Title: Tucker Vs. The Apocalypse
Author: Jay Allan Storey
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: December 1, 2023
Genres: Science Fiction, Contemporary
Length: 125 pages
Source: I received a free copy from the author.
Rating: 4 Stars
Blurb:
Lost and alone amid the ashes of a dead civilization
Household pet Tucker is thrust into an apocalyptic world when not only his own ‘master’, but all of humanity, are stricken with a deadly plague. The disease is fatal in almost one hundred percent of cases, but affects only humans, leaving empty cities and towns that are quickly being repopulated with domestic animals and wildlife.
Tucker eventually connects with a group of other former pets. Deprived of their human caretakers, and guided by the mysterious Web of Life, Tucker and his ‘pack’ must learn to fend for themselves, confronting cold and blinding snow, blistering heat, the threat of starvation, ferocious predators, and the violent remnants of humanity as they search for a new home.
Review:
Content Warning: pandemic, robbery, human and animal deaths from both natural and violent causes, murder, animal attacks, plane crash, car crash, (animal) pregnancy and (animal) birth. I will not talk about any of these topics in my review.
Beloved pets generally aren’t taught many survival skills, and that’s a big problem in an apocalypse.
Tucker was an intelligent and sweet dog who I enjoyed getting to know. Mr. Storey did an excellent job of showing the world through canine eyes. Some things that utterly ordinary to humans can be mystifying to dogs and vice versa, so it was amusing to compare those two perspectives as Tucker either puzzled over the weird stuff humans do or assumed the audience was already aware of certain canine behaviours were honestly so obvious to him he barely felt the urge to explain them to the audience at all.
I was surprised by how many of the adult dogs in this story had not been spayed or neutered before the first scene began. It’s rare for that to happen in my social circles, so I was caught off-guard by later scenes that referenced what can happen when humans are no longer around to keep an eye on what their dogs are doing. It would have been nice to have even a brief explanation of how so many fertile pets were running around during an apocalypse.
The world building was excellent, especially considering the fact that it was filtered through the perspective of a dog who, as I stated earlier, had a wildly different opinion on what was most important to share than a human narrator would have mentioned. There was always enough information to know what was going on here, and I enjoyed the challenge of putting together the pieces of scenes that were intentionally written a little mysteriously as Tucker trotted off to sniff interesting scents or find reliable sources of food and water.
Tucker Vs. The Apocalypse was a wild ride.
This sounds like an interesting POV to read! Though I agree, most pets in my circles are spayed or neutered as well. I would expect some fertile former pets, but most of the animals I’ve known that reproduced were feral and not pets.
Yes, exactly!
It was a great story otherwise, though.
This sounds like a really creative and well-written story with such an intriguing perspective. While all of the pets I know are fixed, I can assume that all of the pets kept for breeding, and then all of the animals who were too young to get fixed would grow up and be able to reproduce within months, so that could create a fertile population of former household pets in a pretty fast amount of time. Thanks for your great review!
You’re welcome. And this interpretation makes a lot of sense.