For a while, with no small degree of admiration–OK, and a tad of envy–I have watched M.L. Banner’s progress as an indie author. Whatever I may say in the rest of this review, his storytelling has demonstrably engaged a great many readers. Launching off with Stone Age, his books have landed on the upper echelons of Best Sellers lists. Regardless of my opinion, his readers get him, and there’s a lot to be said about that.

Delivered as a sobering warning to what could happen should electromagnetic pulse (EMP) energy from the sun burn up the whole earth’s power grid and destroy all electronics-based technology, Stone Age is well worth the read, if nothing else, as a cautionary tale, and, I hope, a call to action. Collectively, we should do something to mitigate against the risk of natural and manmade EMPs. As such, Stone Age gives us a story driven primarily—and strongly—by a compelling, larger than life (and perhaps death) concept.

But is it enough? It was for me.

It was strong enough to overcome the story’s faults, several of which would make me put down most stories, but which couldn’t quite undo this one. The author’s research and creation of a world (down to the “real” world CME Institute website) where a solar-driven catastrophe has thrust the earth into despair kept me reading. Even if Stone Age is only a setup for future stories, it does so with a strong hook that encouraged me to overlook its demerits.

Now, about those faults…

First, starting from the ending which isn’t one, but rather presents us with a cliffhanger to pull us to the next story (Desolation), Stone Age requires a commitment to a series. As the first in this series (accompanied by a couple of side stories, one of which the author gives away for free on his site), Stone Age’s job comprises the presentation of a big threat, and its initial manifestation. If you demand any sort of comprehensive resolution at the end of the story, you may be disappointed. [Footnote #1]

As a second weakness, to get to the impending threat, we must hopscotch through a series of minuets, each going into extensive detail about the background of various characters and their life situations prior to The Event. How these become relevant remains unclear for much of the book, and in some cases, stays hanging for the next one. For all the narrative exposition, we get little payoff in the way of character-driven conflict. In this sense, Stone Age follows a formula that many disaster tales and movies apply: present us with a lot of characters in their own different situations and jump among them to show us slices of the overall catastrophe (or setup thereof), but with the weakness of never focusing enough on any one individual to show us why we should care about him or her. [Footnote #2]

In defense of the author, I will say that some of the scientific and historical information carries enough girth and complexity to require a more narrative (a.k.a., “telling”) approach than I prefer in this type of action-based story.

That said, by the fifty-percent mark, when the story starts moving ahead with significant action, I did come to care for a few folks who will soon be stranded somewhere in Mexico. Even though my connection with them felt a little thin, toward the end I felt genuine concern for them. In addition, Banner’s treatment of the prepper character, Max, is deft in its avoidance of portrayals of rabid, paranoid individuals, or the other side of the cliche spectrum, the pedantic/didactic preacher who tries to proselytize everyone about the impending doom. Max is a down-to-earth guy who would do nothing if he only had himself to care for. But for his adopted family, who he has come to love, he goes to great lengths to set aside proper provisions ensuring their survival.

For one last fault, starting with the book’s title and continuing repeatedly with assertions that a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) will thrust the earth back into the stone age, we face a couple of logical difficulties.

First, not only must earth contend with an unlikely (low probability, high consequence) CME, but we must accept that once such an improbable event occurs, it will be followed by many like it, plunging land and sea into a perpetual electrocution zone. A quick gander through probability theory would suggest that while a low probability event may occur, the probability of a long string of like events drops to a much lower, virtual zero likelihood composite occurrence. But hey, this is a work of fiction, and I do think the author lays a reasonable, if not bullet-proof reason (the weakening of the earth’s magnetic field) that might justify the cascading catastrophe posited here.

Second, we can recall a time without solid state circuits and power grids: it was called the Industrial Revolution, not the Stone Age. Rather than a time when people had nothing but stone tools to fend for themselves, that non-electrical, non-digital age yielded many metal tools, some of them even mechanized. Granted, since most of the know-how and information for those technologies would be lost inside the bellies of computers, it might take us some time to dig through paper libraries to sort things out. While we wait, we would have the shovels, knives and guns we had before the CME hit. It seems a tad over-stated, then, that we would be in a Stone Age while humans figure out how to rebuild or recover at least a portion of what they had prior to the catastrophe.

More credible and sobering, however, would be the human suffering that would ensue during that recovery period. Our present dependence of technology to run our lives would leave us naked and destitute. Yes, hunger and disease would set in. Yes, chaos and disorder would unleash the human cruelty progress and stability have held at bay—for the most part—during our modern age. For me, that alone provides a sufficient threat to make me heed Stone Age’s warning, and to recommend it as a must, if at times flawed read.

[Rating 3 out of 5 stars]

• Footnote #1:
  While I wrote one of my series in a somewhat episodic manner, where some things cliff-hang from one story to the next, I always ensure that at least one major character arc in the story goes all the way from setup to resolution. I’m not sure I can quite say that about Stone Age except to point at the catastrophe itself, which goes from threat (setup/definition) to occurrence (resolution in the sense that it happens). The issue here, however, is that this happens at the non-human level. It is situational rather than personal. It is the characters that need to go from point A (setup of conflict/challenge) to point B (resolution/decision/life change). No one here changes at the character level (except maybe Bill, who makes a drastic decision I won’t spoil), and I think that detracts from the power of the story.
• Footnote #2:
  I will do here something I seldom do in my reviews, dare to suggesting how another author should better write their story. I do so only because I saw (and see!) so much potential in Stone Age that though I don’t recommend the author a re-write it, I feel nonetheless compelled to make general suggestions for the sake of illustration. How should Stone Age‘s beginning (and background information) be written? With drama, and lots of it. Have Dr. Carrington, or preferably a young student of his, running through the halls of Congress, or the Pentagon, or even the White House if can get a visitor badge, to tell whoever will bend an ear in his direction about the impending danger. A precursor event has occurred, somewhere else on earth, showing the potential of the “big one” to wreak havoc, and now this scientist must convince the powers that be to take action, at a minimum to safeguard some of the most critical electrical infrastructure around the nation. In this we would see the fear, we would get to identify with someone that holds it, and we would also experience the lackadaisical attitudes of government officials that have led to a total state of unpreparedness. More than that, the reader would be presented with a hard choice: dismiss the panicked scientist as a loony, or consider the evidence he offers. This is but one example of how the story could be infused with some character-driven action from the outset, rather than hopscotch around to introduce characters whose relevance we don’t (can’t?) come to appreciate.