I'll confess, right from the start, that I adore post-apocalyptic fiction. If it's dying..I'm reading it. I'm not sure why I do, but I do. That said, I've read my share of self-published stinkers and reviewed a couple of them here on Amazon without mercy. I don't have to do that with this book. It's a fabulous story, told in an engaging and approachable style with a rhythm to each individual character that brings it all to life.

Before I review, let's address the issue others have brought up in their reviews: profanity, grammar and editing.

Yes, there is profanity. In fact, it starts out with a bang full of it. But it isn't gratuitous and matches well with the social standing and age of the speaker using it.

I wasn't struck by the grammar negatively as much as some others. I enjoy it when authors capture the quirks of language native to an area. Whether it is the way some areas refer to soda or pop for soft drinks or the way some areas change the word order in some kinds of sentences, I think it adds authenticity to a story and character. Just so long as it isn't over the top, that is. I didn't find it so in this book. Yes, there are some errors that are clearly that; errors. Given that this is self published and done by one person without an editor, I'm pretty impressed.

Editing problems noted by others are very minor as far as I see. He did a fabulous job in self-editing the book and I'm a rather harsh critic of those things.

I'm wondering if he didn't go back and review the book and I received a better copy from a second Lulu publishing run? If so, it is entirely possible that anyone with an older version may see many more problems that I did.

Now, on to the story! It is the story of pandemic. Oh yes, I know. You're sick of pandemics, right? How many flu stories can we bear? But this one is told in a way far more realistic than so many others. It is a flu, but just one notch more persistent than our Swine Flu epidemic of last year. Instead of just a small percentage winding up on respirators for life or healing but with such scarred lungs that they are weak forever, the percentage is just one smidge more. That's all it takes really. Just overwhelm one rare and necessary medical machine capability and you have what happened in this story. A cascade of death, suffering and failure of a system requiring constant re-supply for existence.

In this book we have a set of protagonists and each is very different from the other. Fen, a teen girl who belongs to a family that cares rather less for her than they should is a practical girl who has had long experience shielding her feelings behind a hard shell. With her less than dutiful family, she goes to one of the many islands off the west coast of Canada to wait it out. Deka, a cab driver who was once a professor in a foreign land and Doc, a brilliant former Russian doctor and now caretaker to a shabby art gallery make up our second pair of hardy survivors. And finally, Arno and Rachel. Re-uniting just before it all goes downhill, they are left in this world of horror yet wrapped up in the joy of new love.

Their stories are very different, yet strangely united in their founts of strength that have made them survivors. Compassion, practicality and a certain mental immunity that never lets the bad things get them all the way down are hallmarks of these characters and I found the story compelling and immensely satisfying. There are snippets or interludes in which characters come and then go from the story that allow one to see many other ways in which people try to survive. I liked them as they gave me a moment to breath between the intensity of the main stories.

Overall, I'd have to say this is the second best self-published book of this type I've read. The first being Lights Out by David Crawford. For fans of this genre, that is really saying something as David's book has reached near cult status. Good work, Mr. Sam North, and I look forward to your next book! But could you please go ahead and make this available on kindle?