REVIEW - LOCKDOWN ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY NICK KOLAKOWSKI & STEVE WEDDLE

Title: Lockdown

Edited By: Nick Kolakowski & Steve Weddle

Genre: Post Apocalyptic

Release Date: 16th June 2020

BLURB from Goodreads

In Lockdown, 19 of today’s finest suspense, horror, and crime writers explore how humanity reacts to the ultimate pandemic. From New York City to the Mexican border, from the Deep South to the misty shores of Seattle, their characters are fighting for survival against incredible odds. An anthology for our time, showing how the worst crises can lead to the best of us. Proceeds from Lockdown will go to support BINC, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, as it seeks to help booksellers recover from the devastating COVID-19 crisis.

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REVIEW

At one time I would have read this collection of stories and thought them really far fetched and unlikely to happen. By the time I was reading this Anthology the world was in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic. I suppose it made me read these individual stories from a different point of view and think that they could probably/possibly happen. The different stories tell how groups of people cope with a virus and the danger of getting it.

In one particular story a man is going out to sea fishing to try and earn enough money to take his ill wife to hospital for treatment. The man is so desperate, that he is pushed into doing something he would never have even thought of without the virus spreading and his wife desperately needing treatment. It shows how far someone, in this particular story, this man who is devoted to his wife can be pushed without snapping and committing a crime.

In another story it tells of a group of people moving into a holiday home of the rich and famous. Taking the local chef/cooks to this mansion so they can cook and feed everyone. At first everything is fine with plenty of food and provisions. Then people begin to disappear, and the food becomes so scarce a group has to go out looking for more supplies. Meat seems to turn up just when it is most needed, but how long can it continue and where are the people going when they leave the mansion?

Other stories have people hoarding food and selling it on at extortionate prices to those that can afford it. In most of the stories the characters begin with plans, from meals to exercise, then slowly the meals rely on whatever the characters can buy, steal or forage for. The characters initially continue to get up, wash, dress attend to children and pets. Then slowly they get up out of bed much later, don’t bother getting dressed as they aren’t going anywhere, eat whatever they can get at whatever time of day they get it etc. It shows the characters decline as the “normal world” declines too.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing reading this book were that the Lockdown Anthology is a great collection of different characters and how they cope in their different versions of Lockdown.

To sum up, I have to admit that it was kind of surreal reading these types of stories during the current covid-19 pandemic, though on the whole I did enjoy reading the anthology! I will certainly be checking out other titles by some of the authors I have discovered in this anthology.