Event Horizon: Book Two in The Perseid Collapse Series by Steven Konkoly

Event Horizon: Book Two in The Perseid Collapse Series by Steven Konkoly
Published by the Author, March 2014

We’re back in the world of Alex Fletcher and the EMP blast/Atlantic tsunami/possible meteor strike/possible Chinese Attack on the US for a further romp through a US tearing itself apart.  If you haven’t read the initial novel in this world, The Jakarta Pandemic, and the first book in this series, The Perseid Collapse, you should – they’re good.

In this world, there was a major pandemic last year in 2013 that killed millions around the world.  It’s not an End of the World sized event 99+% is killed but a pandemic like the ones we've been warned about over the past years that could cause a partial societal and economic collapse.  In the 6 years after the pandemic, the US is more internally militaristic than it is today, there are more prepper types of varying degrees around and more anti-government militia types as well.

So this book opens with Alex trying to find his son and son’s girlfriend in Boston before it completely falls apart in the wake of the EMP blast and tsunami and get them back to the relative safety of their family safe house in rural Maine.  Meanwhile, Boston is being overrun by a paramilitary anti-government intent on protecting it from the government’s black helicopters.  On top of that, Alex is being reactivated in the US Marines to help make Maine a safe zone to start reclamation.   AND a Maine militia lead by a serious nutjob is intent on carving out his own post-Apocalyptic kingdom on top of the not quite corpse of the United States.

I've mentioned it in my reviews for the other two books and it’s worth mentioning again, if I have a complaint, it’s that Alex as the main character is a super prepared ex-special forces marine who’s  a little too well prepared to feel real.  Now, that’s a bit par for the course for thriller protagonists; he’s not a perfect little gung-ho Mary Sue character who can kill all the bad guys without breaking a sweat.  Konkoly is a much better writer than that.  But, Alex Fletcher is a bit of superhero.

While the first book in the series had a lot of character building, this one is majorly action packed.

Konkoly’s secondary characters can be killed and his characters get hurt.  They suffer mental anguish.  For the most part, they are decently rounded out characters.  I only started reading this series because it has an apocalyptic bent to it, but he is a thriller writer and has been at it for some time now.  I may well start reading some of his other works, but I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.

4 Stars.