ALoner by Ed Morawski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have to say first of all that I was a bit thrown by the title and its odd capitalization, but after closer examination of the cover art with it’s 80’s retro style referencing to TV’s “A Team”, I assumed that the title itself was a bit of a pun.
The story starts out with a bang, and does indeed feel like an adrenaline fueled action movie. We soon see a few hints of post-apocalypse, but this is done subtly and cleverly, in a sneaky way that feels more like Grand Theft Auto than Walking Dead.
Soon enough we do fall into a more typical post-apocalyptic scenario, but it is well written and manages to avoid feeling tired or played out. The questions of how this all happened and how the protagonist remains unaffected are left unanswered, but it is done in a way that the protagonist and the reader are both asking the same questions which I think is a good trick because it really builds empathy for the protagonist. In fact, I found that my mind was racing ahead and exploring branches of the main characters logic, which was a really fun exercise.
There are a lot of “hard science fiction” elements where the author wants to ensure us that what is happening is realistic from a scientific point of view, and I think this goal is achieved and is done well, even though there are a couple of spots where a bit of a summary gloss may have sufficed, and provided a smoother flow. Overall, I really appreciate the attempt as I am a hard SF nerd at heart. I really enjoyed the analysis of which parts of infrastructure would be likely to fail in what order. The yogurt was a nice touch.
All in all, this book succeeded in keeping me not only interested, but engaged–which is not typical for me.
In terms of big picture themes, there is a great mix of nihilism, confrontation of social norms, and very astute commentary on modern society and the human condition.
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