The End of October by Lawrence Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This mid-apocalyptic sci-fi novel is remarkably prescient about a global pandemic. The one in the book is more severe than COVID-19, but the idiocies of the U.S. and other governments is amazingly like what has come to pass in real life. This book is yet more proof that the current pandemic was foreseeable and its effects largely preventable. Although this book was published in April 2020, just after the start of the COVID pandemic, it was clearly written many months or years before, yet the course is so accurately described you would think it was ripped right from today’s headlines. Many will put a political spin on the book, but I think the author wasn’t trying to be partisan or even political, beyond a general warning that we should be well-prepared for a pandemic.
The book is an entertaining read for those of us who enjoy science fiction, but it would actually be more fun if it didn’t adhere so closely to what comes across on the evening news. It can give you the willies to think about it. The author writes well and the plot holds together. I do think it was overly long, but that’s a minor fault.