Outpost [Paperback]

When a strange infection takes hold of most of the world's population, a small group of refinery workers in the Arctic are initially protected from the pandemic. But they soon tire of waiting for a rescue that never comes, and eventually decide to make their own way south to establish contact with whatever might be left of civilisation.

The disparate bunch - a suicidal female vicar, a sikh handyman who seems to be maintaining the rig single-handedly, a body-building thug, a failed medic, a bank cashier looking for a bit of excitement, and various 'Star Trek'-like bit-part extras (i.e doomed to meet a bitter end!), always manage to take the least sensible or safe option (wouldn't you be more likely to stay put in your heated refuge with 6 months of food and no sign of the undead?!). However their foolhardiness admittedly does keep the action and excitement ticking along nicely. And this is probably the book's greatest strength - the incredibly fast pace and constant changes of scene. On the flipside, most of the characters are not fleshed out properly, and potentially tense and exciting situations often resolved without explanation (such as the crew member who exits the plot in the first half of the book, yet inexplicably reappears toward the end with no detail of how or why they engineered their own return).

The number of high octane explosions, crashes, fights, and treks through the frozen wastes convince me that the author had a screenplay in mind from the outset with this book. And it probably would translate quite well into a sort of polar '28 Days Later'. But it's a shame that someone who I think probably is capable of writing a slightly more highbrow novel (as evidenced by the convincing descriptions of the inhospitable frozen environment) has opted for action over substance or suspense.

In summary, tersely written and a very easy read, but probably more public transport fare than Pulitzer prize.

The book tells the tale of a skeleton crew marooned on a drilling rig in the Arctic Circle as the rest of the world succumbs to a mysterious plague. As the Arctic winter draws in their hopes of escape are raised and dashed (and raised and dashed...).

The evocation of the bleak environment, both within the rig and out on the ice, is handled pretty well, and the central idea of whether you want to be the first to go or the last to survive when your world ends is a recurrent theme of the dialogue between the characters. My main problem is that virtually all of the characters are so sparsely sketched that it is hard to care about any of them.

The writing style is spartan with lots of short sentences. By way of example: "Bitter. She grimaced. She scooped more painkillers. She didn't want to fall asleep before she ate enough pills to kill herself outright. She didn't want to wake.". Depending on your tastes, this is either invigorating or irritating. For me, it was irritating and interrupted the flow of the story.

There are a number of big set-pieces which help to keep the story moving along, and the survivors' reactions to the approaching plague are reasonably well framed, if not exactly novel. Personally, I think bringing in the sci-fi aspect was a mistake - a case of trying to tick too many genre boxes? Overall, this comes across as a plot treatment for a disaster movie, with some of the set pieces seemingly chosen for how they will look on-screen, rather than as a coherent development of the storyline. If you're not looking for anything deep or meaningful, it's an OK way to pass an evening or two, but overall I'd rate it as average.

I love "end of the world" senarios. They are always fun, especially after a very congested drive home when I start actively wishing the population down. The apocalypse described in this book is a perennial favourite of journalists that is often featured in horror stories of this sort; that of the global pandemic. The one in this book is just slightly more nasty that swine flu was supposed to be and much much nastier than it actually was.

So, we have the end of the world, everyone dead and our cities experiencing better traffic flow but no people. Luckily all is not lost, one small group of 15 people survive in a semi-abandoned rig in the arctic ocean. These people (all somewhat disfunctional) need to get through the arctic winter then make their way back to civilisation (not being aware that civisation has been wiped out by the flu). As we find out they are all in for a less than fun suprise.

The adventure is very fast paced and this book is quite a page turner (370 odd pages in one afternoon and evening as I recover from a case of Swine flu). The plot is (like this genre) fairly convincing as long as you dont think too deeply; but then it is supposed to be fun (in a horrific kind of way).

I am not sure that I like the writing style however for this book as i find it overly morose and morbid. When the first line begins "Jane woke, stretched, and decided to kill herself" you know that you are not going to meet bunnies and puppies on this trip. Seriously though this is the sort of thing where each reader needs to decide for themselves. I enjoyed the story and found it fast paced and exciting; I just didnt like the characterisation very much, although once the story got going (which was quick) this ceased to be a concern of mine.

This is a solid enjoyable read which I am sure many people will really enjoy. It would make an excellent film so I hope the book gets optioned by a film studio.