Blackout is a decent survival, dare I say prepper, novel. It follows the story of Westley Flagg, a small time unemployed guy who makes ends meet through distilling and selling moonshine, he's a qualified teacher looking for work with the side hobby of preparing for the unknown.

The writing is good, the characters are relatable and it's quite enthralling. I did have two quibbles though, I found it disappointing that society goes from functioning to the military ordering people into FEMA camps & ordering confiscation of all firearms on penalty of death for non-compliance. Like gee that escalated quickly, with zero preamble. Secondly, whilst I'm aware it's a part of a series I found the ending quite disappointing. I know small authors must have a hard time with in this day and age of book piracy yet the whole abrupt ending with forward selling to the next instalment wasn't particularly pleasing. That being said, I enjoyed this to the point I'm probably going to fall for it and get the next one, so I guess that's why the author does it - it works.

At any rate, a solid EMP survival novel which is primarily about the characters backgrounds and the beginning of the collapse. ( )