‘The Plague Chronicles’ – Guy N. Smith (Piatkus)

There are still hardback copies of this book to be had but my copy is the Kindle version. I’d normally note that in the title (Guy N. Smith eBooks tend to be published via Black Hill Books) but all of his eBooks appear to have been taken down from Amazon, something to do with the management of his estate I think. But anyway…

‘The Plague Chronicles’ is the last book on my HBR pile and while I would have got to it eventually, the particularly grim looking cover art piqued my interest (because deep down, I’m still that little kid who loved looking at the horror books in the newsagent, I think we all are really) and I read it over the course of a few commutes and at least one night where I couldn’t sleep. And it ended up being one of only a few Guy N. Smith books that didn’t quite work for me… It’s not a bad book but, I’ll try and explain…

Trevor, Susan and their teenage son Mark are, to all intents and purposes, a normal family. And with the world in the grip of a terrible drought and tempers in the city are frayed to breaking point, they think a spell at their holiday home in the country might be what they need to repair their troubled relationship. But things are no better than they were in the city – and before long they are fighting, not only for their marriage, but for their own survival. The world, for too long abused by humanity, is taking its revenge – and as anarchy rules on the city streets and chaos follows catastrophe, they face a horrifying choice. To live or die …

What I love about Guy N. Smith’s books (quite apart from all the gore) is that there is a clear enemy, natural or supernatural, and that enemy has a motivation to go against our hero(es).This approach not only raises the stakes but also makes it easy for me to get into the read quickly. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’m all middle-aged now and don’t always want to do the heavy lifting when I’m reading a book ;o) All these biblical plagues looks cool on the page and Smith has a lot of fun using them to wreck his setting and anyone who happens to be passing by (doing his usual 'build them up and then fuck them up' thing). There isn't the sense of 'focussed evil' though that you find in other Guy N Smith books and this meant that there was nothing here for me to grab onto and fear. 'The Plague Chronicles' is a perfectly decent apocalyptic novel but it doesn't have that extra 'fear factor' that would have lifted it to the next level. It makes me wonder what this book could have been like if Guy N. Smith had gone 'full Stephen King' and made 'The Plague Chronicles' his 'The Stand'. A little more room to play with and maybe the book would have found the level that it deserves.

Because it does deserve it. Don't think that it's a bad read as it isn't. Smith gives us a good set of characters to get behind and explores how the apocalypse impacts on the family unit as well as individuals. The menace might not be all there but the spectacle is and that's the main thing. It may not have some of the edge of the nastier (in a good way, naturally) Guy N. Smith books but 'The Plague Chronicles' still has plenty to recommend it. Definitely give it a read if you see it, hopefully 'The Plague Chronicles' will be back as an eBook very soon.