Book Review: The End by G Michael Hopf (New World #1)

Young Gordon Van Zandt valued duty and loyalty to country above all, so after 9/11, he dropped out of college and joined the Marine Corps. This idealism vanished one fateful day in a war-torn city in Iraq.

Ten years later, he is still struggling with the ghosts of his past when a new reality is thrust upon him and his family: North America, Europe and the Far East have all suffered a devastating Super-EMP attack, which causes catastrophic damage to the nation’s power grid and essential infrastructures. Everything from cell phones to cars to computers cease to function, putting society at a standstill.

With civilization in chaos, Gordon must fight for the limited and fast dwindling resources. He knows survival requires action and cooperation with his neighbors, but as the days wear on, so does all sense of civility within his community—and so he must make some of the most difficult decisions of his life in order to ensure his family’s safety.

My Review: 
Gordon is former military and a prepper, now living with his family in San Diego. As terrorist attacks are on the increase across America, he considers moving his family out to the cabin in Idaho which would be less of a target. As they begin to pack, an EMP is detonated nearby and Gordon uses the initial confusion to get as many supplies into his home, working with a fellow member of his gated community Jimmy. The two men work together to try and get in what they can before the shops run out and then they must decide whether or not to help the rest of the community. We also follow Gordon's brother Seb who is serving in Afghanistan when America is attacked. His mission is cancelled and the troops are instantly recalled to America to go and protect the capital, but all Seb wants to do is get home, find Gordon and help protect his family from whatever else might be coming.

The third main character is the Speaker of the House Brad Conner who is in Oklahoma City with his wife Julia to be at the bedside of his son who is on life support after a car accident. They are here when the EMP hits and Brad and his aides need to get to the nearest military base for information and instruction. With the government falling apart, Brad finds himself being sworn in as President at a time of national crisis. Frankly I hated Brad from the start. His constant tantrums and rudeness to his Generals was pathetic. It is clear that the man has no clue how to deal with people or run a country and I got annoyed with him every time that he was on the page. Brad decides that the best thing to do is just nuke all the countries he doesn't like-Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, saying one of them probably did it, to the horror of his staff. I also found his wife bizarre. She has just lost her son and the only thing on her mind is to have a replacement child in the middle of an EMP crisis.

My issues with this book centres mostly on the decision making of Gordon before and during the crisis. For a man who is a prepper, why would he not invest in an old model car that would run in the case of an EMP frying the computer components in his newer car? How did he expect to get his family from San Diego to Idaho without a working car? It makes little sense. He seemed to be relying on there being a disaster other than an EMP instead of being ready for anything. Instead he then has to rely on Jimmy to ferry him around in his car to gather up final supplies which he really should already have. Why did he not have the water tank already in his gear after telling Seb all about it? When it is clear that they are in danger, they spend too much time packing again which leads to disaster so why weren't they ready?

Gordon's family are also pains in the neck. His five year old is a whiny kid who of course has no understanding of an EMP, but I can't understand why Gordon promises to fix the TV for him when he knows fine that he can't. It's not exactly a smart thing to do. His wife doesn't seem to grasp the situation, questioning all of Gordon's decisions and doing a lot of whining about what she thinks they should do. I don't know how Gordon put up with her going on at him all the time about giving their supplies to the community. Jimmy's wife Simone was a similar character. In fact the female characters were all annoying and clueless. Don't even get me started on the HOA chairperson Mindy, local busybody and bitch who makes it her life's work to cause constant trouble for Gordon instead of working with him.

My frustrations with the characters and the decision making of the characters did have an effect on my enjoyment of the book, I admit it. I was also extremely frustrated by the ending of the book and what the author did with a few of the characters. What I did like was the overall plot, the well written tense action sequences and the way the community worked mostly for the common good. It did have a lot going for it in plot and writing and of course each book has a gorgeous cover. By the end though, I was left wondering if I could put aside the things that bugged me like the idiot female characters and Gordon's continued bad choices, to continue on with the series. In the end, I decided not to continue with the sequels.

Read December 2018
3 stars.