Pulse: a small Texas town (EMP trilogy Book 3) - Book Review

David Lisenby’s novel Pulse: a small Texas town (EMP trilogy Book 3) is the final chapter in his well-honed trilogy about survival after an electromagnetic pulse wrecks havoc on civilization.  This sequel takes up one month after the initial onset of the disaster. Lisenby lays bare the hopes, concerns, fears, desperations, and courage of the survivors of the small Texas community of Lindsey Landing as they deal with the catastrophe. He adroitly captures the way the survivors think, talk, act, and respond to their dilemma; he talks of how they band together to help each other get through the crisis.

This sequel to Lisenby’s Pulse series deals with the survivors four weeks after the EMP attack. It focuses on how destructive the electromagnetic pulse was to the electrical infrastructure and how our dependence on modern technology was a curse under such circumstances.  It illustrated how lawless our world can get under severe catastrophes, how lives can be instantly changed, and how the vision of the future can be so quickly altered. In this sequel there is a degree of dystopia with large barbaric gangs preying on communities, Lindsey Landing being one of them. The author explores “what happens next,” a question nearly all fans of his previous books would have pondered over. It is one thing to survive that first few days, but Lisenby now takes readers to the next level. He writes, “There was an insurmountable loss of life. The first to go were the weak; the sick; the infirmed. Without medical devices and a steady supply of medicine, there was no way to keep them alive.”

Lisenby presents many questions to ponder on, if you survive the catastrophe, now what do you do? What happens to our nation? Does it decline into oblivion? Do we hand off to our children and grandchildren a society left in wreckage or do we band together and start to try to rebuild? The fascinating question Linsenby presents is exactly how do we rebuild? Do we sit back and wait for FEMA to show up and rescue us and the millions of other survivors or do we take matters into our hands, roll up our sleeves and get to work?

There are some political observations made in Lisenby’s novel, Pulse: a small Texas town that demonstrates how government plays a critical role in mitigating individual and collective vulnerability during and after a disaster. A strong public policy is central to making societies more resilient to long term paralysis after major catastrophes. This is an epic story, a triumph of the imagination with a memorable plot, sharp writing, a fascinating setting and a great cast of characters that definitely keep you engaged.  There are messages here on many levels--politics, ecology, religion, family, culture, and resources in Lisenby’s imagined inhospitable world.