Book Review - Survivors by James Wesley, Rawles

 

I don't want to hear about a plummeting economy, nor do I want to be reminded of my escalating debt after college that I have to pay back in small increments. Don't even mention the ridiculous gas prices. Our economy is bleak and unrelentingly depressing, and the idea of a future of mass governmental and economic collapse isn't very farfetched. James Wesley, Rawles has crafted two novels out of this catastrophic concept, the first being Patriots and the subsequent half-sequel being Survivors. Rawles is known for his survival blog - SurvivalBlog.com - and for being a hardcore survivalist. Survivors is full of fact and notation, detailed accounts of how to survive a collapse for those who haven't been studying up on the zombie apocalypse.

Survivors documents a few different players in the governmental collapse, focusing on families, an army vet trying to return home, and a group of looters deemed La Fuerza. Rawles switches back and forth between these protagonists, often intermingling their storylines and structuring the novel by months during the collapse. But Rawles has a thick cast of characters, and his list at the beginning of the novel is mammoth and somewhat offputting. The novel isn't long enough to sustain a deep characterization for each of the characters, and it often means Rawles puts certain character backgrounds in front of others. This means that some scenarios feel more important than others, and it gives Survivors an uneven pacing.

The novel is also extensively researched, which, by most standards, would translate into a fantastically realistic book. But Survivors is too detailed in its scope; there often pages literally filled with acronyms about military slang, or whole pages devoted to describing morse code. Though Rawles is simply trying to teach survivalism during his novel, it bogs down Survivors so much that I wouldn't be surprised if some simply set the book down and walked away.

The plot, though intensely filled, never really seems to progress anywhere. It makes it difficult to guess where Survivors is headed, but it also means that the reader becomes less invested with the lack of focus. Instead, the novel wanders through the collapse, often slipping oddly back and forth in time or skipping whole sections of plot through expositional narration from Rawles. In short, there's little action besides the ending standoff between La Fuerza and a group of protective townspeople; even this vignette, though, ends with a cliffhanger that leaves the reader in much the same situation that they started in at the beginning of Survivors.

While strongly researched, Survivors is often extremely intricate and overburdened by explanations that aren't really necessary. Coupled with the fact that Rawles is unable to focus on one specific plot, it makes it difficult for the reader to survive through the endless slosh of information that breaks up a winding plot.