As men, women and children murder and loot in a world gone mad, one man and his daughters struggle to survive. The bond of love between them strengthens and grows as they fight desperately to keep their fragile hold on hope - and life.
Father and daughter - caught in a terrifying world ravaged by an unknown, virulent, super-plague. Will an antidote be found... in time?
This book was originally published in 1977, and it really shows. There's casual references to Negros - not many, but they are there - and the male characters and narrators casually ogle every woman who walks past. One woman's nudity is described in great detail. Our hero, Dr Petrie, sleeps with a woman he barely knows, with his girlfriend and young daughter just one room away, just because she says she wants to. The female characters are universally plucky, glamorous or over sexed. (Except the seven year old; she has no discernible character.) And do we think the union's behaviour is likely?
The story itself is a bit questionable, as well. I can forgive the science, it was probably the most accurate knowledge available at the time. But some of the story decisions seem strange to me. The thing that really stands out is the rats.
There's a lot of subplots that don't really go anywhere. I guess they were meant to show the type of things the plague put an end to, but personally I didn't really find any of the characters engaging or likeable, so it didn't matter much. There's never any hint of what the rest of the world is doing; given the quick onset, quarantining every plane and boat should help, but since the plague was deliberately covered up at first, was that done in time? Did the plague hit Europe or anywhere else? There's no way to know. It's never mentioned even in passing.
As I mentioned, our hero is a doctor. A medical doctor, not a graduate. In a scene where he comforts a dying victim, he has a brief inner monologue along the lines of 'there could be bacteria on my hands now and there's simply nothing I can do about it.' It never seems to occur to him to - wash his hands. (I've checked with a family member who was around in the seventies. He confirms that this was a well known method for reducing transmission then.)
The ending is a whole other issue, of course, and I won't rant about it here; there's plenty of other reviews that will.
I've made this sound terrible, but it's not. The first part is very well written, given the issues above; it's fast paced, it's taut, it's hard to put down. Cracks start appearing later on. But there are several set pieces that are going to stay with me for a while, and I may even end up skim rereading.
All in all, it's not a complete waste of time, but it's not the best book I've read recently. Interesting to read as a prediction of current events.
Please note; there is quite well described sex, a lot of smoking, and a lot of deaths in this book, some much more disturbing than others.
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