Blood Dimmed Tide

A Cop’s EMP Apocalypse Story

By: Don Shift

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In the follow up to "Hard Favored Rage," a new group of law enforcement officers struggle to survive. Can a group of unprepared cops help a small county just outside of Los Angeles survive the total collapse of society devastated by an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)? For millions, their death sentence begins the moment the power goes out and the California Aqueduct runs dry, leaving the crops to wither in the fields and the cities to burn. Mere anarchy has been loosed upon the United States. Ventura County Sheriff’s sergeant Nate Stackhouse wakes up to find himself in a nightmare where the heat and lack of water are the least of his worries. Left without electricity, cars, and most communications in the midst of a brutal heatwave, the sheriff’s office must face the realities of the collapse of the modern world. Stackhouse must organize an undermanned and overwhelmed station to survive the onslaught that is to come, while facing enemies the deputies have never seen before. LAPD officer Cory Welch sees firsthand the fall of Los Angeles in to chaos. Utterly unprepared to survive the disaster in-place, he decides to bug out with his firefighter friend. Together, the band of evacuees travel across the hostile desert trying to reach a remote cabin in Utah. Cory and his friends face hundreds of miles of surprises and challenges all to reach their refuge with no expectation of safety. Despite being unprepared, they learn that survival is a mindset and not what you have in your garage or basement. With everything falling apart, can these unprepared groups rise to the occasion to overcome impossible odds and survive the disaster? This is the second book in the VCSO EMP series. READING THE PREQUEL IS NOT NECESSARY. SENSITIVE READERS: For those readers who are particularly sensitive to vulgar language, this book may not be suitable for all audiences. For maximum verisimilitude, this book is written in the daily vernacular of law enforcement officers which is often quite coarse.

the story

a live person reading would really make this pop. good story, not a great delivery.

Great

Interesting view from police perspective in the end of the world scenarios. Also get out of California

Good writing, good knowledge

You might expect apocalyptic fiction to be dry and technical, or flashy and hair brained. This was both well written and full of realism and knowledge.

The mispronunciation of the automated voice and its lack of emotion

Made it difficult to ignore and critical situations didn’t carry the right transitions to make it believable

AI reader is terrible

The story is pretty good and probably would have seemed better with a good human reader like R. C. Bray. But the AI reader is terrible. Very poor inflection and punctuation is nonexistent. I couldn't finish it as it's very drab and boring with the AI. I hope this trend goes away.