Let me start by saying this is one of the best future doomsday books I have read in a long time.

The setting for this story is the near future with the planet overpopulated and ruled by a large corporation. Where people no longer practice free will, but are content to be just another cog in the system. The story centers around a group of people that are dissatisfied with this state of affairs. People who refuse to tow the line in the new corporate structure of the world to fit in with the masses. Naturally they are exiled to the now wild Australia where they must survive the wilderness by their wits and instinct. Its here in the outback that they find their purpose and what it means to be human.

Dietrich is able bring in doomsday scenario into the realm of reality, not by predicting one great event that destroys all humanity, but instead small incremental steps lead us to our destruction. It’s a scary future not because of destruction and death, but because it's plausible. The tale of survival and the actions taken by the characters in the main plot of the story is unbelievably good and I thought could stand alone even without the futuristic setting.

Dietrich is able to tell both a riveting, realistic survival story where people reestablish their humanity in a futuristic doomsday setting in a way that makes me envy writers.
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