77 Days in September

First of all, let me say that the author is to be commended for his work, and that I appreciate the time and effort he has gone through to try to educate people about the reality and potential of an EMP attack. Writing a book isn't easy, and getting people to read it is even harder. A lot of folks have read this book, and that says something. Now, for the review... I think the writer is a good writer, and he had a good concept and told a good story. Compared to some of the other post-apocalyptic stories that have come out recently (such as the dreadful 2nd and 3rd book from Mr. Rawles), this story has been well planned and executed. There is a beginning, middle, and end. The characters are fairly well developed, at least enough that we care what happens to them. So much for the good, I want to commend the author for accomplishing those tasks. I bought the book on Kindle and it was inexpensive and I feel like I got more than I paid for.This book is badly in need of an editor. Not just the obvious mistakes and spelling, form problems - I'm an author, and I know you never catch all that stuff. But, this story needed a content editor. I'll explain more later...But now for the bad... the scenario is just way to unbelievable. Not that an EMP attack as described couldn't happen - it probably will at some point. But as hard as the author tried to show how bad it could be, the characters face remarkably little real and sustained violence, mayhem, or massive disorder. The meltdown seems to be cleverly designed to avoid the reality it claims to portray. Enemies and hostiles usually come one at a time, separated by weeks and weeks. The main character, Kyle, is a huge failure in utilizing even a modicum of good sense. At one point he declares that he decided to stay on the highways because the hills, etc. would be just too difficult, and the back roads (which may have been shorter and faster) were just too lonely. Wow. Anyone even passingly knowledgeable about survival and human nature knows that you avoid people, avoid highways, and avoid cities. Kyle, like some kind of mind-numbed Pollyanna makes exactly the wrong decision in almost every situation. If it weren't for "deus ex machina" (cleverly written and magical salvation provided by a benevolent author) Kyle would have died daily from stupidity. There is always some element of fictional "luck" provided by authors, after all you can't have all of your major characters die in the first ten pages (which, by the way, Kyle would have if not for the author protecting him from dumb decisions), but Kyle miraculously survives over and over again by good guys dragging him in from his stupidity. Kyle rejects the offer of a ride in a Jeep all the way to Montana and his excuse is that he doesn't want his benefactor to die, which is just ridiculous and silly. Does he want to get to his family or not? Then he proceeds to stumble forward on the wings of luck and divine intervention.Like in most PA literature, the bad guys are comically bad, and in at least in one instance we are given pages and pages of psychological examination of how bad they really are. In reality it is more likely to be the average joe out there that goes bad - and with a bunch of other folks going along with him. An accountant who has never committed a single crime is just as likely to pack up with other urban and suburban folks to become really bad guys. Average people, when in this sort of situation are going to turn really, really bad. An editor would have cut out about half of the long, mental day trips into some kind of feminine emotional self-examination. Some of that is good for story and pacing, but I seriously forgot that Kyle was a man after awhile. The female characters are all helpless and without any real skill or knowledge. I'm not a feminist, but it would to have had one character who wasn't more of a cartoon character. The two most prominent female characters are a good example: One is sitting home helplessly hoping not to get raped and not wanting to report a molester to a council of people who could have helped, while the other is sitting at home hoping some passing homeless guy will have sex with her. Almost every "good" character has an aversion to using guns in very real self-defense situations, but they are all also more than willing to steal and loot, even within 24 hours of the original EMP. Stores are inexplicably unguarded and unlooted at the beginning, and burglary is passed off as a morally ambiguous necessity, while Kyle doesn't even want guns for protection at the beginning and only after numerous, weird confrontations does he finally use one to stop someone from killing him. Even then, we are treated to pages of his justification WHILE THE EVENT IS HAPPENING, as if the author is apologizing for it all. He wants to get home, so he drops his gun and begs for his life when a lunatic who obviously wants to kill him is hunting him. Very unrealistic, and that is my complaint about the book.As far as survival, again the story is very unbelievable. The Taits handily have a neighbor that has a large garden (almost as big as their whole yard), which produces plenty enough food for months for several families. I live off-grid and we raise most of our own food. It seems the author doesn't really know how much food it actually takes to provide for a family, and then no one even stops to think about winter coming and how many thousands of pounds of food it would take to get through the winter. There is no food preservation except a brief mention of some carrots and potatoes that are to be stored for winter. We could have used about 90% less effeminate emotionalizing and reflecting and about 3 times as much reality in examining the survivability of the situation. Several hundred million urbanites and suburbanites fleeing instability and destruction and starvation is going to produce a wee bit more danger and mayhem then the handful of walkers and lone crazed gunmen and trickle of gang bangers out looking for a meal. Interstates will be death traps. Everyone sits in their homes in the cities just waiting to die I guess, while warily staring down passersby. There is no mass exodus from unsurvivable situations. Kyle almost always finds a semi truck to sleep in (handy, except the highways would be clogged with violent and hungry people who might have already thought of that in the month or so since the event), and stays on the highways because burned out and stalled vehicles reminds him of normalcy.In a continental meltdown, I hardly think that beautiful single women are sitting on their couches with their dogs thinking about how long they've been without sex in order to provide a stopover for the one single guy who happens to walk by. Nor do I think that well over a month after such a disaster would a family within sight of a major Interstate be sitting there in their fully lighted house and yard with only two young boys to protect the place. Someone with some sense might have convinced them that being a bug light in a nation full of starving bugs is not a good idea. Nor would they answer the door with a "what the hell are you doing here? Huh? Whatcha trying to do there you bad guy!" Reality might have sunk in sometime before Kyle arrived. Again, the mother of this family is weak, can't even control her own children, and apparently sits around being protected from a really stupid plan by a couple of mentally challenged sons disregard her as some innocent cardboard cutout that they need to protect.In summation, the story is too unbelievable, the characters are too cartoonishly silly and shallow, the bad guys are too clownishly bad and seem to be drawn heavily from how TV portrays killers and rapists.I'm not all complaints. I gave it three stars because there is hope for this story, and obviously a lot of people have bought it and enjoyed it. The writer has talent. Hopefully he will study some more history and survivalism, and maybe plant a garden and raise his own food for a year so he can have a real idea of what it takes to survive even a year when everything is working. I did read the whole book (although admittedly I had to speed read through the hundreds of pages of emotional nonsense and unproductive daydreaming), and that says something. I would hope that the writer might some day revisit this work and do an overhaul. If not, I think I would buy or at least check out more from him. I would recommend the book, because it is very cheap and it has some value as is. I wanted to do more than three stars, but I just couldn't.

You barely have time to settle into your chair, kindle open on your lap before the excitement beings in 77 Days in September. The story is broken into several different viewpoints at different times as the story progresses. Mostly, however, this is told from the vantage point of Kyle Tait who is waiting to pick up his flight in the George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas which will take him home to his family in Deer Creek, Montana. His flight is late taking off, which turns out to be the one thing that saves his life. His seat mate is a fellow named Ed and they strike up a bit of a friendship. We see the other side of the story through Kyle's Wife's eyes up in Montana, cut off from civilization and dealing with her own set of problems with three young children to take care of and feed.In the beginning of the story, we are told about a group (whether they are terrorists, or Chinese or Russians is never explained) who managed to send up a 300 ton atomic bomb quite high above the oxygen level of the atmosphere. Another bomb is sent east, but due to one thing or another, it does not detonate. However, the first bomb does it's job and an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse)immediately fries all electronic wiring on the surface of the earth, affecting as far as we know, at least the USA, Canada and possibly Mexico. Electrical power lines are completely fried. All telephone lines are severed. Anything with electronic components in them immediately shut down. Society comes to a stand still. The premise is frightening but worse, the reality, as days go by, will bring about a complete breakdown of society. As one man explained it, the first day people will be in shock. The second day, the looters will come in and start emptying stores. As each day goes by, the scenario deteriorates until society no longer resembles a society of law and order, of courtesy and kindness. It will be replaced by starving people willing to do almost anything to feed themselves and their families. Kyle and Ed are on the jet as it is rolling down the runway just before the bomb detonates. As everyone settles into their seats for the usual flight procedures, the jet just lifts off the runway when suddenly, all systems simply stop. The jet rams down hard on the front wheels, breaking them, sending the plane veering unsteadily into the dirt at the end of the runway and barreling too fast toward man built berms or hills. The jet hits a berm, flies up into the air, breaks apart, and settles back down on the ground in several pieces. Ed, Kyle's seat mate, has passed out. Kyle looks around the cabin and the sheer chaos he sees fills him with panic. He fights his urge to simply run to the back door, and jump out to safety. This is the BEST part of the story. It is the moment that weeds out the heroes and the weaklings. Kyle almost heads for the door, but decides instead to try to bring Ed around to help him and others wherever they need it. Ed comes to, and eventually they help an older lady out the door and down the slide. They run as far from the plane as they can which is good because it isn't long before it explodes, causing a crushing loss of life as well as pushing those who are left toward the terminal.The terminal is also in chaos. Already ticket counters have closed. The TV consoles relaying flight information are not working, televisions and radios are silent. People are milling around, some of them bloody, having been on or near planes as had Kyle and Ed. This book had me - up to this point. At the end of the book, the author asked for honest opinions and I respect that. The new self-published authors don't always have the luxury of an editor or even someone who knows who to write to, to give them advice about a storyline. This is evident in many of the stories I have read by self-published authors. If they are smart, they will reach out to their reading audience for feedback and useful criticism. And I have a little bit for Mr. Gorham. I have to tell you that I was quite disturbed the you didn't follow up on the "who" and "why" this happened. Nor did you let us know how far and wide the EMP extended. Was Canada crippled the same way? Russia? China? Did a war break out? Was the entire world eventually affected by this diabolical plan? I seriously wanted to know. If Mr. Gorham had continued the stories started in the beginning about how the government was faring or if there even WAS still a working government somewhere in the United States the story would have been complete. This, to me, was a major oversight. I believe the book called The Road was similar to this one (only really NOT as good). So, not allowing the reading public to understand the vastness of damage done to the world and why that damage was done, is something that never got finished for me. I felt like half of the book was missing! I thought Kyle's determination to walk 1,500 miles from Texas to Montana and his many sometimes terrifying, sometimes amazingly kind experiences were valid and rang too true for me. But as I said, the book felt half finished to me. I didn't need pages and pages of technical information, I just wanted to know if this was the beginning of something worse, or simply the end of the electronics era. It matters!If the author had given me a clue as to how badly the whole world was affected (or not), it would have helped me to understand the entire story far better. Without this extra information, it felt a little like a soap opera. ****SPOILER ALERT**** Kyle gets on the road, Kyle gets beaten up. Kyle heals. He gets back on the road, he gets beaten up again, some nice person helps him get better and he's back on the road again. Meanwhile, Jennifer is still dealing with the issues of a community falling apart (about as badly as she is), and to top it off, the Sheriff is stalking her!! You KNOW this can't end well.I truly do believe that had that third view, the view of the bigger picture, would have added so much to this story and made it almost a classic. Sir, you had a beautiful book written, but you left out a fundamental piece. You are very gifted as a writer! There were some instances where you used the same word twice in a sentence or the interactions between characters were needlessly clumsy. These are not big deals and are easily addressed. But that third view NEEDED to be in the book so we, as an audience, had closure about what was going to happen from the end onward. I give you 4 and a half for writing style, 4 for imaginative writing, but 2 for leaving out that third narrative. It didn't have to be long and involved, just enough so that we knew how far the EMP pulse spread, how many other bombs went off world wide, whether Russia or China were invading countries taking advantage of the present weakness or the middle east finally blowing up in full-out war. I wanted to know.I want you to know I look forward to your next book because this one was good enough for me to become a fan of your's. If you think I was hard on you, you should see what I think of James Patterson, Danielle Steele, J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts), Patricia Cornwell and so many others who started out so good and now, I won't even read their books. Best wishes to you, sir. Thank you for keeping me up until 5:00 this morning! It could have been better, but it still was quite satisfying. I look forward to reading many more of your books. I also highly recommend any of you to read this book. I am sure you will enjoy it. As I said - I lost an entire night's sleep over it - and I rarely do that. So, do yourself a favor if you want an exciting, interesting, well-written book to read. I don't think you will be disappointed.

The early part of the book is easily the most compelling. Having read "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen I was casting around for a similarly themed post-EMP book. There seems to be a quite a few of them at the moment.Unlike "One Second After", which is set in a small town in North Carolina, this book begins in a large population centre, just as the main character is about to fly home. The EMP hits just as the plane is about to take off and the consequences of a total loss of electronics aboard the plane are definitely a page turner.Unfortunately, once events move beyond the airport, things start to get a little more tedious. The book divides itself between the hero, Kyle Tait, trying to hike home and events back home with his wife and family.As other reviewers have pointed out, the author often gets Kyle in a seemingly hopeless situation, only to be rescued by a convenient deus ex machina. Not once or twice but several times, to the extent that it starts to become grating.The story back home is even more tedious. Kyle's wife is being eyed up by someone who wants to step into his place (Kyle is likely either dead or unlikely to return home). He's pleasant and friendly at first but it's all to obvious that he's a wrong 'un. Considering how obvious this is, the repetitive bits of story that play out until the inevitable confrontation just feel like padding.The basic story idea is good, but the execution is weak.

I'm amazed this book got so many positive reviews! It's a great idea (survival post EMP attack) but is very poorly executed. First of all it's very badly written. I don't expect great literature from a kindle cheapie but the dialogue is clumsy, forced and clunky. The author really can't write dialogue scenes that seem in any way real or natural. And the characters... Characters are either brave, resourceful, good (and usually religious) or they are evil, serial killing rapists. It's all black and white, there's no shades of grey, the characterisation is more complex in a Disney cartoon!Then there's the plot. It's a great twist on a post apocalypse. Not zombies or a plague but a USA hit by an EMP which leaves the infrastructure intact and doesn't kill anyone (initially) but takes society back to before the electronic era. But it's a concept that's poorly explored and almost ignored after the initial event. The main character just keeps bumbling through the world and the fact that millions of people would be close to starvation is totally ignored. The bigger issues are not even considered and instead the plot circles round the male protagonist walking home. Which brings me onto plot holes. He has to cross several states to reach his wife and children. Cars and motorbikes are useless. So instead of finding a bike and loading up the saddle bag he uses a....handcart! He could have halved his journey if he only had the brains to think of a cycle. And his wife is a victim of a sexual assault, is scared of the man in question but doesn't tell anyone because she thinks it's nothing! Of course while the country was falling apart post terrorist attack she was dressed up in her teddy waiting for hubby to get home. Female sexuality and emancipation has rather passed the author by!I also find the religious aspect naive, silly and rather unpleasant. There's one scene where it is said that god must exist and natural selection is clearly false as human beings look out for each other. Not only is that very poor logic it shows zero understanding of evolution and natural selection. Then there's the wife who, being pure, didn't have sex with her husband before marriage. Her husband's previous girlfriend (who didn't have "the values" of the wife) *did* have sex and so we are invited to look down on her. Of course we aren't invited to look down on the man! Just the woman and her dodgy values. A nice bit of misogynism thrown in there.So if you like huge plot holes, pathetic female characters, male characters who are nice but dim, and worrying religious undertones this book is for you. Otherwise there are far better post apocalypse books out there.

The EMP event portrayed in the book makes you wonder just how vulnerable modern civilisation is, and how dependent we are on international logistics to survive, even in the short term.This is quite low key in terms of action and the gang style mayhem often portrayed in books covering similar issues. I found the characters well portrayed, believable and easy to relate to, be they the good, the bad, or the ugly. Intimate in its relating the experiences of both the husband and wife who are the main players, it also weaves a very convincing background against which their tales are told. Well worth reading.

As an avid reader of this genre I decided to buy this book as its always good to try and help new writers grow. The book is an entertaining read, which highlights a very real danger if a leading nation was to be hit by an emp attack.The writing style of the author is very good, using varying styles of writing so as not to become repetitive, and also giving sufficient background on each major character to allow the reader to care what happens to them.It is the work of a good author that when you finish a book you wished for a further 100 pages and this was how I felt at the end.Ray Gorham, a very good read sir. I look forward to reading more by you.

A fantastic and brilliantly written novel. For me it was a "Personal journey of survival" through some extremely dangerous times. The author keeps you gripped throughout and I couldnt put it down! Won't describe the book because i wouldnt do it justice! Hope to find more by this author.