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Into Autumn

Into Autumn

Into Autumn
Into Autumn by Larry Landgraf

Into Autumn

by Larry Landgraf

Review by Barry Boy

I was given Into Autumn – A Story of Survival in exchange for an honest review while it was OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day.

Into Autumn by Larry Landgraf is a  vision of what life in a post apocalyptic world would be like with the focus on a small remote community in Texas in the United States. We are not actually told what caused the breakdown in society, except that stock exchanges collapsed, the grid went down and money ceased to have any value.

This causes panic and looting, which inevitably leads to deaths… many, many deaths. Especially in the cities, which is where the story starts. The heroine, Eileen, decides to leave her city apartment while she still can and drives south. She has no idea where she wants to be, only that it is south of her current home.

When fuel runs low, she stops her car in a country lane and goes exploring. Eventually, she meets a man, a loner, whose name is Lars, and they decide to form a partnership, which soon turns into love.

We are then told the story of the small remote community’s struggle to survive in the new world with it’s new rules, which are unwritten

I have never read a book about an apocalyptic scenario before, but I found Landgraf’s suggestions interesting. He made me think about what decisions the survivors of an apocalypse might have to make, and many of them are uncomfortable, when observed from the comfort of a society that is still functioning fairly well.

There is no doubt that Into Autumn is thought-provoking, but if I have a problem with it, it is with the style of writing. Tenses in reported speach are wrong. References to time in general, are wrong; for example, Landgraf keeps saying ‘here’ and ‘tomorrow’, when it should be ‘there’ and ‘the following day’. I am here, in Spain, and tomorrow is Friday, but the story is taking place in Texas and no dates are given. It is annoying.

I think that the story is over-written – there is far too much explanation. So much so that Into Autumn seems like a manual (on tanning, shooting, planting etc) sometimes. On the plus side, there are very few typos or typical spelling mistakes, but this book has not been professionally edited, or the stylistic mistakes would have been picked up. The title is not immediately obviously relevant, since the story spans about twenty-five years. The cover is barely relevant either, as far as I can make out.

However, all in all, I enjoyed Into Autumn – A Story of Survival, because it made me think about what might become important in a post-apocalyptic situation.

If you would like to read more about Into Autumn by Larry Landgraf, please visit:

http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=50675

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