Fades the Light by Ron Foster

Fades the Light, by Ron Foster
ISBN 9781479344420

This is the third in The Prepper Trilogy and it is an interesting hybrid of fiction and non-fiction.  In the past, I have seen similar hybrids combining the fiction mystery genre with recipes.  In this instance, my previous reading may have colored my experience of this book by leading me to expect nefarious deeds.  There were several places in the narrative where it seemed that the author was setting the scene for future nefarious events but these events never appeared.   

The main character, David, seems to be the leader of a group of people who have survived the crash of civilization after a solar geomagnetic storm.  This sounded like an interesting read to me since this year (2013) is supposed to be a peak year for solar flare events.  I did enjoy the book as a light read but was disappointed in the unfulfilled hints of conflict to come.  The male characters are presented in somewhat stereotypical male drinking buddy bonding settings and in a couple of places they set out to gather information but are distracted by their need for alcohol so they never complete their chosen information gathering task. 

The events of the book in summary would be: David is suspicious of some new folk who have arrived at their lake.  David drinks. David plans to investigate them. David drinks. David is concerned that the younger members of the group may leave based on promises from the new folk of exciting technology in the FEMA camps. David drinks.  David is going to talk with his drinking buddies to plan some way to satisfy the younger generation without leaving the older folk with no way to survive. David drinks. David and a group set out to explore other possibilities for their group.  David drinks. I won’t say more because I don’t do spoilers for fiction reviews

Some of the characters have colorful names like ‘Dump Truck’, ‘Goat Man’ and ‘LowBuck’.  There is some flavor from the hills in this book. 

The prepper goods which are advertised with a heavy hand in the book do look interesting but could have been presented with a lighter hand.  Some of the dialogue in the book is forced with the obvious goal of presenting ordering information for the goods featured.  When the advertising is too obvious along with promises of a coupon, it reminds me of the paid infomercials rather than a good novel.

'Fades the Light' appears to be unedited.  It is printed/self published but could have benefited from an organizational edit, a grammatical edit, and a copy edit.  The author does have interesting ideas and information but hasn't fully developed the story.  There is definite improvement in the last few chapters so the author may be able to develop this book into something if he is willing to revise and have it edited.

This book did involve a lot of stereotypes about ‘hooch’, women and their roles, negative Christian stereotypes, and the elderly. In spite of its faults, the book was interesting and does have potential.  

A Bookpleasures.com reviewer