(contains plot spoilers)

Set 10 years after ‘Last Light’, ‘Afterlight’ picks up the story of a group of survivors living on an off-shore gas platform. The UK is largely desolate and uninhabited with only small groups of aggressors apparently still surviving. We learn a little of the time in-between the two stories but not really enough to solidly imagine how life came to be so sparse. The community on the gas platform includes the survivors of the family we followed through ‘Last Light’ and they are a much leaner tougher group after their survival on the mainland and escape to the platform.

The group has come to be self-sufficient on most areas, making sporadic runs to the mainland for remaining supplies including fresh water, clothing and a few ‘luxuries’ if they can be found.   Among some of the younger members there is a desire to explore the mainland and follow up some vague rumours of a rebuilt community in London, complete with power and government. This main thread of the story leads to the group of survivors living in the old O2 arena under the control of a former emergency official who now runs the ‘community’ through the use of his own teenage militia. Outside the arena there appears to be no life apart from packs of feral, cannibal children. When the leader hears of the gas platform and, knowing that his own supplies are dwindling, he pictures a better life for him and his militia if he commandeers the platform.

Alongside this there is the arrival of a European refugee on the platform who is rescued on shore and quickly becomes a religious leader on the platform, threatening the stability of its community.

The story is mainly about the dual sources of conflict facing the platform community, one from within and one from outside. Whilst I sympathized with the main characters and the story moves along with some pace, this sequel lacks much of the impact of the first book and too many characters are killed off. The O2 location with its ‘gangsta’ young militia has some very gritty elements but never quite feels real in the mind. The preacher threat has more impact because of the claustrophobic nature of the environment on the platform where it is easy to imagine the growing threat from within.

The moral question is posed of whether the efforts of the platform community to re-establish electrical power is an attempt to improve life or an attempt to return to a past of greed and frivolous need of ‘things’ which is doomed to fail all over again. There is no definitive answer proposed in Afterlight and it is left to the reader to decide.

I enjoyed Afterlight and the pace was good enough to keep me turning the pages waiting for what came next, but ultimately it failed to quite live up to ‘Last Light’.

 

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