I was super excited to see this novel by Andrew Shanahan because I loved his zombie apocalypse books Before and After and Flesh and Blood. This book is witty satirical look at human behaviour in a time of crisis.
**SPOILERS**
It’s funny because the plot of this book is like a comedic farse version of Naomi Alderman’s novel The Future, which I recently read, in that both revolve around a near apocalypse warning and rescue system for people rich enough to pay a huge premium for the service.
In both books, the ultra rich were being duped to a degree, in this one it turns out the B of The Bang company were selling snake oil, thinking that in the event of a global disaster there would be no-one left to come after them for breach of contract or whatever, so they didn’t need to actually have the rescue system set up(!).
The plot is that a hungover employee running a training session at B of The Bang accidentally instructs the trainees to send out live alerts of all kinds of impending disasters, including incoming nuclear missiles from North Korea headed for central London, the news of which a well meaning rich man shares with his employees and it quickly spreads on social media until mass panic ensues.
There’s a lot of social commentary and some very funny moment, and I did enjoy it, but for me it wasn’t as good as the Before and After books.
Sarah Wray Writer 