Last Light

This book poses the question, What Happens When The Oil Runs Out? The answer it turns out is both gripping and terrifying. This book kept me awake at night, due to both a brilliant story and also the thought of how fragile our modern society is - how little it would take to fracture it, and how quickly that could happen. I defy anyone to read this and not give serious thought to going out and stockpiling tinned food and bottled water!!!

I’m sure that you, like me, watch end-of-the-world scenarios in films and wonder ’what would I do?’ That’s the thought I had reading ‘Last Light’. Oil consultant Andy Sutherland writes an investigate report for a client about what would happen if the world’s oil suppliers were cut off. Ten years later, the trigger points he identified start to happen.
Within hours, society breaks down. Andy is in Iraq, his wife Jenny has packed her stuff ready to move out of the family home and has gone to Manchester for a job interview. Their daughter Leona is at university in Norwich and son Jacob at private school. They could not be more widely spread. The instinct of the, newly separated, parents, is to get back to their children. The show more children long for the security of their parents. While in the background, the unknown group causing the chaos has sent Ash to find Leona.
The pages of this turn so rapidly you could read it in one sitting on a long haul flight. Excellent stuff. It’s clear that Scarrow is fascinated by the ‘Peak Oil’ scenario at the centre of the story, and it shows on every page. As each of the Sutherland family learns the hard way not to trust anyone, we wonder if they [and society in general] can possibly survive.
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A relative and I read this book together in two different states. We enjoy reading a book that is coming out as a film, to see how are enjoyment of the printed word is reflected by filmmakers. We noticed the Peacock Channel released a five part series from Last Light in October, 2022, so we read this and emailed book reports to one another along the way. We very much enjoyed Last Light as a book. The desperation of far flung family members dealing with societal breakdown as a panic emerges across the globe when the world fuel supplies become unavailable was so well done.
The filmmaker made so many changes that I don't recommend the film. The initial novel, however, did a nice job showing how so many may be unprepared for a widespread show more end to law and order across nations. I give this four stars. This was the first Alex Scarrow book I have read, but it was a good experience, enough to cause me to also try his book Plague Land. I will issue a separate review of that one. show less

Started with lots of promise, yet did not continue to develop as hoped for. Last Light is an interesting take on the 'Peak Oil' scenario, yet I think the author needs to do a bit of work on his understanding of the geopolitical situation in the Middle East and Central Asia. True, dependency on fossil fuels is a risky thing, yet the scenario proposed in the work is a tad flimsy. The characters are okay, yet the conflict doesn't rise accordingly. Missing a piece of realism that would have made the book great.

Will probably continue on with the series.

This was a good "post-oil" world scenario thriller. I didn't exactly agree with the author's political views in the book, so as a result, this book received 3 stars.

Otherwise, the story had a good pace and believable after-effects on the world after "peak oil".

So, I guess I would be reading the sequel [b:Afterlight|6773434|Afterlight (Last Light, #2)|Alex Scarrow|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328995518s/6773434.jpg|6973440] sometime in the future. And it being a post-apocalyptic novel (my favorite sub-genre), I am quite excited to read it whenever I get my hands on it.

This is a story of the apocalypse that this author sees with the sudden world wide stoppage of the flow of oil. Apparently governments are so reliant on oil that all function of countries collapse in a couple of days.

The book is really 4 stories.

Andy Sutherland, geologist in northern Iraq eventually runs into a British patrol (what a British patrol is doing in Northern Iraq when that country was responsible for the Basra region of southern Iraq is curious) The USA is responsible for the rest of Iraq yet they don't run into any American soldiers until they travel in Turkey...say what!!! Anyway swallow that and you are into the rest of the story. The world's oil is shut down by bombing of key refineries and "choke points" in the delivery show more system. He must get back to London to protect his children and wife.

Leona Sutherland...she has the misfortune of opening the wrong hotel room and seeing three of the unknown bad guys. They did not kill 9 years ago...but now of course she has to die. This part of the story is reasonably good and believable. She must protect her brother and prepare for the problems to come.

Jenny Sutherland...the wife that was to be getting a divorce from Andy but has second thoughts now. This was also a decent part of the book describing her difficulties of getting from Manchester to London amid the chaos of a massive meltdown of society after 2 days of no oil...hmmmm.

The assassin, Ash...not really believable. Sent at the last minute after 9 years to kill Leona...deadly enough but no guns...simply his signature slim knife. Seems like a nice guy except for his occupation :)

The speed at which the world comes to chaos due to the shut down of oil delivery is laughable. Electricity goes quickly....hmmmm...coal, water, nuclear stations drive electricity production...they depend on oil?? Maybe coal does for the trains maybe...but 2 days. The book lists where the bombs of refineries choke off the flow of oil...is Canada mentioned...it has the 3rd largest reserves in the world...we don't rate a mention...the USA would not be oil starved to the stoneage as hinted at in the book...millions upon millions of barrels just to the north...Canada rarely gets any respect..probably better that way. hahaha. NOT one government in the world can control its citizens...really.

Finally the end of the book ends with no resolution, obviously there is a second book but I doubt I will read it. As a predictor of future oil availability...this author needs to do his homework (or at least set the book further into the future). America is now a net exporter of oil due to fracking of shale...the specter of collapse of civilization due to running out of oil is something that might come again in 50 years but even then our economy is striving to lessen our dependance on the stuff....but then he is British and things are different there {shrug} show less

This was really a 2 1/2 star book. I finished it and there were parts I really liked. That said, there were parts I hated and found ridiculous. Somewhere in here was a good disaster book but it didn't float my boat. I will not read the sequel.