I’ve got a few book recommendations to share with you over the coming weeks, and today it’s the turn of Adam Baker’s wonderful OUTPOST. A few months back I saw the cover popping up with increasingly regularity online and I was intrigued. Several people recommended the book to me and when I discovered that Adam himself was a member of Moody’s Survivors, I immediately got hold of a copy. For anyone who hasn’t yet read it, here’s the blurb:
“They took the job to escape the world. They didn’t expect the world to end.
Kasker Rampart: a derelict refinery platform moored in the Arctic Ocean. A skeleton crew of fifteen fight boredom and despair as they wait for a relief ship to take them home.
But the world beyond their frozen wasteland has gone to hell. Cities lie ravaged by a global pandemic. One by one TV channels die, replaced by silent wavebands.
The Rampart crew are marooned. They must survive the long Arctic winter, then make their way home alone. They battle starvation and hypothermia, unaware that the deadly contagion that has devastated the world is heading their way…”
OUTPOST is a great, fast read. Baker presents a truly nightmarish scenario (on many levels) which twists and turns like you wouldn’t believe. Considering the isolation and inaccessibility of the refinery location, he manages to spin the tale off in several unexpected directions whilst still maintaining an air of claustrophobic hopelessness. I really enjoyed the book, and I contacted Adam to ask a few questions about the novel and his career in general.
