• It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival

  • Zero Power, Book 1
  • By: Max Lockwood
  • Narrated by: Becket Royce
  • Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
  • 3.2 out of 5 stars (51 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival  By  cover art

It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival

By: Max Lockwood
Narrated by: Becket Royce
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The EMP strike was just the beginning of it all.... Clara Thomas was a 9th grade English teacher, living a simple life at home with her sister and grandmother. She always had plans to settle down some day and become a writer. Sometimes, plans are just dreams left unfulfilled. They thought that the widespread outage was just within their vicinity. They were wrong. Without any electricity and power, Clara needs to help her family survive. The people in society have become restless, and will do anything for food. With the fall of power, law and order have become nonexistent, letting people get away with crimes. Will Clara be able to be strong for her family and those around her to get them through this crisis? Will she be able to get herself through it?

©2017 Max Lockwood (P)2017 Max Lockwood

What listeners say about It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    12
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    12
  • 1 Stars
    5
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    13
  • 1 Stars
    11

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not your average EMP tale – By a long ways

This story comes from a different perspective. Definitely first person and takes place in a small town. Lots of details (for better or worse – you decide.) Personally I liked the details. Sometimes it seemed to drag on a bit but it always came back to the important stuff.

One thing that I kept thinking throughout this novel… The roles are reversed. This story is a first person narrative of a female character. Through life’s trouble and turmoil she has become the sole bread-winner in her family. This is mentioned several times throughout the book and these as well as other times I am thinking that these are the thoughts of a male character. Her neighbor is also a sole breadwinner while the husband stays home and takes care of the kids. Also, besides that one, the other primary male character is very soft spoken and avoids violence. They are both walked on by the women in their lives. The feminism might not be in your face but this is very definitely a story about women who are taking care of themselves despite the men in their lives

If you are looking for zombies or violent hordes this is not the book for you. Things progress reasonably downhill for this small town as they discover and deal with the problems caused by the EMP and realize they are on their own because everyone else has their own troubles and can’t come help them with theirs.

This Audible edition included a preview of book 2 in this series. It was a fairly long preview of what felt like several chapters. The story continued almost exactly where it left off and if they hadn't told me I would not have known the first book had ended.

The narration for this story by Becket Royce was well done. It was easy to listen to and the voices fit the characters.


I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audio book by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

No Power = Restart Button On Your Life

The thing that I really liked about It Began was the simplicity of it.  Lockwood didn't try and overdo it and go really deep into anything.  It was, what I would call a "surface level" novel where everything is at or near the surface.  There wasn't some overarching conspiracy or deep plot going on -- Lockwood kept it simple and was able to make a pretty enjoyable book in the process. 

The story itself is about a depresses teacher taking care of her family, who is currently the "other woman" in an affair when the lights go out indefinitely.  Honestly, at first, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about her.  In the beginning, she had a very "woe is me" attitude that really rubbed me the wrong way.  I was worried that it was going to continue like that. I'm not a fan of people who are like that in real life and I definitely didn't want to read a book about someone who was selfish and everything in the world was wrong and it was only affecting her. Thankfully, that was NOT how this story went.  Her character really grew on me after a little while and I noticed that some of her character flaws that annoyed or upset me in the beginning, were starting to become some of the things I enjoyed about her the most. 

Her "better half" was an interesting secondary character in It Began.  He was always there when she needed him, but would kind of fade into the shadows when he wasn't needed.  A sign of someone who really understood Clara.  The other characters in the story were her grandmother (who was sweet and easily tied with her best friend as being the most likable people in the book) and her sister who might be one of the most bizarre characters I've ever read.  I won't spoil anything about her, but be prepared (oh the irony of that statement).

One of my issues with this book was that there was basically zero talk about what happened.  We know that the power is out and we think that it's because of an EMP but that's about all we know.  We also understand that older cars and trucks work (since they don't have any electronics) but that's it.  I guess if Lockwood was trying to write it only from Clara's point of view -- she wouldn't really know what was going on until someone told her. 

Honestly, going with Becket Royce was a phenomenal idea.  The first novel that I heard with her in it was a dual narration with one of my all-time favorite narrators Kevin Pierce.  Working with Pierce, I was able to hear her slight "attitudey" voice that I thought would work perfectly in post-apocalyptic novels.  This was the first narration of hers that I listened to where it was just her and I thought she did a wonderful job.  Royce has quickly become one of my favorite female narrators working in the PA space today. 

I received a free copy of this book. It has not affected my review of my opinion.

If you enjoyed this review, please vote for it! Every vote helps. If you'd like to see more books like this please check out BriansBookBlog DOT com.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

an okay EMP story, cliff hanger beware!

Would you ever listen to anything by Max Lockwood again?

yes but not in this series.

Any additional comments?

It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival (Zero Power #1) by Max Lockwood is an audible book I requested and the review is voluntary. The first third of the book Clara should be in Pooh's Corner as Eeyore. She sounds just like him without anti-depressants. This is before the power goes out. She lives with a crazy sister and grandmother that is going senile but I think she is just as bad. The last part of the book gets better but now she thinks she knows everything, I think she found some drugs along the way. It ends in a cliff hanger, a pet peeve of mine. If you don't mind those, good for you...I don't. It does depict, here and there, of what life might be like without power. Makes a person think. It is also different from other EMP survival stories. I doubt, out of all the people there she would have been picked to go find help from politicians seeing how she was just some random school teacher that hated her job... but...it was an okay read overall. What made it all better was the narration. This is it's saving grace for me. The narrator added a lot to the story. If I had been just reading it, I probably would have given it lower numbers but the narration was good and gave it that extra oomph that it needed to keep me going and interested. Worth a read, I mean listen. Will I try another of this author's work? Yes, can't see why not. Just not in this series.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Solid narration, horrible story.

I enjoy survival stories. Whether it's an EMP, an alien invasion, or a zombie/virus outbreak, I enjoy them all. Well...no, I guess I can't say that because I did not enjoy It Began. A post-apocalyptic EMP survival story? Could have fooled me. This is definitely unlike any other survival story I've ever read. Forget the fact that the lead character is completely unlikable, so much of the story makes ZERO sense. Main character is in a car when the EMP strike happens. She notices a plane coming crashing right towards her so she gets out of the car. Cool, right? We're in for some excitement. Okay so two minutes later some random woman hands her a gun?!? Say what? Totally random and nonsensical. Then days later, she goes into town because the cops are looking for help. What can you do? She rides a bike to the next town to talk to the mayor about trading gas for food. So let me get this straight the people running her town are just sending out random people to negotiate for them? And the mayor of the other town actually sees her and says sure we'll trade a truckload of food for a bit of gas. Say what? Food is would be one of the most valuable resources in this situation and yet the guy is willing to trade it away for gas...when at the time he wasn't even sure they had a working car...and oh wait does his town not have any gas stations? Let's not forget the main character's sister, who seems to be a crazy shut in who must be psychic because she not only predicted the end of the world, but seemingly has been stockpiling food in a shed in the backyard. Almost nothing happens in the book. And it seems as if there is almost no one out in the streets in this town that supposedly is home to thousands. No mass looting happening. In every other survival book I've ever read you see a breakdown in society, but doesn't seem to be happening here. Sure we see 2 maybe 3 random looters, but even they aren't truly 'dedicated' to looting. Had I been reading this and not listening I'd have given up on it. You spend so much time in the main character's head where all she does it ramble on about nothing. Her actions are not even remotely realistic.

That being said, Becket Royce's narration is extremely enjoyable. I listened to her a time or two before, and had high hopes for this one when I saw her name attached to it. She didn't disappoint. Unfortunately even her talented narration couldn't save this story.

I'll definitely be listening to more stuff narrated by Becket Royce, but I will not be continuing on with Mr. Lockwood's Zero Power series.

I received a copy of this audio title for free in exchange for an unbiased review.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

BORING and seriously lacks detail!!

As a reader (or listener in this case), I expect the author's detail to draw me a picture of each scene. What do the main characters look like? (height, build, hair ,clothes, etc) Where does this story take place? (if not specifically, at least regionally... give me an idea of the weather and terrain). I gave this book over 4 hours of my time and still can't answer these simple questions.

The MAIN character is not likeable nor relatable... How do you expect to captivate your audience if your main character has less personality than a pine 2x4?? A post-apocalyptic novel is supposed to be exciting, informative, or maybe even funny. This novel contains NONE of these characteristics.

I feel like the narrator did a good job, given the boring storyline. I've listened to some of her previous work and have enjoyed her style.

*This audiobook was provided to me at no cost in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Boring

listening to this book about put me to sleep. it was like reading a recipe out of a book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
  • TU
  • 08-15-17

Whiney Anti-gun internal monologue with no action

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This one really missed the mark for me. I thought the main character, Clara, was really annoying. She whines constantly and shows such a completely liberal slant, it made for an obnoxious experience. Sadly, the narrator was really good on this book. Which is saying something since there was a marked lack of details on what/why/how of this EMP beyond the main character's inner monologue. Even though the world is "degrading into chaos" nothing really happens.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

An Unrealistic Dystopian Fantasy

If you are interested in a post apocalyptic soap opera where the main character is an anti-gun liberal who is promiscuous and lacks morals, then this book is for you! The main character spends too much time in inner dialogue and reveals that she is a headcase that easily gets sidetracked. The characters have little chance of surviving with the lack of preparation and the weak storyline. I was jealous of the characters that died early in the story!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

okay

I was provided a free copy of this book at my request and exchange for an unbiased review.

there are things in the boat that I believe should have been brought up earlier on in the storyline such as what is the accident that happened with the parents and sister? while I enjoyed the book, the main character wavering on her morality began to be annoying toward the end of the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great book, will get the sequel

This is a very good apocalypse story, and gives advice that I haven't heard before, just as any good end of the world book should. None of the "I have a friend who has a bunker 30 feet under ground" "oh.... and a 6 wheel 4x4 we can escape in!!! Yay! Here's a M60 from my grandad!" NONE OF THAT... definitely a lot more "real people" storyline. Narration is excellent ! There are a few areas that the author overlooked, and if your a true apocalypse book lover you will find it yourself (no, I won't tell you) I hate reviews that say what happens and when/what/where. Trust me you'll like this book. I received a complimentary copy for this honest review.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful