Friday 3 January 2020

Hostile Territory by Paul Greci

Four teens on a wilderness retreat are left alone when an earthquake wipes out their camp.

It's billed as a survivalist story, and I guess it kind of is. The first half, anyway. The second half jumps off into something so different and odd, I half expected them to wake up from a virtual reality sim at the end. [(Spoiler: they don't.) The characters are little more than tropes: one characters knows about everything, one is a gentle giant, one moans and groans but is also brave because the narrator has a crush on her, and one is the narrator. Obstacles are dealt with quickly so the group can move on to the next one, and there's never really any sense of peril.

It's not awful. Short chapters keep interest high, so it would be a good read for a reluctant reader. But it's just not that good, either.



Josh and three other campers at Simon Lake are high up on a mountain when an earthquake hits. The rest of the camp is wiped out in a moment—leaving Josh, Derrick, Brooke, and Shannon alone, hundreds of miles from the nearest town, with meager supplies, surrounded by dangerous Alaskan wildlife.

After a few days, it’s clear no rescue is coming, and distant military activity in the skies suggests this natural disaster has triggered a political one.

Josh and his fellow campers face a struggle for survival in their hike back home—to an America they might not recognize.

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