Book Review; After London Or, Wild England

A lot of people tend to think that post apocalyptic novels are a by product of the cold war between the United States and the now defunct USSR. A sort of cultural outlet for growing fears of impending nuclear warfare that promised worldwide devastation. Richard Jeffries book, After London Or, Wild England, is a refutation of that premise, being that it was written in the very late 1800's.

Well, Mary Shelley was writing post apocalyptic fiction before that, but that fact is neither here nor there. Although this book is relatively modern in comparison, the word choice in this book is kind of ye Olde style, so expect to crack out the dictionary occasionally.

Richard Jeffries was by training and inclination a Nature writer, and the forward for the book, which describes the local environment and geography in detail is indicative of that. He's short on ability to effectively describe dialogue, so he made up for that short coming by simply leaving out the vast majority of dialogue that one would expect. To that end, there is little to no character development for the main character, Felix, and no development at all for the secondary or minor characters. Don't expect a coming of age story with this novel.

It is, however, a pretty decent adventure yarn. One man sets off to explore the world around him and earn his fortune through wit and skill. What's not to like about that? Set aside arguments for better development, ignore the antiquated terminology and shoddy characterization, and I end up with a book that I liked more than I should have. Synergy isn't dead, I guess, but I will still knock the book down a peg for not treating human physiology more realistically. The main character should have died a dozen different times from hypothermia or dehydration but marvelously, inexplicably didn't. That's just plain bad writing.

On my corrected bell curve, this book is a 40. It's still a good book that is an acceptable read, being that I didn't waste my time when I read it. Still, I can't help but think of what the book could have been.