My Review
Hig is a pilot who lives in a small Colorado airport
hanger. He has a dog, Jasper, and a
neighbor, Bangley. Jasper is old and
Bangley is a heavily armed cynic. The
three are the only living beings in a radius of about 10 miles. This is due to a flu epidemic followed by a
blood disease. The few people that do approach
the well-guarded hanger are shot to be safe because most of the humans that Hig
and Bangley have encountered were not very nice. The two men depend on each other for survival
even though they have very different world views. The world is changed, though, now that most
people are dead.
Hig is the narrator of the story and he spends much of his
time talking about the past. He is lonely
and doesn’t really know how to feel about Bangley, who has saved his life many
times. There is a compound of Mennonites
who suffer from the blood disease about 10 miles from the hanger. Hig flies patrols to watch for any trouble
over a 30 mile radius. It is on these
runs that he occasionally visits the compound to bring supplies. Bangley doesn’t trust the Mennonites.
On one of Higs’ runs he received a radio transmission that
inspired hope. Three years later he is
motivated to investigate even if it means he won’t make it back to the hanger.
One of the things that I like about this book is that the
writing is concise; there are no wasted words.
That makes it move quickly. I
also enjoy the viewpoint of Hig; he is more of a soft touch than Bangley.
An excerpt:
“Bangley a long time ago gave me a bulletproof, one of the
vests in his arsenal. He has all kinds
of shit. He said it’ll stop any handgun,
an arrow, but with a rifle it depends, I better be lucky. I thought about that . We’re supposed to be the only two living
souls but the families in at least hundreds of square miles, the only
survivors, I better be lucky.”
But the pair are good for each other’s survival. And Hig, later, learns the value of their
friendship.
The author, Peter Heller, has a long resume of adventure travel stories and contributions to Outdoor Magazine. He has written a handful of books. Constantin Films (of Resident Evil fame) has acquired the film rights. You can find a YouTube trailer here. Don’t get too excited about the all-star cast; it was using film clips from several other movies. So far, there is no info yet regarding the movie.
