Book #97 Dark, As Light Fails by P. A Britton

Dark As Light Fails

As I went to provide the link for Dark As Light Fails I realised why this book was perhaps more flawed than it should have been, not published by a publisher it is part of the growing army of free or low priced self published novels for Kindle, therefore it has not gone through many of the normal editing processes novels go through. I normally entirely avoid these books believing if a publisher or several have refused it, theres a reason for that. Simply put, I had no idea when I paid for it, the cover art looks professional so congratulations to whoever created that. This is not to say it is entirely without merit, I will however start at the very beginning and highlight the better aspects later.

Elliot is married with two children, he reminisces about lost love Immy and is quietly unhappy with his life. When he wakes up, his wife is dead and so are their two girls, somehow Elliot instantly knows that a killer virus has wiped people out, he makes this conclusion rather quickly and upon visiting a surviving friend has a weird emotionless casual conversation about the death of his kids as if he's discussing his fantasy football picks or something.

The very beginning of this book (published 2010) mirrors to almost a tee the very first episode of the recent Survivors (2008) series. Person wakes up next to dead spouse, can't find help, empty streets, steals car, guy alone on the road meets other survivors, helps out others, frantic visit to hospital only to discover a single frantic doctor left......later aspects also remind you of Walking Dead or Shaun Of The Dead because there are the dead, the survivors, and the half way in between who are crazed and attack the living......if there was a way of conveying an eyeroll in this blog entry I would do so.

Where the book differs (or perhaps doesn't if you think about it) from the TV series is that in the series main character Abby Grant's mission is to search for her son and hopefully discover him living. In Dark, As Light Fails Frank's mission is to find long lost love Immy (who has also miraculously survived) in what is probably the most laughably implausible story in the whole novel, with a denouement  purchased straight from Cloverfield.

I want to be kind to P A Britton though, and say whilst his novel is entirely derivative, borderline plagerism and his dialogue is as wooden as a pine table and chairs he shows genuine promise  in his descriptive prose and action sequences, and I would tell him to keep trying to make it as a writer. It wasn't dire and it was certainly highly readable despite its many faults.

4/10