Alex Scarrow

Despite the fact that he originated in a very different style of television, Big Finish and BBC Books both wasted no time forcing the eighth Doctor into the mold of classic Doctor Who: BBC Books' Eighth Doctor Adventures felt of a piece with the Virgin New Adventures, while Big Finish locked him into the same 4x25 format as the classic Doctors, despite him never having appeared in such a format on telly! The eighth Doctor, after all, originally appeared in a 90-minute telemovie of the week. show more One could imagine an alternate world where Fox commissioned a series of them, the eighth Doctor periodically appearing on American television screens for a standalone adventure, like how The Librarian was originally. If that had happened, I think you'd have ended up with stories very much like Spore: the Doctor turns up in contemporary America, discovers something odd is going on, befriends a local woman, and puts a stop to it. Slight, like a lot of these novellas, but an intriguing glimpse of a version of Doctor Who that never was. show less

Very topical with the coronavirus outbreak in the news at the moment. First in a series of three. Leon , his sister Grace and his Mum are caught up in scores of people fleeing London after a terrible plague starts killing everyone. The plague basically attacks instantly on contact and melts the people so there are only their clothes and bones left behind. While the three are on a train trying to get out to their grandparents farm on the coast, the engine stops in the middle of nowhere. This show more is because the driver has the plague and it moves from his compartment from carriage to carriage....
I would class this book as pure horror as some awful things happen in it. It has the Steven King vibe of "don't get too close to a character because they might get killed off!"...don't say you weren't warned. A very different book from the TimeRiders author. show less

A good thriller about an alien virus that touches upon the intelligence/necessity of survival of life and the breakdown of society that can occur when almost everyone but the weak or infirm are dead (it was a great twist that only those who were regularly taking medication survived).

I loved the different "evolutionary" steps the virus took - from spores to scuttling crabs to amazing facsimiles of familiar life. The idea that the Snarks could cut into you was terrifying, as was the show more description of the horse disemboweling itself.

I'm not quite sure why Grace was special in that the virus chose her to... incubate(?) itself, but the conclusion that the spa group took was reasonable (if horrible). show less

I have to admit that reading Stephen King’s THE STAND when I was a teenager rather spoiled me for post-apocalypse yarns. All the ones I read after it seemed to pale in comparison, to the point that I’ve largely ignored the genre for the past couple of decades. But I did enjoy Alex Scarrow’s LAST LIGHT, which depicts the crumbling of civilisation due to a worldwide and near-complete loss of access to oil, and was curious to see what he had dreamed up next for the few left surviving at show more the end of that novel. Happily I can report it’s a very different story to most of its kind and is equal parts entertaining and thought provoking.

The book opens 10 years after the collapse of civilisation as we know it. Jennifer Sutherland and her children, the family at the heart of LAST LIGHT, are living on a defunct oil rig off the Norfolk coast with about 450 other people. They are largely sustaining themselves with such activities as fishing and vegetable growing and have even managed to produce a little bit of chicken poo-powered electricity although they occasionally head back to shore to forage in the abandoned warehouses and shops for the things they can’t provide for themselves. Thanks primarily to Jenny Sutherland’s quiet leadership and her few but strict rules the community rubs along well together and makes the best of their situation. Even so, most of them old enough to remember the times before the crash have a yearning for the things they miss – lights, music or other comforts they used to take for granted.

In London meanwhile one of the government’s designated emergency centres has also managed to remain functional. There are about 2000 people at the site which is still run by the man who was in charge at the collapse though he is now aided by a group of teenage boys-turned-soldiers who he essentially bribes with privileges (alcohol, computer games and girls) to maintain his version of law and order. With a large stockpile of emergency rations this group has not felt the pressing necessity to become self-sustaining, although an attempt has been made.

From that brief description I suppose it’s not too difficult to imagine that these two communities will somehow come into contact with each other but that is really the only predictable thing about AFTERLIGHT. All the details and the nuances about how that happens and the individual histories of the people in each community are refreshingly untainted by pop culture’s notions of what survival of such an apocalypse might look like. And, because this isn’t a Hollywood-style story, readers cannot rely on their favourite characters surviving through to the end. As in real life some of the loveliest people die much too soon and while that makes for uneasy, sometimes melancholic, reading it adds to the book’s sense of believability.

An aspect of the book I found intriguing is that it is something of an homage to womankind. Not only are all the strongest characters women of various ages and backgrounds but a lot (not all) of the male characters in the book are weak, power mad, useless or some combination of them all and men en masse, especially men under 40 or so, are depicted as barely above wild animal on the evolutionary scale. I don’t believe this generalisation to be true (any more than I believe all women to be shoe-obsessed bimbos as depicted in a different kind of book) but I enjoyed reading a story which turns a widely accepted mythology on its head in the way this book does. The very idea that perhaps brute strength and a fondness for weaponry are not the skills one will need in a revamped civilisation is an interesting heresy to see played out.

But of course a story like this has to be gripping too and AFTERLIGHT is certainly that with plenty of heart-in-mouth moments and a snappy pace. What I thought Scarrow did best was create a series of small stories that readers could easily identify with – a teenager’s yearning for the life of music festivals and fun that he would have had if the world hadn’t collapsed in on itself for example – to motivate his characters to believable if not always intelligent behaviour and through this depict some larger truths. And while there are lessons to be gleaned if desired, there is not a single moment of ‘preachyness’ here which is particularly pleasing. Indeed some of the lessons aren’t the ones you might expect from an environmentally-themed thriller.

I am very glad I finally got around to reading the completion of the story which began in LAST LIGHT (though you could easily read this novel on its own) and that my return, however brief, to post apocalyptic imaginings was such a rewarding read. If you like the sound of an unpredictable, dramatic and thoughtful story that might make you cry and/or cover your eyes for fear of what comes next you should read AFTERLIGHT too. show less