The Outpost

 The Outpost

Reviewed By  Ian Banks       August 28, 2024

 

Author  Ben Date

Distributor:      Cosmic Egg/Collective Ink
ISBN:                 978-1-80341-472-0
Publisher:         Collective Ink
Release Date:   April 2024  

   Website:   https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/cosmicegg-books/our-books/outpost-novel

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Well, its finally happened in the year 2048 when the Earth has been depleted and a nuclear Armageddon has occurred. A Lawyer, Joseph has managed to survive the ‘holocaust’, and when he finally emerges from his safe haven, he discovers a few others have also managed to survive.

This trusty band of stalwarts set out to trek to a Fortress, where they understand there is food and support but they first have to survive in a world like nothing they have ever experienced, which as they slowly discover is more than fraught with the unthinkable.

The Outpost, a debut novel from Canadian Ben Date is one that takes a tried and true formula of dystopian reality and adds a fresh touch with the scheming, that is all too real, the cannibalism, one area that makes you wonder if you too would resort to such levels to survive, and the very carefully inserted secretive otherworld that somehow seems to be pulling the strings of the entire event.

Who to trust becomes more apparent as once they reach The Outpost, known as Zulu, they discover that everything is not what it seems to be and humanity is still the untrustworthy element it has always been.

Add in a Cyborg situation, a manic grab to be the ruler of the ruination of civilisation and in spite of the very bloodthirsty aspects, along with a few other plot thickeners and in so many ways this could be considered as a prescient look at the all to probable future of this world.

The final chapter leaves the door wide open for book two but also reflects in an oblique manner, the price to be paid when you set out to create havoc and corruption!

Very readable and if you enjoy dystopian survival stories, The Outpost is for you!

Fiction, General