This is a tough rate. I got it for free so as is my practice, it mostly gets a pass for the writing errors I observed. They are not so numerous that they take away all that much from the story anyway, but they are very noticeable.

The writing style is a bit tough for me in places. Lots of incomplete sentences, especially near the beginning of the story. An example: "It's a hot summer morning. Too hot. Even for Texas." The very first sentences of the book actually.

The gist of the story is man (Marc) living in TX decides it is a good idea to ride a bicycle to TN to hook up with his wife and son who went there to visit his FIL after an EMP event destroys all of modern society.

Initially there are sequences that are reasonably plausible. Airplanes falling out of the sky. Electricity off. City water fails. Runs on stores. Looting. Martial law. Neighbor kills his dog and then commits suicide after being denied life saving medication. You get the drift.

He does get an obsolete revolver and a small amount of ammo out of the neighbor committing suicide though, along with small amounts of some kind of diabetic protein drink.

Then out of nowhere Marc up and decides on a bike ride to TN. Forget the technical issues of whether any EMP event can actually accomplish the near total destruction of almost everything electrical or electronic. A guy like this who has a one speed mountain bike he does not even normally ride is going to undertake a 1000 mile cross country ride? With no spare parts? Not even a tire repair kit?

Marc is completely unprepared for a cross town journey, much less one to TN but he makes a yoke out of a couple of broom sticks and hitches up a garden wagon to the bike, fills it with an odd assortment of supplies (and his wife's cat in a cage), and sets off on his adventure. But not before torching some looters with a Molotov cocktail.

As he leaves the city, he gets shot at a few times and then kills a motorcycle gang member and steals his vintage Harley that apparently does not have EMP issues. He makes much better time on the motorcycle.

At some point in Alabama he pulls off the road into a state park for some sleep. He wakes up three days later in a survivalist's bunker some distance away. The survivalist is a hot babe named Rikke. At this point in the story I decide that the long series of implausible things has degenerated into a juvenile male fantasy. I run across this in self published books on a regular basis. It is like a teenage boy wrote the thing.

For no particular reason, Rikke has brought him from the park on her electric golf cart, Somehow got him into the bunker and given him antibiotics for some undisclosed infection Marc had. Rikke goes on and on about opsec but shows Marc all the goodies in the bunker including 30 years worth of stored food and an impressive armory. Did I mention how hot she is?

Inexplicably, she decides it is a good idea to teach him some archery and hunting skills, and in the process does a fair amount of rubbing up against him and giving Marc a good look at her pieces. She later explains to him all about the EMP that happened. Somehow her husband (an astrophysicist who is nowhere to be found) predicted it. It is later disclosed he was killed by a drunk, illegal alien driver some time ago.

By the way, the hot babe can cook too.

At this point I came close to giving up on the book. It has gone from one implausible thing to another, and then enters teenage boy fantasy land. But, I press on and continue reading.

The hot babe teaches him to hunt deer with a bow and arrow, and then to gut the deer. Later she teaches him to shoot a fully auto M16 that also has burst mode on it (not sure they are real common, but I guess there are a few). Later she sends him on his way with a backpack full of supplies, the M16, and 100 rounds of ammo. Yea. Goes from teenage boy fantasy back to just highly improbable. Not sure what the point of teaching him to hunt deer with the bow and arrow was, as she didn't give him one of those to take with.

Eventually he makes it to his FIL's place that is vacant, and has signs of attack. He finally runs into his son who takes him to a militia groups site where the rest of his family is. The militia group of course engages in strange religious beliefs. The leader of the group is of course a SF colonel, who seems to have a strange affection for Marc for no real reason. Eventually he and his family decide to leave. Pretty much the end.

Again, very little of this book makes much sense. In reality someone this clueless would get bumped off about 3 seconds up the road. It is only really readable at all because it is better than most "survival" fiction, which is often much worse.

I was able to finish it, although several times I came close to quitting on it, and it took many times coming back to it to finish. One might argue that it is about how clueless becomes somewhat clued in, but I never got that from the story. It was more like dumb ass luck all the way along. Good premise, despite a likely lack of reality in the premise, but bad execution the rest of the way.