It’s the end of petroleum. Is it the end of civilization too?
Sixteen-year-old Dev, seventeen-year-old Sierra, and their families fight to survive as a man-made disaster threatens to wipe out civilization as we know it.
Over a 25-year period, one neighborhood in Arizona reacts to the crisis that comes with the end of oil. As oil ends, so does the delivery of food. They say we are three days from chaos when that happens...and they were right. The cities empty, starving people pouring out, desperate for something, anything to eat.
Dev and Sierra's parents have been off the grid and growing much of their own food for years, and there it sits, vulnerable to attack. The city dwellers were not prepared at all, but some of them have guns, and when they reach the rural neighborhood, the young people must join in a war they never wanted. Coming of age during a time of violence and upheaval makes them grow up fast, and the old morality and the new battles within them all their lives.
As the series progresses, their enemies grow fewer--but tougher. A new generation is born into a harsh world. And the hotter, drying climate seems out to kill them too.
Sixteen-year-old Dev, seventeen-year-old Sierra, and their families fight to survive as a man-made disaster threatens to wipe out civilization as we know it.
Over a 25-year period, one neighborhood in Arizona reacts to the crisis that comes with the end of oil. As oil ends, so does the delivery of food. They say we are three days from chaos when that happens...and they were right. The cities empty, starving people pouring out, desperate for something, anything to eat.
Dev and Sierra's parents have been off the grid and growing much of their own food for years, and there it sits, vulnerable to attack. The city dwellers were not prepared at all, but some of them have guns, and when they reach the rural neighborhood, the young people must join in a war they never wanted. Coming of age during a time of violence and upheaval makes them grow up fast, and the old morality and the new battles within them all their lives.
As the series progresses, their enemies grow fewer--but tougher. A new generation is born into a harsh world. And the hotter, drying climate seems out to kill them too.
For more information on my research and thinking that led to this series, check out these blog posts here.
An interesting take on an under-explored shtf scenario. I enjoyed it and look forward to book #2.
ReplyDeleteBelatedly, thank you! I thought I'd said that, but I hadn't, and I apologize. :) Probably lost wireless in the middle of the thought, as happens to me far too often!
DeleteJust finished all three books in the series! They were great! Listened to audio books on Hoopla. Thank you very much for these books. I am sure to listen again.
ReplyDeletethank you for dropping by and commenting.
DeleteI don’t understand why you had Sierra be with who she’s with in book 4 and it’s been on my mind since I read it. Can you explain why to me or at least give me an idea so I can kinda come to terms with it personally?
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by and for reading the books. Sierra is a healthy young woman with normal drives at that point and really doesn't have many appropriate choices. She likes him. He likes her. So it happens.
DeleteIn a low-level way, I've been thinking of such situations since I was a young person doing my family's genealogy. One runs across cousins marrying, a family of sisters marrying a family of brothers, and so on...but when you dig down and look at plat maps and understand how few people lived in that place, it stops seeming a big odd and becomes logical. Young, sexually healthy people are going to have sex with someone...and absent cars, trains, or large cities, it's going to be the least offensive person in the pool they have to choose from. A post-apocalyptic world is, in this way, not all that different than the year 1780.
Hi, Lou. Any idea when Parched will be available on Audible?
ReplyDeleteSo far, Tantor books (who owns the rights to audio on the first three) hasn't offered to take on the last two. On my own, I couldn't afford the same narrator or engineer (it's rather expensive up front to create an audio book!) so I'm going to have to hope they do come back and make an offer to me.
DeleteWhile their decision will likely be predicated on the sales figures and how they stack up to other books, it wouldn't hurt for you to contact Tantor Books via whatever social media you enjoy and ask for them to release those final two books. If they're on the fence, enthusiastic fans might sway them!
I'm so happy you've enjoyed the series. -- Lou
I really enjoyed the Gray and Oil Apocalypse series's..any chance of having them in a box set?..make for great Christmas gifts...just sayin'...
ReplyDeletethanks for dropping by and saying you liked them. I have an ebook boxed set of the first three Oil books and one of the Gray series, packaged that way to match the audio books but no plans to do anything in paperback.
Delete3 (audio)books in. Would love the 4th and 5th as audio books too 🤤
ReplyDeletethanks for saying! The company that produced them showed no interest in #4 and #5 so far, and I doubt I'll do them on my own. (It's an expensive process.) The first three books do tell a full story, and books 4 and 5 each tell their own tale, 10 and 20 years after the events of the trilogy.
DeleteI see that book 4 just appeared in audio. I can't wait to get back to this series and to see what happens next. Thank you for inviting your readers into this world.
ReplyDeletethanks for being patient for it. Book 5 will be out very very soon. I appreciate your being a reader and fan!
DeleteThank you, I just finished up book 5 and it was excellent. I like it that you were able to continue with Cody Roberts as narrator. I haven't heard him narrate anything else, so in my head he's just the voice of these characters. I also really enjoyed how the characters have grown up. It was interesting in books 1-3 and even 4, but now that they're about my age in book five, it was good to see their temperaments change, grow, and develope over time. Thank you for publishing these books, and I hope the story continues at some point.
DeleteI have just finished the whole oil apocalypse series and absolutely loved them. I wish there were more books in the series.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing is, I am confused. In book 4 you wrote Janine as having a boy. But in book 5 the child that Emily took in and named Nina after her dead mother Janine was a girl. What happened?
Author stupidity is the reason. lol. Seriously, I really dropped the ball there! I thought I'd fixed all the gender references in the first book so the poor baby wasn't getting sex reassignment at such a tender age. Thanks for letting me know there are still some errors. I'll hunt them down.
DeleteHalfway through book 5. While the overall reason for the fall seems improbable for me (oil), the characters, plot, writing style, and "realness" more than make up for this small flaw. Thanks for the stories!
ReplyDelete