Yellowstone: Book 2
It was four years ago that I first read Bobby Akart with Hellfire, the first book in this Yellowstone series. Something about it really stuck with me, because after I read a really crappy and non-thrilling “thriller” by Robin Cook, I wanted to read something fresh yet actually thrilling, and this series came to mind. I looked Akart up again and was pleasantly thrilled with this second installment.
Truth be told, Akart was actually the second author who came to mind when I got frustrated with Cook. Foremost in my mind was Vaughn Heppner and his Invasion series, which I really enjoyed and which pitted the U.S. against China in future battles. The problem with thrillers about futuristic wars, though, is that times so quickly change, and such books become too implausible. When the enemy is nature as it is in this Yellowstone series, though, well, the possibilities are timeless and the thrills plausible.
This book picks up where Hellfire left off, a small crowd of scientists and Yellowstone park workers fleeing the park’s exploding volcano via helicopter. Ashby Donovan (a vulcanologist) and Jake Wheeler (a Yellowstone Park Ranger) take center stage in this one after their ride crashes in Idaho, and they need to help the survivors and figure out next steps as the nation slowly inches its way toward societal collapse in the aftermath.
With two books in the series to go, I feel like this book sets us up well for a post-apocalypse adventure that makes total sense. The volcano is sparking earthquakes. The ash is falling and covering the earth in “snow” that will never melt. The entire Yellowstone region is sinking into the earth. Stores are emptying, chaos is reigning, and Jake and Ashby are on the run. I’m looking forward to what books 3 and 4 entail!
The only thing I’d say against it is that the names “Ashby” and “Dusty” are two very distracting names to have in this book, while the whole world is being drowned in volcanic ash! Why not call them Megan and Steve? Or alternatively, why not name Jake, Vesuvius? Or Lavar?
All told, I enjoyed this book and had my thriller itch scratched. I look forward to reading the others whenever I can get the chance. Hopefully before the caldera explodes.
©2023 E.T.
Read More from Bobby Akart:
- Yellowstone: Hellfire (2018)
- Yellowstone: Inferno (2018)
- Yellowstone: Fallout (2018)
- Yellowstone: Survival (2018)
Read More Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels:
- The Last New Yorkers by George Allen England (1911)
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
- The Last Ship by William Brinkley (1988)
- Minority Report and Other Stories by Philip K. Dick (2004)
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
- The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins (2008)
- Son of Heaven (series) by David Wingrove (2011)
- Contamination (series) by T.W. Piperbrook (2013)
- Yellowstone (series) by Bobby Akart (2018)
- The Giver by Lois Lowry, adapted by P. Craig Russell (2019)
- Fairy Godparents: Raising a Fairy Child by Indahari Setyo (2020)