Wayne Wightman

The pace for Selection Event by Wayne Wightman is set by a loving dog, Isha, who is waiting in the front window for her owners, who never come home because they have been killed by a virus which kills off the majority of mankind. Isha is saved by survivor Martin, who was participating in a year-long isolation experiment and thus missed the virus and its devastation. Martin emerges into an empty world and spends his time looking for other survivors and trying to build up something of a show more community. Unfortunately, there are few survivors and many of them are not the sort that normal people would want to join up forces with, with a few notable exceptions including Diaz, a manic-depressive biker, Xeng, a naturopath doctor, and Rusty, a down to earth handyman. I enjoyed these and other characters in the book, and liked how relationships between them all the developed. It was also interesting to watch Martin mature from an aimless drifter to a strong, moral leader. At times the plot seemed a bit far-fetched to me -- the bad guys were *so* bad! -- but this was made up for by the beautiful way the dog Isha's thoughts were conveyed, and for the strong characters that were developed as the story progressed. A good addition to the post-apocalyptic genre. I have already purchased the author's other book. show less

Rather like a new version of The Earth Abides.