Cover image obtained from http://www.milastman.com
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST
Author: M.I. Lastman
Type of Book: Autographed Paperback
Length: 322 pages
Genre: Fiction, Apocalyptic, Environmental
Publisher: Friesen Press
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
* I received a free autographed copy of this book from the author through one of my Goodreads groups.
** This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Not only is the story riveting and the characters believable, but it is also terrifyingly plausible, and maybe even inevitable. This is a MUST READ for every adult whether or not they are fans of the post-apocalyptic genre or not.
This book is written as a memoir that Jim Easom is writing and plans to leave for future generations to find so that they will know what happened to their ancestors.
When seventy-two year old Jim Easom awakens in his bedroom feeling sore and desperately thirsty, he is surprised to find that he is alone.
As he slowly regains his strength over the span of several days, Jim realizes that it is not just his wife and grown sons that are nowhere to be found … its his entire neighborhood, and maybe more, much more.
Realization dawns that he may be the sole survivor of the horrible pandemic that has swept through all of North America.
Jim spends some time roaming around his native province before setting out to cross the country. His journey begins in Southern Ontario, Canada and his ultimate destination is the Northwest Territories. He hoped that by traveling as far north as the land will allow, that he will find other survivors and ultimately build a new home.
He does not find much in the way of other people, but he does end up finding and adopting a sheltie puppy. He also, strangely enough, ends up befriending a thirteen year old girl.
Both the dog and the girl have experienced suffering and unfortunately they have not left that suffering behind.
The unlikely group travel together as they try to come to terms with their new reality.
Wow! Right? This book sounds terrific! And, it is a riveting read. But, it is also much more than just a story. It is a warning.
Why do I say that? In what way is this book a warning? Well, that is actually an easily answered question.
This book is so terrifyingly believable and oh so plausible that it will raise goosebumps on the arms of it’s readers.
The post-apocalyptic genre is full of books with doomsday scenarios and stories of “apocalypse by zombie” infestations which no one actually takes seriously. Those books are popular due to shock value and due to the fact that no one believes that those scenarios will ever actually happen. They are “safe” post-apocalyptic fiction, meant for pure entertainment.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST (Opus 1) is far from the same thing. This book is a clear warning to us all. This COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN. And, it could happen any day now.
Lest potential readers think this book is too serious, let me reassure you. This book is chock full of wit and is interspersed with bits of humor. Even the author’s choice of pseudonym “M.I. Lastman” is a play on words meaning “Am I the last man?” Humor also presents itself in the name of the stores that Jim visits in the book. The expensive menswear store is called , “Gottbucks” and the superstore that has popped up all over suburbia in the province of Ontario which everyone knows the name of, is called “Plundermart” in the book. There are many more examples in the book of the author’s sarcastic sense of humor, but you will need to read it in order to discover them for yourself.
This book needs to be read by as many people as possible. Not only is it extremely entertaining, but the message/warning it contains is important.
The author has a gift for description. For example: “… I drove through a world that, as I’ve said, looked not at all like the Hollywood imaginings of the post-apocalyptic world. There was nothing particularly threatening out there, and the deep calm was eerie.”
Some may wonder why the author chose to call his book “Rocky Mountain Locust”, but that is explained in the following quote from the book: “… the world was in sorry shape, awaiting something sinister. So Nature simply said ‘Enough,’ as it had in the past with other plagues, and shut us down. Think of the … Rocky Mountain locust. At the height of its infestation, that species must have numbered tens of trillions of individuals… The infestation of locusts mysteriously suddenly collapsed …”
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST would be a great choice for a Book Club read. There are so many different topics that come up when reading this book that a book club could easily spend multiple meetings 
discussing this one book.
This book should be added to the MUST READ list of every intelligent adult. I give this book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
FAVORITE QUOTES:
“Nature must have resented our attempts to take over its role in evolution. A new bug with 100% lethality and 100% transmissibility among humans was her solution to the problem…”
“But I don’t regret the loss of measured time. I find the reckoning of days, nights, and seasons more than sufficient.”
“… the economy has always come first among humans, way ahead of ethics, way ahead of god, maybe even ahead of sex.”
“Next I went looking for a gun – a shotgun if possible… The selection would be nothing like as satisfying as you could find at a walk-in weapons fair south of the [Canadian] border – no switchblades, no assault rifles, no submachine guns. In suitably enlightened states such as Texas, the lunatic fringe (more a blanket than a fringe) of American citizenry argued that we had a universal, inalienable right to own guns. Why? – so we could protect ourselves from everybody else’s guns, and from those hordes of marauding animals, which along with miscellaneous ‘Slant-Eyes and Muslims,’ seemed about to break into the sanctity of our homes the moment we left the front door open.”
“Even as it had become increasingly obvious over the last few years that the United States was, in all but name, at civil war, the National Rifle Association, generously funded by the lucrative American arms industry, continued to devote it’s considerable lobbying and advertising power to safeguarding the right to own guns – bring on the Columbines, the Virginia Techs, and the Newtowns – bring on those black American boys with an average life expectancy of eighteen. Yeehaw, you shoot’em, cowboy!”
After raiding a high-end menswear store and helping himself to ridiculously expensive clothing, Jim plans to wear the designer clothes and burn them after they are no longer useful.
“Next morning, I got from the Honda a pair of colourful and expensive Armani shorts and some Birkenstock sandals looted from Gottbuck’s. Before ‘the Death’ if you purchased designer clothes, or designer anything at a high-end shop, you might have the satisfaction of paying one hundred times what the same product would have cost from the big box of the world’s most nonexclusive, most destructive, and ugly merchandiser, Plundermart.”
“Soon after the weather changed; snow began to melt and icicles dripped steadily. Then came … perfect hoar frost weather. Jenny … had never seen a real hoar frost… These events are extravagantly beautiful. On the golf course there was a light dusting of snow that sparkled in the sun like ten trillion fleeting diamonds. Each solitary tree, according to the intricate drapery of its species, became an infinitely detailed, unique snow-and-ice sculpture. The loght etched improbable gray shadows over pristine and featureless, lauzuline white fairways, framed by a cloudless, sapphire blue sky… This is such a thing unto itself that it beggars description.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
(From the author’s website)
“M.I. Lastman is a retired music professor and professional musician who includes enjoying the natural world, travel, and rhetoric among his hobbies. He has published many articles in the academic press and released a number of commercially available CDs. He continues to compose music and perform. Living with his wife in southern Ontario, he is working on the first book of a planned non-fiction trilogy that is a call to action on environmental degradation. You hold in your hand opus one from another project, his first novel. He expects that there will be no need for opus three with his initials reversed. After all, who would read the work of I. M. Lastman?”
To learn more visit http://www.milastman.com
ON A PERSONAL NOTE:
I had the distinct pleasure of meeting this author and his wife and enjoyed a lively discussion with them about a variety of topics. It is unfortunate that they live so far from me. It is becoming increasingly difficult to meet people with whom an intelligent conversation can be had. Despite our age difference I felt a kindred meeting of minds with these two wonderful people immediately upon meeting them.
BUY THIS BOOK:
You can order a hardcover or paperback (or eBook) version of this book online at http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000015123433/M.-I.-Lastman-Rocky-Mountain-Locust
Buy at Amazon.ca at http://www.amazon.ca/Rocky-Mountain-Locust-M-Lastman/dp/1460247981
Check it out on Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23902394-rocky-mountain-locust
Buy on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00PBJVTFA?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&fp=1
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