Uniquely familiar; a fresh Christian take on an old TEOTWAWKI theme -
Ahhh… The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI)! One of my favorite genres... and one that has been rehashed in so many ways and so many times it takes a unique perspective to give such familiar novels a fresh feel. And that is exactly what Eric Landfried has done with Solitary Man.
First of all, this is a book about (oddly enough) church planting. Most people know about mission work overseas but few American Christians ever concern themselves with domestic missions work which is usually called church planting. As a church planting pastor in a church planting organization, I absolutely did NOT expect church planting to be the theme of a Christian end-of-the-world yarn. But it is the theme of Solitary Man. Kudos to the author for that!
Secondly, the plot and characters around which the church planting take place are recognizable. Doyle, the protagonist here, is a thinly veiled carbon copy of the character Rourke from Daylight's Edge (the best 21st century zombie movie, in my humble opinion). The plot is similar, too. Doyle/Rourke is a highly skilled, military vet drifter crisscrossing an American post-apocalyptic landscape in an armored vehicle, dispatching zombies in the movie, cannibals in this novel. Both stumble across a community of well-organized survivors in search of a bus to take them to a safe haven. Meanwhile, zombies/cannibals led by a demented or zombified military man, are showing an advanced capability to organize, thus putting all survivors at enhanced risk. This is where the similarities between this novel and that movie end. In Solitary Man, Doyle, a Navy SEAL combat vet, is DRIVING an armored bus. And the survivors he finds include a thriving church in search of safe transport to launch two families into nearby survivor communities to start new churches. They convince the confirmed skeptic Doyle to take them in exchange for some fuel and off they go. It's a great take on a familiar plot. Along the way, they save a girl from her cannibal lifestyle, have run-ins with The General, a steroid enhanced military man organizing cannibals as part of a government conspiracy, establish church footholds in two stereotypically hostile societies and open the door for a sequel that just might explain how the United States fell into such a wasteland state. It's a fantastic ride and I look forward to the sequel.
Now there are some issues with this novel. It's Eric Landfried's first, after all. The two tiered POV, Doyle's in first person, everyone else in third, is not fun to read. Landfried should have picked a POV and stuck with it. Putting them in the same chapters together is confusing and much better writers have failed to pull this off. Some scenes are a bit fanciful, almost farcical -- resembling an allegory like Pilgrim's Progress more than a serious TEOTWAWKI yarn. Especially as the church-planting group finds itself preaching the Gospel in a hostile socialist community and then a hostile New Age egalitarian society. In these scenes, both Christians and non-believers come across as unoriginal stereotypes mouthing clichés we've heard before on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and TBN. I prefer more descriptive words and atmosphere to develop the mood, not clichés from the mouth of stock characters.
And finally, some elements of the story are rushed. Hopefully the sequel will explain a few things that are glossed over.
But first novel errors shouldn't stop people from reading this fine debut. Especially Christian fiction fans. This is way more interesting than the latest Amish Romance or Boy Scout Military Thriller. Recommended.