I always dread when someone asks me to review a self-published
book, and in most cases, I decline. It’s nothing against that particular work.
It’s just the personal history I have with them as a former “professional”
reviewer that used to get several a week. I’m sure there are fantastic
self-pubbed books out there – better than
anything coming out of the majors – but the vast majority that crossed my desk
were horrible.
So, I took a deep breath before diving into Thomas Watson’s “Blue
Plague: The Fall” ($2.99 ebook, $15.99 paperback).
The book focuses on an interesting family, actually two
families who have melded into one on a communal farm in northern Louisiana. They
spend most of their extra time and money making their farm self-sufficient,
training and stocking up on weapons, supplies and other things that they might
need in case of some kind of government shutdown – or, perhaps, the zombie
apocalypse. The second is probably something the family would have joked about
until a virus that begins in the Congo makes its way around the world and to
the United States via a few aid volunteers who escape the country shortly
before it is shut down.