Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
So I finished Don Shift’s Book:
My thoughts:
Not Bad.
I’d give it a 7.5 out of 10.
The story is about your basic suburban drone.
‘Ross’, the main character, is some techno-geek who used to work for the Goolag. The story, at it’s core, is civilization doing a s-l-o-w slide into anarchy as multiple events, from extreme weather (unseasonal freezing) and an overtaxed power grid, plus the ¡violence! that goes along with fuel shortages and pre-election stupidity, Ross and his family are caught in the middle.
Utterly Unprepared.
Now, it’s well written, and pretty descriptive of the way shit could slowly start going to Hell in a Handbasket, and this guy seems to be clueless throughout. His brother, a war vet who had seen Iraq and Affy had tried to tell him to start prepping a-ways back. Ross’s reaction was to buy just enough Mountain House to stave off complete starvation, but has done ‘stupid shit’ like leaving his shotgun at his brothers house several states over. This forces him to buy a shotty after all the gun stores are cleaned out for three times the going rate, and ammo for it being like $50 a round for buckshot…
In fact it’s one of my main complaints is that this dude keeps fucking up and doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. From talking to the cops (never talk to the cops) after defending his family, to being conned into a bushwhack while going to get gas that by all rights he should NOT have survived, Ross pissed me off more than he had me cheering for him.
All the negatives aside, Shift does do an outstanding job in describing the possible societal situations that come about by an exceptionally s-l-o-w breakdown of Bullshit. From the “sick outs” that the majority of the Cops do when shit starts getting “really reelz”, to the organized cartel based Hijacking of critical food supplies. He also covers the issue that no one has really discussed in depth that being what I call “the right of refusal” in that the majority of Truckers decide that “it ain’t worth their lives to take loads into a shooting gallery.” Truckers start to say not just no, but fuck to the noes regarding rolling into hostile territory.
This leaves everyone in a bind.
No food?
Uh Oh.
There’s also a subplot about the rain and snow doing a melt, and that the dam and levee is gonna burst! that I find humorous. Reason being is that throughout ALL of the Shitfestivus, from Gangbangers trying to kill him, to EBT riots and people killing each other over a bag o’beans in the grocery store, Ross stays put in his rapidly falling-the-fuck-apart town. Even worse is that his family is stuck there ‘cos he won’t GTFO of town like an intelligent
Fucking Moron.
Sorry Don. Just my opinion.
IMO also, anyone with half a fucking brain would have bailed after the first week of Hell. See, Ross is a bit of a cuck. In that his wife is a former porn-chick (lesbian enema porn) who brought the bastard spawn of another man into his highly paid Google Life and subsequently baby-trapped him….
Leastways that’s how -I- read it from a purely red-pill POV.
He doesn’t want to “…leave the house they built together behind, as she (Rayleene) had been abandoned by all the men in her life, from her father, to her first babydaddy…”
Sheesh.
Fucking cuck.
Otherwise, for a glimpse of what MAY happen, it’s 10 for 10.
The other thing is the Flamethrower Ross eventually builds… it annoyed me that it was pretty much in the last two-three chapters that he gets off his ass and builds the fucking thing. I expected it to be a LOT sooner and a few moar crispy bad guys… The other thing is I’m not sure it would function as Shift tells it… the again, I’m NOT playing with liquid propane or propane accessories…
Who the fuck you think I am?
Hank Hill?
I designed and built what -I- consider a much safer alternative, as far as the word ‘safe’ can be used when discussing using and building devices to throw liquid fire on other human beings, with the intent of burning them to death for games and prizes.
So yeah, give it a read.
It’ll entertain you. Link HERE
Otherwise, another weekend spent going up to Gretchen’s parents place. Leave in the AM… got another slew of ‘minor repairs’ to do… lightbulbs on the vaulted ceiling (not looking forward to that as Dad’s ladder is ten million years old and more rickety than him)… other ‘minor shit’ that they just can’t do… and Computer Repair/Hard Drive replacement…
Mom tanked her lappie so I have to figure out Hardware tanked or Software tanked? Won’t know ’til I get there as she just tells me “it won’t turn on!!” This from the lady who didn’t know where the power button was a few months ago…
Enough ‘stuff’ tho that we have to spend the night…
Meh. Do what I gotta do.
Latest on Gretchen is that we’re waiting on the MRI Results. Tomorrow we have a teleconference with the Doc to figure out our next steps. Things look ok (considering the circumstances) and we’re just driving on. We greatly appreciate you all for all the support. I can’t do it without y’all as my sounding board.
Not sure if I’ll be able to poast tomorrow as we’ll be flat out… if not I’ll get back with you on Sunday.
More Later
Big Country
Thanks for the review, BC. Long time lurker, first time caller. I’m glad that you enjoyed it and got pissed off at the character. Your complaints are actually positives, because I envoked emotion and writing a survival story about a dumbass is what I was going for. Ross was intended to be “the guy who did everything wrong,” a total fuckup with just enough brains to self-extract himself from shit (but only after he’s stepped in it).
As for the flamethrower, it’s based off a real design that’s pretty much as described that my dad sort-of tested to turbocharge his weed torch. Old men probably shouldn’t be allowed to get ideas from pyromaniac kids on YouTube. Yours is definitely a much better and more intimidating design but I’m sure you’d never let looters get past the Claymores at the end of the cul-de-sac.
And to the audience who is disappointed there wasn’t more flammenwerfer, I’m sorry. “Dad with a Flamethrower” was way better than “Dumbass Dad Doesn’t Die.”
(lesbian enema porn) before flammenwerfer…I’m appalled!
My favorite book in the genre is Five Seconds After by William Fortzen. EMP hits and the town of Black Mountain, NC has to come together to survive. It realistically looks at how bad things would get. Type I diabetics wouldn’t get insulin, people in the hospital or old folks home would die. Mobs would loot grocery stores and gangs would hit pharmacies.
A 2016 book series by C.A. Rudolph also runs with the EMP scenario. Lauren Russell and her mom and sister flee Winchester VA for their land in West Virginia. Their Dad is trapped in DC but fortunately he raised Lauren right teaching her about guns, self defense, and survival. Lauren comes off as your Standard MSheU Grrlboss until she gets her Ass kicked and is captured by a minor set of baddies(the main set is DHS which has set up a reeducation camp in Winchester) and has to be rescued.
It’s a good read but has disappeared from my local library and even the history of my checking it out has disappeared. One day when I have some spare change I ‘ll get book six and the book seven finale from Amazon.
Careful on the ladder. Cheap ladders KILL. A lesson learned in a lifetime in construction.
If you start selling the kits for ye old flemmenwurfer, I would purchase as a mean of support for you and the wife.
While we would all love that and even though building flemmenwurfers is CURRENTLY legal, that would put BCE on the Fed’s radar and they would want to make an “example” of him.
Probably have one of their wind up toys buy and then use a flemmenwurfer in a big public crime and then BCE would be the “evil creator” and he checks almost ALL of the boxes the Lefties love:
White, Male, Straight, Christian background, veteran, get his Spawn 2 to publicly say he’s anti-trans AND he was a “mercenary”.
They’d throw poor BCE UNDER the jail. Brothers this is a dangerous time we live in today and you have to be smart and careful.
Nobody gets out of the game of life without dying, so might as well have fun getting there.
Even money on “it’s not plugged in.” It got unplugged without her knowing, but since it has a battery, she didn’t connect the thing that did the unplugging with it not working, and now the battery is dead.
I would second the battery. On a laptop power is the usual culprit.
Now not sure I want to read the book. Course I will probably be in the same state come fall.
Things are going to get Spicey pretty soon.
it was when my mom stopped emailing that we knew something was up (temporal lobe dementia)
Thanks for an informative book review so that I can now give the book a pass (no offense intended to Don Shift, whose Ventura County Sheriff books I greatly enjoyed). I realize that an author must give his characters limitations and problems to overcome, but I no longer have the patience to read about people unprepared for klown world’s greatly-to-be-wished implosion. Same as all the idiot female characters who think guns are ‘scary,’ or who feel moved to offer food to people knocking at their door. I avoid those people in real life as much as possible; I’m not going to subject myself to that when I’m looking for escapist reading.
Speaking of which, it’s getting harder and harder to find. I read extremely fast, and am blessed not to work outside of our home, and I just cannot find much teotwawki fiction I haven’t already read multiple times that is readable. I will start something that seems tolerably interesting and then suddenly the author sticks in heroine Tamika from Philly to save the people in Montana. Or breaks into rapturous praise of Lincoln or the magic constitution. Even authors I’ve previously enjoyed are now stocking their tales with POX -seems Amazon won’t list the titles otherwise. I will not waste my time being lectured on diversity and muh equality in what’s supposed to be a tale of the fight for survival in the wreckage of civilization. Current-year reality is bad enough, thank you.
Not teotwawki, but Joe Abercrombie is a darn good writer. Mostly trilogies. Very graphic, strong characters that you hate, then love, then hate again. JMHO
Miss Minnie: Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll give him a try.
Off topic but…
Info on fenben and breast cancer: https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/triple-negative-breast-cancer-eradicated?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2