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.
The virus, which may have an interesting origin, attacks the
brain, killing the victim and bringing them back as blue-skinned, zombie-like creatures.
The blues, as Watson calls them, don’t usually eat the flesh of their victims
like classic zombies. For some strange reason, they just attempt to bite them then walk away.
The parents of the two families work at a hospital in
Shreveport, and when all workers are called to their posts under threat of
arrest if they don’t show, the fathers – the hotheaded and violent Bruce and
his more level-headed friend Mike – make the trek to work, even though they
know something bad is coming, to try to protect the family and their secret
farm. Getting home again after everything goes to Hell will be much harder.
“Blue Plague: The Fall” tested one of the things that I’ve
always believed true about a good book – it’s all about story and characters. “The
Fall” is not elegantly nor eloquently written. At times, in fact, the writing
style is quite rough. What the book is, though, is compelling. I found myself
flipping the pages and becoming deeply involved with Watson’s characters. I
laughed with them, cried with them, celebrated with them and mourned with them
through most of the tale.
Then, we come to the final portion of the book, where Bruce
undergoes a serious character transformation. The story as a whole focuses on
the darker side of human nature, as people who are, in many ways, worse than
the blues begin to use the chaos to claim power. Gangs, corrupt officials and
others see the events as a way to exert their power, which drives Bruce into a
place that’s been hinted at earlier in the book, but we’ve never quite seen him
in. Without giving too much away, he goes from a very likeable guy to someone
the reader will be very conflicted about by the time the tale wraps up. Though most
of his actions are, at least in their beginnings, justified, there are a couple
of plays where he takes things a little farther over the edge than the usual hero,
and we see in him a reflection of the darkness and chaos in the outside world
that he’s trying to keep his family safe from. The ultimate effect is to leave
the reader a little on edge and more than a little uncertain about what’s going
to become of these characters we’ve grown to like in a world that’s ripping
itself apart.
While I admit that I felt there were some rough parts and
places where things could have been tightened up a bit, I’m glad that I didn’t pass
on Watson’s debut. In the end, I’m still a believer that story and characters
are king, and he grabbed me with those elements. I’m also intrigued by a hint
he dropped and moved on from quickly that the virus may be something more than
it appears. “The Fall” left me with a lot of questions and wondering how
everything will shake out, and that’s what a good opening book should do.
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