BLOG TOUR: Blackout - Marc Elsberg

Blackout is such a thought-provoking book that I was thrilled to be invited to join the blog tour.  Whilst I might have been forgiven for expecting total carnage and an eat your partner type of disaster thriller, it's more of a slow-burner that makes you look at the world in a completely different light (if you excuse the unintended 'light' pun).  So without further ado, let's see what I thought of Blackout by Marc Elsberg.

THE GLOBAL MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER 

PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE

A 21ST-CENTURY HIGH-CONCEPT DISASTER THRILLER 

Tomorrow will be too late.

A cold night in Milan, Piero Manzano wants to get home.

Then the traffic lights fail. Manzano is thrown from his Alfa as cars pile up. And not just on this street – every light in the city is dead. 

Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electricity grids collapse. 

Plunged into darkness, people are freezing. Food and water supplies dry up. The death toll soars. 

Former hacker and activist Manzano becomes a prime suspect. But he is also the only man capable of finding the real attackers. 

Can he bring down a major terrorist network before it’s too late?

What did I think?

I was really eager to read this book and I made the fatal mistake of having a sneaky read of the first page when it arrived meaning that I had to start it immediately.  It literally starts with a bang as the traffic lights go out in Milan causing mass chaos on the roads as cars pile into each other.  The main character, Piero Manzano, is one of those affected as he is driving home when the lights go out.  As the plot thickens it would appear that somebody has attacked not just Milan, but Europe itself.

There were so many things I didn't think of if there was no electricity and Blackout certainly gets you thinking about what you would do if there was no electricity.  There would be no fuel at the petrol stations as the pumps use electricity to pump fuel to the forecourt from the underground tanks.  Patients in ITU on life support would die without electricity to power life support machines and monitor vital signs. The main effect that really shocked me was the inability to cool down the nuclear reactors which leads to the main sweaty palm moments in Blackout.

My brain was whirring throughout the story, but more about our reliance on electricity than the events in the book.  After all, it's not that long ago when electricty wasn't available in every home and streets were still lit by gas lamps during World War II.  I think the world would literally grind to a halt if our power supply was removed but I also think it would be quite liberating to go back to more simple manual times.  We may then discover some of that elusive time, of which we never seem to have enough.

Overall I wasn't as gripped and panicked as I thought I would be.  I think that sometimes it was quite technical and a little bit over my head, but I admit that when people start talking in IT-speak my brain tends to go into meltdown.  There were a few too many characters in the book to keep track of who was who and in hindsight I wish I'd written them down and created my own cast list.

Blackout is the most thought-provoking book I have read in a long time and I have continued to think about the devastating effects long after turning the final page.  I was just slightly disappointed that I didn't get the feeling of panic and fear coming through in the writing, but it could perhaps have been a little bit lost in the translation from German to English.  It's well worth a read though, just to realise how lucky we are to have power at the flick of a switch.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

Follow the tour:

Blackout - Marc Elsberg

THE GLOBAL MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER 

PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE

A 21ST-CENTURY HIGH-CONCEPT DISASTER THRILLER 

Tomorrow will be too late.

A cold night in Milan, Piero Manzano wants to get home.

Then the traffic lights fail. Manzano is thrown from his Alfa as cars pile up. And not just on this street – every light in the city is dead. 

Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electricity grids collapse. 

Plunged into darkness, people are freezing. Food and water supplies dry up. The death toll soars. 

Former hacker and activist Manzano becomes a prime suspect. But he is also the only man capable of finding the real attackers. 

Can he bring down a major terrorist network before it’s too late?

What did I think?

I was really eager to read this book and I made the fatal mistake of having a sneaky read of the first page when it arrived meaning that I had to start it immediately.  It literally starts with a bang as the traffic lights go out in Milan causing mass chaos on the roads as cars pile into each other.  The main character, Piero Manzano, is one of those affected as he is driving home when the lights go out.  As the plot thickens it would appear that somebody has attacked not just Milan, but Europe itself.

There were so many things I didn't think of if there was no electricity and Blackout certainly gets you thinking about what you would do if there was no electricity.  There would be no fuel at the petrol stations as the pumps use electricity to pump fuel to the forecourt from the underground tanks.  Patients in ITU on life support would die without electricity to power life support machines and monitor vital signs. The main effect that really shocked me was the inability to cool down the nuclear reactors which leads to the main sweaty palm moments in Blackout.

My brain was whirring throughout the story, but more about our reliance on electricity than the events in the book.  After all, it's not that long ago when electricty wasn't available in every home and streets were still lit by gas lamps during World War II.  I think the world would literally grind to a halt if our power supply was removed but I also think it would be quite liberating to go back to more simple manual times.  We may then discover some of that elusive time, of which we never seem to have enough.

Overall I wasn't as gripped and panicked as I thought I would be.  I think that sometimes it was quite technical and a little bit over my head, but I admit that when people start talking in IT-speak my brain tends to go into meltdown.  There were a few too many characters in the book to keep track of who was who and in hindsight I wish I'd written them down and created my own cast list.

Blackout is the most thought-provoking book I have read in a long time and I have continued to think about the devastating effects long after turning the final page.  I was just slightly disappointed that I didn't get the feeling of panic and fear coming through in the writing, but it could perhaps have been a little bit lost in the translation from German to English.  It's well worth a read though, just to realise how lucky we are to have power at the flick of a switch.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

The Wind Guardian - Frank Scozzari

The ultimate threats facing United States come to life in Frank Scozzari's fast-paced thriller. With the help of an inside man, a group of determined terrorists siege a nuclear power plant, intending to spread radiation and wreak destruction into the world.

The only thing standing in their way are two misfit security guards, who return to their posts and realize what is happening in the power plant. The two soon find themselves in a battle against time and odds, as the terrorists facing them will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals.

The Wind Guardian exposes the vulnerability of a terrorist attack on one of our nation's nuclear power plants from an insider’s perspective.

What did I think?

I absolutely loved Frank Scozzari’s previous novel, From Afar, so I didn’t hesitate when I was invited to read his next book.  The Wind Guardian was clearly meticulously researched and so thorough that I almost feel like I could now apply to work in a nuclear power plant myself.

It started off with the murder of a security guard and continued at a hundred miles an hour, barely giving the reader time to draw breath.  As soon as the security pass has been stolen at the murder scene, and the night shift commences, the air is crackling with so much tension as you wait for the inevitable to happen.

Two of the guards have a mutual attraction and decide to meet up during their shift.  I loved the couldn’t-care-less attitude of Cameron and Grace as they experienced the excitement of new love.  Without spoiling the story, it falls to Cameron and Grace to save the whole plant when it comes under attack.  It is only due to them sneaking away to a dead zone for a bit of a canoodle that they survive the initial onslaught.

With terrorism so much on our minds now, this book is so realistic that it does actually give you chills while you are reading.  The lengths that people will go to for their beliefs or for money is quite astounding.  At the end of the book, when I finally caught my breath, I was thinking of what might have happened had the plan succeeded.  As much as this story is a 'what might have been', it could very easily be something that might happen. 

This story is written with so much tension; it’s fast paced and gripping.  It has an enough of a human element with Cameron and Grace’s story without it being too mushy.  I think it would make a really good film or tv mini-series and I wouldn't be surprised to see this snapped up and on our screens at some time in the future.

I really have to applaud Frank for writing two very different books; both are excellent and unputdownable for very different reasons. Frank Scozzari is certainly one to watch.

I received this e-book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon