It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival

Zero Power, Book 1

By: Max Lockwood

Narrated by: Becket Royce

The EMP strike was just the beginning of it all.... Clara Thomas was a 9th grade English teacher, living a simple life at home with her sister and grandmother. She always had plans to settle down some day and become a writer. Sometimes, plans are just dreams left unfulfilled. They thought that the widespread outage was just within their vicinity. They were wrong. Without any electricity and power, Clara needs to help her family survive. The people in society have become restless, and will do anything for food. With the fall of power, law and order have become nonexistent, letting people get away with crimes. Will Clara be able to be strong for her family and those around her to get them through this crisis? Will she be able to get herself through it?

©2017 Max Lockwood (P)2017 Max Lockwood

It Began

Any additional comments?

Overall an entertaining listen. This is more of an apocalypse "light" story. I had a really hard time with this book. It's a slower moving story that gives a lot of background/inner dialog which made the story drag at times, so it wasn't holding my attention. I kept waiting for something "more" to happen. Eventually the story does pick up a little, gets a bit more interesting and then it ends. Just when we are about to get more insight to Tessa. So a slight cliffhanger.

It's a story about people who have no clue what to do in an emergency situation. Those people who never take a second glance around them or think "what if". It's different in the sense it's about people who are not prepper's and therefore not prepared for any kind of disaster. Even though they are not prepper's they just seem clueless. It's hard to remember sometimes that there are really people in world who are this clueless.

Clara was not an immediately likable character. She was not a strong female character. She was depressing, weak and had low self esteem for the first half of the book. Add in her relationship with her neighbor and she was even more unlikable. She is suppose to be a 9th grade English teacher but she has no clue what an EMP is? Doesn't she do a lot of reading being an English teacher? She is completely naïve about the world around her until it changes. Slowly she starts to become a more self assured and independent person. She still isn't equipped to handle the changes in the world around her. She is learning as she goes. Which is a good way to get killed in the way she does it.

Cooper was likable but again not someone with a good grasp on their situation. He came across as a puppy dog especially in the beginning.

Her sister Tessa had more sense than she did at times even being "crazy". Tessa was the most interesting character in the story. There is definitley something going on with her.

Beckett Royce did a fantastic job with the narration as usual. She has a voice that is easy to listen to for long periods of time. Clearly spoken with a nice even pace. Good character voices. Her narration is what kept me listening especially in the beginning. She portrayed the characters perfectly, as they were written. Very enjoyable

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily provided this review.

An Unrealistic Dystopian Fantasy

If you are interested in a post apocalyptic soap opera where the main character is an anti-gun liberal who is promiscuous and lacks morals, then this book is for you! The main character spends too much time in inner dialogue and reveals that she is a headcase that easily gets sidetracked. The characters have little chance of surviving with the lack of preparation and the weak storyline. I was jealous of the characters that died early in the story!

personal drama!

do not get this book. to many details on ones love life. no action... I recommend James Wesley Rawles books for beginners not this one.

an okay EMP story, cliff hanger beware!

Would you ever listen to anything by Max Lockwood again?

yes but not in this series.

Any additional comments?

It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival (Zero Power #1) by Max Lockwood is an audible book I requested and the review is voluntary. The first third of the book Clara should be in Pooh's Corner as Eeyore. She sounds just like him without anti-depressants. This is before the power goes out. She lives with a crazy sister and grandmother that is going senile but I think she is just as bad. The last part of the book gets better but now she thinks she knows everything, I think she found some drugs along the way. It ends in a cliff hanger, a pet peeve of mine. If you don't mind those, good for you...I don't. It does depict, here and there, of what life might be like without power. Makes a person think. It is also different from other EMP survival stories. I doubt, out of all the people there she would have been picked to go find help from politicians seeing how she was just some random school teacher that hated her job... but...it was an okay read overall. What made it all better was the narration. This is it's saving grace for me. The narrator added a lot to the story. If I had been just reading it, I probably would have given it lower numbers but the narration was good and gave it that extra oomph that it needed to keep me going and interested. Worth a read, I mean listen. Will I try another of this author's work? Yes, can't see why not. Just not in this series.

A cautionary tale

It Began is a cautionary tale. Clara is a teacher. A career that leaves her unfulfilled but it pays the bills and supports her family. At home she provides for her grandmother whose mind is slipping and her sister Tessa. Her sister has visions or a heavy sixth sense that predicts the future. Clara and everyone mostly consider her insane. When an EMP strikes and takes out electricity it changes their lives. All the conveniences used in the characters daily lives is gone and food is in high need.

The story wasn't as suspenseful as I was hoping but was an interesting story. The pace is very slow. There wasn't much solved in this segment except the showing of how Clara and the town she lives in deals with everything. There is a bit of mystery surrounding Tessa and a few spots where delinquent behavior is displayed. I tend to think people would act far more rashly than the book paints but these people are pretty mild. There was a couple other things that didn't add up either but I don't give away any spoilers.

It's a decent listen.

A good story!

I have listened to and read a bunch of grid down stories and have yet to come across one not from the perspective of a non-prepper. It is a refreshing change of pace.

The main character proves to be a strong woman that is capable and rises to each test, not always successfully. I look forward to seeing how much more she has to grow as the series progresses.

Not my cup of tea

I hate writing bad reviews. That being said, I can't really recommend this book. The author spent an inordinate amount of time on the lead characters mental state which by itself kind of makes the story difficult to hang onto. Its not because of the lead being female - I really enjoy a strong woman as lead versus the male prepper. It is just that there were so many glaring holes in the logic tree that makes up the storyline that the story was just unbelievable. I won't rehash them here as other reviewers have already done so.

Becket Royce did a great job as narrator I just wished that the story could have been as good as her narration.

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com.

While I was given this book in exchange for a review, I have reviewed the book honestly to the best of my ability. I would never recommend a book to someone else if I would not purchase it myself

An interesting concept

What if an EMP was set off, what would life be like? As Clara is on her way to work, that is exactly what happens.
There were some parts that I found myself very annoyed with the main character, but I found that I needed to find out where the storyline would go.

It Began, by Max Lockwood, is the first book in the Zero Power series.

Becket Royce does a nice job with the narration.

Slow Pace and then a cliffhanger.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The pace needs to be a lot faster. It looks like in order to make it into a series of books, the author added a lot of fillers in the book where nothing happens. This just wastes readers' time. The pacing is very slow and gets boring. When the action starts, that too isn't captivating and is pretty meh. The characters take actions which don't make any sense. The characters are not relatable to begin with. There was no thrill or suspense. And at the end, suddenly there's a cliffhanger. I hate cliffhangers.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narrator did a decent job. That's the only good thing about this book.

Was It Began: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival worth the listening time?

Not really.

Any additional comments?

I received this audiobook for free from the author / narrator / publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

No Power = Restart Button On Your Life

The thing that I really liked about It Began was the simplicity of it.  Lockwood didn't try and overdo it and go really deep into anything.  It was, what I would call a "surface level" novel where everything is at or near the surface.  There wasn't some overarching conspiracy or deep plot going on -- Lockwood kept it simple and was able to make a pretty enjoyable book in the process. 

The story itself is about a depresses teacher taking care of her family, who is currently the "other woman" in an affair when the lights go out indefinitely.  Honestly, at first, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about her.  In the beginning, she had a very "woe is me" attitude that really rubbed me the wrong way.  I was worried that it was going to continue like that. I'm not a fan of people who are like that in real life and I definitely didn't want to read a book about someone who was selfish and everything in the world was wrong and it was only affecting her. Thankfully, that was NOT how this story went.  Her character really grew on me after a little while and I noticed that some of her character flaws that annoyed or upset me in the beginning, were starting to become some of the things I enjoyed about her the most. 

Her "better half" was an interesting secondary character in It Began.  He was always there when she needed him, but would kind of fade into the shadows when he wasn't needed.  A sign of someone who really understood Clara.  The other characters in the story were her grandmother (who was sweet and easily tied with her best friend as being the most likable people in the book) and her sister who might be one of the most bizarre characters I've ever read.  I won't spoil anything about her, but be prepared (oh the irony of that statement).

One of my issues with this book was that there was basically zero talk about what happened.  We know that the power is out and we think that it's because of an EMP but that's about all we know.  We also understand that older cars and trucks work (since they don't have any electronics) but that's it.  I guess if Lockwood was trying to write it only from Clara's point of view -- she wouldn't really know what was going on until someone told her. 

Honestly, going with Becket Royce was a phenomenal idea.  The first novel that I heard with her in it was a dual narration with one of my all-time favorite narrators Kevin Pierce.  Working with Pierce, I was able to hear her slight "attitudey" voice that I thought would work perfectly in post-apocalyptic novels.  This was the first narration of hers that I listened to where it was just her and I thought she did a wonderful job.  Royce has quickly become one of my favorite female narrators working in the PA space today. 

I received a free copy of this book. It has not affected my review of my opinion.

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