The Blackout Paperback – December 4, 2012

The premise of "The Blackout" is great. How would we handle things if we suddenly lost all power and life was no longer as we knew it? I liked this book. Stephanie Erickson is a very good storyteller and has a great imagination. Her character development is deep enough to make you feel like you know and care about the characters. In this book, I really liked Molly who was strong and feisty.People who want to buy this book should know that it's a love story that happens to take place in a post-apocalyptic type of situation but if you're looking for a post-apocalyptic/dystopian book, this isn't it. There isn't much science behind what happens and a lot of the ways people cope seem unrealistic. However, the crisis is what sets the stage for what is basically a love story of a couple separated by a crisis trying to find their way back to each other. As a love story, it's sweet and romantic and suspenseful.My biggest criticism is the ending and that it was over too soon. It felt like their could have been a few more chapters or even a sequel. I would like to know how everyone continues to cope and whether anything ever goes back to normal or not. The fact that I would have liked more chapters or a sequel is a good sign that I wanted more.

"The Blackout" introduces us to Gary and Molly Bonham, who live in northern Florida. He's a pilot for a private jet company who works a 7/7 shift; she's a college professor teaching literature and poetry classes. They have no children. Theirs is true love: Gary's schedule has kept him away from home for half of his married life, but he and Molly have communicated with one another every single day of their marriage! Until "the lights went out."The reader knows the blackout was caused by an intense solar flare. Gary SHOULD have had a clue, because that morning at a hotel near Philadelphia, while eating breakfast, he heard a report on CNN about the possibility of an "apocalyptic solar flare that could destroy life on earth as we know it. Scientists say the flare could cause a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse that would shut down all electronics and electricity for anywhere between a few months and several years." Gary scoffed at the notion and changed the channel.So when "the lights went out" later that very day, and everything that relied upon electricity shut down (including all telephones, all automobiles, and all of the instruments on the nine passenger jet Gary was going to co-pilot to Orlando from Philadelphia as soon as the passengers showed up), neither Gary nor any of the other characters in the book had ANY idea why the electricity went out. Nevertheless, everyone expected the lights to "come back on" almost immediately, and because of that expectation, Gary and the pilot chose to spend that night at the airport so they could fly their passengers to Orlando the next day.To make a long story short, the lights did not "come back on" almost immediately. The lights were out for 121 days. The author, Stephanie Erickson, made a valiant and mostly believable attempt to predict what would happen to the town where Gary and Molly lived. Living conditions became desperate: all that we take for granted was lost to these people within just a few days after the blackout began. Each family was concerned about maintaining its own food and water supply, and feared that outsiders, dubbed as "Wanderers", would invade their homes at night to take what they could and kill them while they slept. Well-grounded fears, for sure, and a nice job of predicting how humans would react in that situation.The reason this book has a three star rating has to do with the poor decisions made by Gary during his four-month separation from Molly: A. He is a pilot, which indicates that he is fairly intelligent; B. He took a five day survival course, which should have given him more skills than he displayed in the book; C. The CNN light should have clicked in his head when he learned that ALL electrical systems failed, even in his jet; D. He should immediately have secured a weapon and a reliable bicycle. With no vehicles on the road, he could have bicycled the 1000 miles south on I-95 (the approximate distance from Philadelphia, PA to wherever, FL) in a fraction of the time it took him to walk that distance. When he does fall prey to some Wanderers, his rescue and all that transpires thereafter, eventually leading him back to his hometown and to Molly, is too incredible for me to take seriously.

This premise of this book is my bread and butter. I love stories of survival in an apocalyptic/post apocalyptic setting. The Blackout starts off strong introducing our main character Molly, a college a English professor. We learn her husband Gary is a pilot, away from home on a job. A solar flare from the sun disrupts power and upends everyone’s life as they know it.The main focus is on Molly but we do get alternate chapters between her and Gary. This is one of my main complaints. We don’t get much time with Gary at all. His chapters are much shorter and it’s clear the author’s focus is on Molly. It would have made for a much more interesting book if we were kept in the dark about Gary’s fate just as Molly was.For instance, her whole situation with Seth would have been more intense. She had an opportunity to begin a new relationship. But what about the missing husband? Should she do it? Should she wait? As a reader, it would have made for a more interesting read as we were put in the tempting situation with Molly, weighing the pros and cons right along with her. Instead, we knew Gary was coming back.I could have done with the whole ‘Gary has temporary amnesia and can’t remember Molly or who he is’ plot. It just seemed like an easy excuse to prolong his return for the Seth situation to play out.There’s some good parts to this book. The opening is very strong and establishes Molly well. But as things progress it turns into a run of the mill ‘loss of power’ book. There’s not enough meat to the story. And it only spans three months. The power comes back on after three months and every electronic seems fine. With a solar flare causing an emp, a lot of electronics would have been fried. I could keep nitpicking but I’ll stop. It’s a quick read if you have a few hours to spare. Just don’t expect it to be groundbreaking or make you think.

I really enjoyed this book, and it is not too farfetched.Imagine a world that loses all power, no light, no heat, no transport, no communication. This happened in Molly's home town. Her husband, Gary, is a Pilate and is away from home,a lot, he's away when the world switches off!The story covers his battle to cover hundreds of miles to get home to his wife. The battle his wife and neighbours have to just survive in their small town, to defend it from hostile "wanderers" who would kill to steal everything that they need to survive.A very good read, well done Stephanie Erickson.

I loved this book - a fascinating exploration of how dependent we've become on modern technology, and what it would be like to go back a hundred years but with a different set of social mores. Some of the reviews here were sceptical about the plot of walking a vast distance under dire circumstances, but I think that's just indicative of how dependent we've become on modern transport and communications. Our ancestors did exactly that.

I had high hopes for this premise but found the tale disappointing. The situation of the blackout and the manner in which the people reacted to it was all very predictable and hackneyed. Some of the characters were interesting but not sufficiently appealing to hold my interest and boredom set in long before the hastily wrapped up ending.

I expected more, a different world and society not the same suburban patriarchal tedium, she also never explains where everyone goes to as they don't die in the Apocalypse. Sorry this is tedious.

Very good read indeed! Good story, characters well written, believable scenarios etc .however ...would a refrigerator work after an emp? Hmm I suspect everything, even a fridge would have circuitry these days .I'm no expert to be fair and if I'm wrong I humbly apologise :-)