It start's out with seemingly unrelated blackouts across the European Union Powergrid. This translation is pretty good but the story skips around quite a bit and is sometimes hard to keep up with. Mark Elsberg's thriller was a best seller in Germany a couple of years ago.

And it made me want to get off the grid and get a generator! Scary scenario about which everyone should be aware.

But I am keeping this one because it educated me a lot and I want to keep all this information. Normally I share my books with our neighborhood Little Library after I finish them. I was fascinated, intrigued, and horrified. But for me the plot of this book is just a vehicle to explain the vulnerabilities of the world's electrical grid and how the electrical supply actually works around the world. The book also jumps around in geographic location as each part of the world is affected, so it takes awhile to remember where the characters live and what they do. The characters are rather stereotypical-the good guy hacker who determines how to get the grid back up and running. The weakness in the book is the fictional story. Once is the technical, governmental, and social descriptions which are perfectly written. The reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that, while it is an excellent read, there are two types of writing styles. The scenario of terrorists attacking the world's power grid is in the realm of possibility and the aftermath of such an electrical collapse is powerful. This is an intriguing fictional novel that almost crosses the line into what can be a devastating reality.This book is scary in a very real way. The characters are complex and complicated. There are chases, murder and adventure in this part of the novel.Īs the “Blackouts” spread to the United States, there is lots of tension, riots, and fighting. The second half of the novel was intense where we discover the “who” and motivations involved. I found the first half of the novel a little slow moving with involved information of computer technology, grids, nuclear energy and the governmental controls.In the first part of the story, there are “Blackouts” that occur throughout Europe, and the scenes are pretty much the same. The genres of this novel are Mystery, Thriller, General Fiction(Adult).Īlthough this novel is written as fiction, the author gives us a taste of reality where it is very possible that hackers could take over all computer systems internationally and cause havoc, disaster, destruction and collapse of society as we know it. I would like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the ARC of “Blackout” by Marc Elsberg for my honest review.

Black out elsberg