Book Review: "Ashfall"

Ashfall by Mike Mullin depicts the Earth after the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone erupts and turns the world into a dead wasteland.  This book is so frightening because it presents an entirely realistic, plausible scenario that could happen at any time and there'd be nothing we could do about it.  The book's epigraph says as much.  Our civilisation--computers, civilised medicine, clean running water, all of our art, even our species--could vanish instantly, and possibly never return, because of a natural event.

Ashfall never goes into lots of detail about the catastrophe, but the fewer details work in its favor.  We never forget that the sun no longer rises or that it is nigh impossible to do something as simple as walking because the ashen rain has the consistency of cement, making each footstep exhausting and time-consuming.  Even the action of breathing is deadly, requiring characters to take precautions when venturing outside.

The characters are entirely believable--they make near-deadly mistakes, they have great resourcefulness, they don't give up even when they know the world may never return to what they know as normal.  Alex and Darla, the leads, are so well-done that when the obligated love develops between them, it doesn't feel forced.  They are careful about their intimacy because Darla can't afford to get pregnant at this time and they can't find pills or condoms.  As well, when they say they sleep together, they mean they sleep together--they want to wake up able to reach out and touch the other person to know they both are safe.  Another character doesn't understand it, showing how much a euphemism can come to be the only meaning we understand for something.  Sleeping together doesn't always mean sex--it can mean "sleeping together."  It was a nice variation on the typical teen love story.

The only major pitfall I see in Ashfall is the inclusion of a villain.  In stories like these, the protagonists often come across hostile people, but in the capacity of one-shot obstructions, not long-running antagonists, which this book has in the first half.  The environment is the "enemy" in this story: the cold, ash, and lack of food.  No human can match that intensity.  A story like this doesn't need a villain, especially one that does something so incredibly stupid as what he does as his last act in the book.  Nobody would do something that idiotic for the sake of vengeance in this new, harsh world.  He would want to use everything he came upon and destroy nothing that could be of use to him.  Though the one question I always have about some of these apocalyptic scenarios: would people really turn to violent theft and cannibalism so quickly after a wide-spread devastating event?

If you like apocalyptic fiction in the vein of Threads and Swan Song, you should check out Ashfall. It's a quick but painful read.  I look forward to the sequel, Ashen Winter.