Tom Abrahams did it again – and this time he added a freaking shark attack. Are you kidding me? In a post-apocalyptic book? I mean it’s not Sharknado… but still, what a surprise. Adrift is the second book in The Scourge series – taking us to the start of the apocalyptic event that spurs the Traveler series (and it’s uber famous Marcus Battle). The Scourge series allows us to view the apocalypse from those who weren’t as prepared to face it as Battle may have been.
I think as I read more and more books from Abrahams I find myself borrowing the Kindle Unlimited version just so that I can highlight lines that I like or ones that made me laugh. There was a hilarious line about Battle in this one that made me pause because I was laughing so hard. I ended up highlighting a bunch of lines in this one.
I wanted to write what Adrift was about, but honestly just read the book. If you enjoyed Unprepared you’re definitely going to enjoy Adrift. And if you enjoyed the Traveler or especially if you enjoyed the Alt Apocalypse books – you’re going to enjoy the Scourge series.
Instead of a full review where I go into the book – I wanted to take the time to chat about the things that I thought Abrahams was trying to show in Adrift. One was the toll that the apocalypse would take on different people. He showed what it did to Mike (I believe there was a line about how it took the world ending for Mike to start living). He also showed what it did to people who couldn’t handle it (and the arc around this was super interesting but if I say any more it will give a major plot point away). He showed how quickly gangs and those who were unprepared would come and threaten the lives of the ones who did prepare.
I think he also wanted to show different aspects of human interaction (the scene with the paint stir sticks… oh man, I did not see that coming). And finally, he wanted to show how the Texas we know from Battle’s stories in The Traveler actually became Texas. He spent more time on this than I expected and he really sparked some of the memory of the Traveler books – so much so that I want to go back to the first one to remember exactly what Texas looked like in that series (I remember it over the 8-book series, but not like the back of my hand).
One last thing… Shotguns? Heh, if you’ve read any of the Traveler books and are reading this – there’s a nice easter egg in it related to shotguns.
Overall, I thought that Adrift was a fantastic book that I could not put down (two straight nights where I stayed up later than I should have). Abrahams asserts himself as one of the best Post-Apocalyptic authors with Adrift and I can’t wait to see where Mike and team end up in Grounded.