Darkness: After the EMP

By: Harley Tate

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kevin Pierce, Gabra Zackman

Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

If the power grid fails, how far will you go to survive?

Madison spends her days tending plants as an agriculture student at the University of California, Davis. She plans to graduate and put those skills to work only a few hours from home in the Central Valley. The sun has always been her friend, until now.

When catastrophe strikes, how prepared will you be?

Tracy starts her morning like any other, kissing her husband Walter goodbye before heading off to work at the local public library. She never expects it to end fleeing for her life in a Suburban full of food and water. Tackling life's daily struggles is one thing, preparing to survive when it all crashes down is another.

The end of the world brings out the best and worst in all of us.

With no communication and no word from the government, the Sloanes find themselves grappling with the end of the modern world all on their own. Will Madison and her friends have what it takes to make it back to Sacramento and her family? Can Tracy fend off looters and thieves and help her friends and neighbors survive?

The EMP is only the beginning.

After the EMP: Darkness follows the Sloane family as they attempt to survive after a geomagnetic storm destroys the nation's power grid.

©2017 Harley Tate (P)2017 Podium Publishing

Very good with a couple of irritations

I enjoyed this book overall and I'm a big fan of authors that stay true their characters, but unfortunately this one doesn't quite do that. The majority of the characters do, but Madison most definitely does not. One minute she's resolute in her accepting the situation and what needs to be done (sometimes ugly things and sometimes selfish things) and the next minute she's whining about needing to divert to save a stranger even though the odds of success aren't good. She never manages to shake her 'people are actually all good if you just get to know them' and 'we have to help people even if it means one of us might die' notion. I understand people would definitely have an internal struggle with this, but her struggle is every chapter and just makes you wanna slap her.

If you get past that, like I said I enjoyed the book. It's nothing new along the lines of post apocalyptic, but I think it is a pretty accurate account of what life would be like within weeks of an event. The narration is awesome, switching between the 3 family members with 3 different readers. I would definitely recommend this book.

19 of 20 people found this review helpful

Good if you are a teenager

Stopped listening with 1.5 hours left to go. Did not want to listen to the immature, irrational characters.

Spoiler Alert: Major mistakes of characters - trying to help strangers or people they barely knew over their own immediate families with bad results. Tracy hesitant to shoot a man pointing a shotgun as her daughter and talking when immediate action was needed. Threatening instead of action - threats a sign of weakness, broadcasts your intention. Brianna, Payton, Madison - college kids with college kid minds.

One good quote - Never ok to give up.
Nice information about sustainable gardening

Disrespect for headship - Tracy over riding her husband's decision when he was right. Madison thinking she knew more than her Dad. Madison had already encouraged a disastrous course when instead of going to the refuge, they went to try to rescue college students and walked into a trap getting members of their group killed. Then Madison decides she wants to take revenge. That is when I stopped listening.

Madison had not learned from the previous mistake - just focus on getting to your bugout location. Revenge is a stupid motive and a time waster.

The women and kids seemed mushy brained. The Dad should have gone with his gut instincts on 2 separate occasions.

I would have preferred more examples of good sense.

This might be enjoyable to a teenager.

13 of 15 people found this review helpful

Finally a realistic story

Finally a book that doesn’t involve the main characters owning thousands of dollars worth of automatic weapons and hand grenades and a friend with a blackhawk helicopter. Realistic characters, who struggle with the inevitable moral decisions that will be encountered in a end of the world event. Very enjoyable story, well told and well written.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great Apocalyptic ReaD For Female Tweeners

There is no doubt that the author can tell a story. My concerns come from the confusion with the idea that the author is an early twenty something with little to no life experience, the fact that she is writing for tweeners, or that she is trying to parody the ultra liberal populace. The amount of time that the characters spend “conflicted” is distracting and downright annoying. This renders the all af the characters unsympathetic leaving the reader ambivalent about the characters survival.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Great story but...

The character voices read by Campbell, particularly the males, were distracting and not done well. It seemed they were generally snarky and sounded drunk.

Everybody Exhales

Decent story... There were repeated bad decisions, but that's expected when people are naive as they were. My one irritation was in the last third of the book, the author continuously told us that a charactor exhaled. We get it... people breathe! At least it would be nice to use a thesaurus and chose another word or phrase every once in a while....

great listen great narration. an enjoyable book.

loved the narrators - a dream team!! my only thought was that when Walter spoke he should have always been narrated by Kevin and the other narrators characters always have been voiced by them even when another narrator was reading the the chapter. then each charactor would have had one voice right through the book. other ther than that a really good book, well balanced, enjoyable with likeable characters well depicted by the narrators. reccommended

loved it

wished Madison was slightly less dense. so many situations happened after her first naive encounter that should have clued her in about a million years sooner.

Good Story

Good story. I always enjoy Kevin Pierce’s narrations. The only thing that I didn’t like is the back and forth between narrators.

Could have been great

Was so boring. The audible actors are reputable and usually fantastic. I honestly think it’s the material. It’s so dull. Usually if Kevin pierce is reading I’m there. Period. But not even Kevin pierce could keep me engaged. Idk. Maybe it’s me.