots the bodies, finding a radio. Surprised that it works, she hears Patty on the radio and timidly talks to her, and a man called Blake tells Z how to find the water she so badly needs in the boilers in the abandened house. Now the radio, which she offers the name Rebel Radio to, is linking the scattered survivors and giving them the survival tips that they so badly need, led by Blake and Sandra at the Homestead.

Don is an alcoholic who used to be a planning inspector before the EMP, which is when he fell foul of Reno's gang, leading to him losing his family. Nursing his wounds in an disused underground shelter, he only comes out for supplies. This time he is raiding the golf club for the contents of the bar, but on his second visit he runs into the enemy and is given a savage beating and left for dead. It is Z who witnesses this and comes to his rescue. Allowing her to look after him for a few days, Don is in turmoil over whether to stick together or go back to his lonely life with the bottle.

I don't want to say too much about the plot except that Reno's gang are a menacing feature that Z and Don both have to avoid for different reasons, and the fact that they can appear at any time with the roar of a Harley means that our MCs are always in danger. Z has little patience for the amount of drinking that Don does and starts entertaining a thought of going to find the safety of the Homestead, instead of living in the shadows of Reno and his thugs. Don is just trying to get through the days without the DTs and hope that Z will not abandon him out of revulsion for his condition.

I did find it hard to like Don as I'm not a fan of reading about MCs who have either drink or drug problems and I just wanted to shake him at times. He grew on me a bit by the end of the book but Z was always the better character. The book is a little slow but the action does pick up a bit towards the end. There is no real talk about the EMP event, which is fully covered in the main series so I would suggest reading that first, at least up until Rebel Radio is launched, to fill in all the background information.

I was a big fan of the World Burns series until the focus switched away from the Homestead to follow other characters. This spin-off was decent but I wouldn't want to read a whole set of books about these characters.

Read January 2018.
2.5/3 stars.