I very rarely pick up short stories as they are low value in dollars per hour as you can spend one credit, worth about $11 for a book of any length (the last one I got was 85 hours long) While most short stories that last just an hour or two go for about $5 with makes them proportionally much more expensive than the longer books.
However, seeing a recently released prepper book by JDY I decided what the heck, I'll spend the $4.86 and get it and consider the $0.10 or whatever share JDY gets a donation.
'Neighbors' starts out with our protagonist Hank well into serious prepping with fuel tanks, garden, generator, etc. All the usual stuff. The problem is he lives in a cul de sac and is very visible so all his neighbors see what he is doing. Justifiably worried that when SHTF they will all show up at his house he engages in a campaign to push all his neighbors into prepping as well to cover his activities, He starts out simply, phrasing things as a community watch and food bank and with almost not resistance they happily join in.
Things in the world deteriorate in a non specific generalized way. As gas and food prices get worse the neighborhood watch moves towards full on prepping and for the improbably low price of $100,000 build a massive community fallout shelter capable of sheltering a 100 people. Everyone pretty much goes along with this, each family chipping in several thousand dollars and in short order the shelter is built and filled with survival supplies.
Inevitably, nuclear war happens. For nonspecific reasons every country with nuclear weapons decides to use them against every other country with nuclear weapons. The book doesn't really go into this much, its more or less just a placeholder event to move the story forward.
The community gets into the shelter and fights off others who didn't buy in but show up anyway. After a few weeks when the radiation has died down they come out and get busy with gardening, defense etc.
As you would expect, eventually raiders show up. First a few that are easily handled, then later the community gets word of a large force on the way. The community again agrees to fight it out and prepares traps and fortifications to do so.
Hanks simple plan to cover his own prepping by organizing a community ends up with an entire fortified compound of capable fighters and his own preps not really needed, those he originally viewed as threat end up as assets due to his guidance.
So first off, this is a SHORT STORY. I don't know how many pages it would be but as an audio book the run time is just under two hours. Obviously you aren't going to have any character development or much descriptions in such a short story that is covering months of time so although the book lacks these things, it can't really be counted as a criticism, rather just a limitation of the format.
This is not really a character or events driven story, its more a best case scenario, "How to survive nuclear war" primer in the form of short fiction. Its simple, straight forward and easy to understand with a couple of exceptions I will get to later. There is nothing new, surprising or memorable there if you've read pretty much any other post apocalyptic or disaster fiction. There are no bad apples or traitors in the community, no mistakes are made, is as saccharin and predictable as a 1950's civil defense film reel.
This does not make it bad. It just makes it what it is, a short, palatable example of what a community could do to survive nuclear war. This is not really a book for preppers, its not going to bring out any new ideas or concepts to anyone who has already started prepping.
What is a good book for is people who have never really thought about prepping before. As a simple, non threatening, 'sanitized' version of nuclear war it would be easy for anyone to listen to and if it was their first exposure to the concepts, give them a lot to think about and a lot of prepping 101 type information with just enough story to keep it interesting through its short run time.
It would also be an excellent introduction to the subject for kids. The whole time I was listening I was imaging it as a 'magic schoolbus' episode (what can I say, I have a three year old who knows how to run netflix) In fact I think this would make an excellent illustrated book for kids from the right kinds of families. Its just dangerous enough to get the point of prepping across without doing so in any kind of threatening way.
As for the audio part of 'audiobook' this one is just acceptable. It was obviously produced with a low budget and B list reader. You can hear pages being turned, background noises and clipped words and over long pauses where edits where made. It gets the job done but has a noticeably amateurish production value. Not a big deal but it doesn't really add anything to the experience.
It may sound like I didn't like the story but that is not the case. In fact I found it a more pleasant couple of hours listening than "Going home" or "One Second After", both of which I have on audibook and both of which I found cringe worthy for most of their runtime due to ridiculous technical mistakes, poor writing, and unlikeable characters.
As for the pedantic, technical side of the review, for a book that is obviously intended as a basic primer in prepping, it uses acronyms like CNRB with no explanation provided. Any prepper would know what is meant, but the new reader for whom this book is best suited for, would have to go look it up. Weapon descriptions are similar, with no details given of what any weapon looks or acts like but just specific model numbers. If you don't know what a PTR 91 is then your just out of luck and have to either look it up or imagine what it could be.
Hyper specific, brand based gear descriptions are common in prepper novels but feel out of place in a story like this where everything else is greatly simplified. A sentence or two explaining the acronyms or describing what kind of weapon the model numbers refer to would be a better fit for the audience who is most likely to get something out of this book.
Neighbors, by Jerry D Young: Audiobook review.
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