Hi Guys...

I know a lot of us Sf types read survival fiction.  Its often entertaining and at times we sometimes learn something.  I read some of Rawles earlier books.  I thought his fictional premise (UN take over) to be especially far fetched, and some of his biases (He loves, loves, loves junk silver) also a bit suspect.  Despite this, there were the occasional useful tidbits...

In any case I recently picked up Founders.  I had high hopes of gathering a goo idea or two.  In short, don't bother.  It's not particularly entertaining:  The story line is extremely disjointed, jumping all over the timelines (we're present, now we're 8 years earlier, now we're present again, now we're two years prior,), the characters are paper thin, and there basically is no real plot.  Sometimes a fairly thin story line is okay if there are things you can learn.  Unfortunately, Founders fails here too.  It's warmed over left overs from Patriots.  Lots of ink dedicated to a few characters' fringe christian religious beliefs.  

Here is the plot:
A few characters find Jesus (Hey, that's a good thing in my book)
A few more loose their supplies and walk from Chicago to the Rocky Mtn retreat.  They work as "Security" on farms on the way.
Some more characters form a romantic association, all in the warm glow of their faith
Some military personnel trade fuel for supplies
Some bad guys form gangs
The UN takes over and patriotic americans rise up and over throw the oppressor.

Um, thats it.  The whole damned book.  Seriously.  It seems a lot like the publisher had Rawles take two very short chapters that were cut from the original Patriots, and then try to spin it out into 367 pages of crap.  Any any tactic, idea or suggestion in Founders (and they damned thin at that) can already be found in Patriots.  If you read Rawles Patriots, it'll become painfully obvious that this is a rehash of the same book.

If you find it on a library shelf, have at it  However, I would NOT spend $8 on this crap.

Fro

I read a couple of Rawles books recently as well. The last one was "Liberators". You can defeat the UN by burning up their gas cans. They will admit defeat and withdraw. The books are decent distractions for a few days, but not something I would recommend for others. I would be better served reading the Foxfire series, or breaking out "Lights Out" for the 50th time.

+1 The Rawles books have been regurgitating the same stuff the last 15 years.

I read his very first one and liked it when it came out.

The rest of them have been less then interesting.

With the popularity of ebooks the genre has really grown. And there are some much better "amateurs" writing decent dystopian fiction now.

I would put his as average, but at least it is professionally edited so the usual writing and punctuation mistakes aren't as band as many of the self published novels on the market.

Yes, characters tend to be wooden, all of the new books kinda tie in from Patriots but I'm pretty sure that was the point of it??

I will say this, I read about half of Lucifer's Hammer years and years ago. After about 40 pages of character development I skipped forward another couple hundred pages to just before when the comet hit.
Recently bought the audiobook- oh my....   It seems I missed all the descriptive action regarding some sick sexual predator, including his childhood.

TOO MUCH FLIPPIN INFORMATION!!!  

I'm no angel by any stretch of the imagination, but I found myself flipping forward on a lot of stuff.

Seems getting drunk in the PAW is fairly commonplace in fiction stories- "Alas Bourbon'lon" and similar, but in Lucifer's Hammer lots of adultery and then the very descriptive acts of a frickin fiend....

Yeah.... I'll take Rawles wooden characters over that.

Keep in mind Patriots was very timely when it first came out as "The Gray Nineties" in 95-96'ish. I remember printing it off the net and reading it as I drove to a show in Indy. That story changed a dozen or more times since then, but it still remains good.  Better than the current genre of "I gathered a bunch of losers I don't know from my subdivision and I became their savior" BS fiction fantasy stories.

I read patriots, it was entertaining and somewhat useful I thought.  but I cant keep up with the other ones.  I have read everything except liberators.  he's just cashing in on the new stuff.  i'll bite though because I like reading and they are entertaining and fun to think about what you would do in the same situation.

I have to agree with the O.P.  I found it on sale at a book store for about $5 and was excited.  I had read a couple of his other books and this one wasn't nearly as entertaining or well thought out.  I wish I could get my $5 back.  Also, I am a Christian and would probably agree with the author on a lot but found him condescending and insulting on some of the finer points of the faith.  I'm not sure why an author would chose to be insulting to his readers.  I have also been a long time reader of survival blog and it is also not what it used to be.  And, don't even get me started on the expensive Rawle's Gets You Ready.  This might be a case of someone having attained some success and then sequestering himself on a ranch and resting on his laurels.  Hopefully this trend does not continue and the quality returns.

His first book was an equipment list in search of proper characterization.

It's sequels appear to be more of the same.

I have higher hopes for Tools for Survival:  What You Need To Survive When You Are On Your Own since it appears to really be an equipment list and might thus play in to the author's strengths, but I haven't seen it as of yet.

He's an odd duck.  

I read Patriots....that was enough for me.  No more

If I publish a book my main character will be an ex Delta op who converted being Jewish to Methodist. He will be a functional alcoholic who loves potted meat...hates and viciously hunts down the bad guys with his band of followers..who then trek across the mid west in order to restore the  government that relocated to California ...there will be car /convey chases...brutal hand to hand fighting...lip biting love scenes...
Until the second emps hits and causing the group to self implode ...but not before our main hero save the girl......

Ahh....hell...Ill just rewrite alas Babylon ....add in modern junk...some Meth heads ..and jbt government junk and call it " shattered clock -the day time stopped for merica!!! "

LOL

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Will there be multi-cam?

Thanks for the info.  I've had it in my Amazon wishlist for a while but have not pulled the trigger, and now I doubt I
will.  For the most part, I enjoyed Patriots, but I read Survivors, which was also sort of a rehash - some overlap
in characters, not a huge amount of good information, and also disjointed.  Sounds like Founders is even worse.

ETA
And I didn't find Patriots' plot of an economic crash followed by the UN coming to "help" all that unbelievable.  
Maybe the only caveat would be that if we're going down, rest of the world would be be going down with us and the
UN would be toothless too.

JW-Rawls..........everyone's favorite panic pimp.              

Don't leave out the hyphen.  

Kryptek or whatever it's called...multicam is so 2005...lol

 

Will the protagonist or the villain be the multi-cam clad Kifaru wearing character?  

I think I know the answer...

it's a comma....

I seriously think he had a good idea with telling the story of people in different areas during the same time frame...but he even screwed that up with all these side stories that lasted less than a chapter....not to mention spending a whole chapter 20 years ago with the proper way to court a christian lady.

Villain is a ex realeste broker from south America who gets trapped here during the "event " and forms up an army of Expats from south Florida ...which his high IQ...love of gold and the ability to sway others to join his army he is a the arch Nemesis of our hero....

:)


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I liked Patriots but didn't care for Flounders.


I'm just waiting for someone to compare Rawles books to One Cigarette After...  I wish I could get my money back on that one!

When I hear people talk about how great that book is I want to PUKE!

Beat.

Glad to see the correct name for it is catching on!!!

One Cig after is even more juvenile and male fantasy than the others- older male having young hottie pine for him (anyone remember Ben Raines? Dude was in a walker by the end but still had 19 year old hotties stalking him). And of course with One Cig after their was the town pulls together, everyone quietly starves together psuedo communism thing- you know, what some call "community" in "prepper" circles now a days.  "It was like a damn Normal Rockwell painting..... GD this, GD that, smoke a cig...."  

When I was up there for a preparedness show a few years ago that town had slummy looking areas and backwards looking people just like every other town has- no mecca of survival in Black Mountain....

"Ben Raines contact us!" LMAO

You guys wanna read some really good SF fiction*?

Check out "The Soldier's Son" in the fiction section of this very site.

Absolutely excellent work-in-progress - and I do mean excellent!






*Unfortunately, reality is catching up with the story!  

And here I thought I was the only one that didnt like Rawels work

Whne I was first starting out and desperate to get some buzz, because of his following I hit him up for a review on survival blog or whatever his crappy format site is. He farmed it out to someone to read it for him and they had changed their address and left town without telling him - I had to tell him. So he passed it off to someone else and they told him they went through the first chapter and no farther because it wasnt godly enough. I laughed and told myself getting a review on the site of a guy I already didnt respect as a writer  wasnt worth it anyway.

I didn't care for the Patriot but Survivior and Founders weren't so bad.  My wife liked survivor and has suggested it to a couple of friends so getting her interest was worth it.  One second after was fair as well.  I will admit I read these in the deerstand so I can't read something to engrossing.  I've tried the classics in the past but deerslayer is painful to read and hunt at the same time.  Though the season is nearly over I'm going to try Going Home by A. American

Going Home series is good....have read all five...only complaint I have is some glaring editing mistake with regards to people's names in the later books.

Well its one of the few mainstream shtf /apocalypse book that surfaced as "prepper " was catching on with many. So tons of folks who never heard of Lucifer's hammer or alas Babylon clutched to it...especially with the heart string pulling with the main characters kid.
Now have those same folks read "the road "and watch their heads explode.  No happy ending...no grand good vs evil battle. No hero.

Most of these all have the same lay out...its entertainment ...id rather read a cruddy book than TV... but its better if its at least based in some reality

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I heard William Forstchen is writing a sequel to "One Second After".

Sure hope it's better that the first.

possible titles-

"One Lung After"

"One Lung Replacement After"

"One Emphysema After"

"One COPD After"

I doubt Phillip Marlboro will sponsor this next book....

"We knelt down and prayed in Aramaic..."

I really liked Patriots and OSA.  I realize they are not literature, but they satisfied my SHTF hunger at the time.  Plus, I dont reed two guud enny howe.

Really, I was even ok with Patriots shopping list

The, rest, of ,the ,Rawles, franchise, was ,even, too ,horrible, for, m ,y,poor, tastes. ,


I liked the human side to OSA and the character development.  I never saw the nursing home freight train coming at me me.  

Read Patriots.  Won't read another of his books.

+1, horrible book.  He's a pretty good analyst, but a novelist he ain't.  The cult of Rawles will make it a good seller though.



 

Plot is that our hero and his now new formed militia and his geriatric general campus security gaurd will raid old cigarette factories and gas stations...then invoke the law of 9.... since 8 has been used up......


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I'll definitely read that.  I liked One Second After.

As an analyst he's pretty useless. He will focus obsessively on extremely rare or even unrealistic scenarios while completely overlooking the more likely emergencies and problems a person is likely to be forced to deal with.
FerFAL

Pot meet kettle.

. Ouch....lmao

Actually we couldn't be more different but if thinking so makes you happy go nuts.
FerFAL

I think he meant that you both focus obsessively - just at the opposite ends of the spectrum for possible events.  

He writes what he wants to write about.  Should Disney drop what they are doing and make movies about the inconvenience of economic crises?

Ohhhh stink leave that commonsense outta here...this is the internet damn it!  LOL

See...Fernando will write a whole chapter on zippo lighters and WHY he thinks they are the best and EVERYONE should have one or more....
Rawles will just go on about the burn rates for different fuels in them ..when compared to the wick matrial and how barometric pressure and air temp effects those times while mixing in a story of a patriot fighter using it as an ied or some shit lmao.

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Then he will go on to say how only Christians can use zippos to their full effect, and non-Christians aren't fit for lighters, but they (the good Christians) might allow the them (non-christians) to use lighters out of the goodness in their hearts.

You never know.....could be a special lighter ......   :)

I kinda giggle at the rawles hate when 15 years ago....or even 10 there were how many books out there like it?
I can count on my hand...and many of those still get posted about today (some 30+ yr old stuff to) ...
Meanwhile .....surf Amazon and look at all the new prepper this....survival that fictions.

Anyone with time and a keyboard can toss out a 3-400 page book for 4.99$.. it seems.

My book "how I survived the prepper tsunami " should sell millions lmao (no it ain't a real book)

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