Does anyone know when the two sequels to "Patriots" is supposed to be published? The wiki article for it states he was shooting for 2010 and 2011 for the sequels.
Never, I hope. I admire a lot of his work on non-fiction stuff, but Patriots is a classic example of 'how not to do it'. There was a lot of good information in it, but it was very poorly presented. A non-fiction book would have worked better, IMHO. Chris
As per Mr. Rawles blog it is due out around Oct 2011 and the third installment is due around Oct 2012. Update on Writing Projects - SurvivalBlog.com
Patriots was the first TEOTWAWKI book I ever read. I have now read it 3 times and wore out my first copy and bought a 2nd, however I have still yet to purchase the latest edition. Can anyone recommend it for new content or am I better off waiting for the sequels?
I can't say as I hope never. But if JWR pens another fiction novel I hope he puts in a bit more time with character development and background story. Dialog and description of events were a bit lacking as well. Granted I am not a writer...but JWR was not at the time he wrote Patriot's either. But I would like to see more survival fiction with main character's that were not... a. ex-Special Forces. b. SWAT team commanders. c. Marine scout-sniper UDT/ SEAL...... d. Self made millionaires who can spend ungodley amounts on all the cool toys needed to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. I think Lights Out had a good cast of main characters and pretty good dialog. For the most part the story was believable and I could [as a reader] almost put myself in most of the characters shoes. Where in Patriot's the only character I could have a connection was Doug Carlton..and then not by much.
I think Patriots was more of a fictional story created to present different survival scenarios and how to deal with them in a way that was not a typical survival manual. Put another, I have a lot of field manuals with lists and how to's...but, while you read them, you don't really think about them...at least I don't. But reading a fictional story got me to think a lot...in fact, way too much. The situations in book got me to think about how I would handle something similar and it was as if I was getting tutelage from my own survival expert. I didn't really care about his prose or character development. I used that book to gain information and I highly recommend anyone who has not read who want to read it to keep a notebook to jot down ideas. For example, in my notebook, when reading Doug Carlton's account of his trek across the land, I wrote down "Cache - extra boots." Incidentally, this was also brought up in Lights Out in a roundabout way. So, you might read 'extra boots" in a checklist of preps, but I don't think I'd pay much attention to it without the story of why you'd need them. When you think about it, it's very obvious, but--at least for me--I never really think about the whys on some of these lists, but the stories really make me anxious.
I know, but... It fails as fiction because the writing is so bad. The characters are rather unrealistic. The background to the latter part of the book makes no sense. It fails as a manual because there is no index or technical details. My general thought is that it is hopelessly optimistic. What is a person to do if they don't have masses of money from some unknown source? Chris
