(This is off the subject, but I watched the season premiere of Project Runway on Thursday night and I COMPLETELY disagreed with the judges. I cannot believe they kicked off McKell from Utah, her little dress was cute though immodest. I cannot believe they kept the idiot in the derby hat who just turned a kimono around backwards and stapled it. And I can't believe they kept the hispanic guy who dressed his model as a Dubai pole dancer. And the winner's dress--UGH! It looked like a shirtwaist dress I had in the 1980's, with metallic fabric added as shoulder pads. What were they thinking?)
I was all excited to read the "Great and Terrible" series by Chris Stewart (no relation), and I read Volumes 2-6 in only a couple of weeks.
Yes, they were exciting, and they were about the end of the world and nuclear war, and an ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack, but they were not what I wanted.
I still think "One Second After", which was written by non-LDS writer William R. Forstchen, described the end of the world better than the LDS author Stewart did in the "Great and Terrible" series.
Forstchen included all the suffering from not having food, and the ways people tried to provide food and shelter and protection for themselves and their families. Stewart gave the main characters backpacks full of food and then they got food from the army, so the scarcity of food played little role in the plot.
Forstchen and Stewart both included the people breaking up into tribes because the government was destroyed, but Forstchen described it in more detail. And I was fascinated by Forstchen's description of the jury-rigged solutions the people came up with to communicate, fight a war, kill game, purify water, cook food, build latrines, and transport goods. Stewart's people basically travelled on foot carrying their supply of food until they got transported by government helicopter. The main characters did not have to find ways to communicate with one another, because they had miraculous spiritual promptings to guide them to each other. (Thats good, but I want to know what to do should the miraculous promptings fail to arrive.) He never described how to obtain food, water, and sanitation while they were under attack.
And it really annoyed me that Stewart left a lot of plotlines just hanging there. What happened to the money and the gold that they buried near their car? Whatever happened to the man who was trying to find Azadeh to give her the $12 million? What happened to the blonde rich girl? I have no idea why he went into such detail to put those people into the story if he totally forgot to ever mention them again.
i liked the Great and Terrible books a lot. I think the books by Stewart are more for teenagers and helping to remind them when, where and what era they are born in. Giving more hope than fear to kids.
ReplyDeletemy favorite book so far is "Patriots- Surviving the coming collapse" by James W. Rawles. He went into more detail than even "One Second After" did. A lot of his information is on defense, he encourages all people to go to the canneries and get food storage. Even though he likes the how LDS members encourage preparedness he believes we are misguided in our faith.
KJ
I agree with your comment about the unfinished plot lines about Azadeh and the money and the buried stash of goods. The rich blonde girl's story was pretty well wrapped up, because it says Luke didn't talk to her anymore. She was only around for a few chapters anyway. Also, an epilogue about what happened to Mary would have been nice too. However your other complaints seem to boil down to "Another person wrote a book that I liked more." I felt that this series was more geared towards inspiring people to remember the Lord and trust in him.
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