In SCHOOL’S OUT by Scott Andrews, THE LORD OF THE FLIES meets the apocalypse. The result is a highly engaging book that dashes at a breakneck pace with plenty of action, a decent amount of realism, and great moral questions about survival.

Part of the Afterblight Chronicles, a series of books in a shared post-apocalyptic world where a deadly virus has wiped out most of the world, Andrews’s SCHOOL’S OUT tells the story of dazed boys returning to their boarding school. As lawlessness spreads across a collapsed UK, some of the boys overthrow the remaining teachers and establish a tribe of fighters. This pits 15-year-old Lee Keegan, a capable and thoughtful fighter, against the boys’ leader, a nearby community with its own warlord, and a roving tribe of cannibals.

The result is great fun with plenty of heart. While the prevalence of crazies as stock villains is fairly predictable, the action is more or less realistic, though the rapid succession of one horrible crisis after another in the second half gets a bit fatiguing. Keegan’s decision-making is authentic, aiming for morality but very practical, and laced with the question of how far does one must become a killer to make a world free of killing. He is extremely capable but no superhero, often making mistakes and getting battered by combat. I particularly enjoyed how the author periodically crushes the reader’s expectations by having reality make Keegan’s best-laid plans turn for the worse. Meanwhile, Mac, the boys’ leader, makes a great antagonist as he represents what Keegan could become without any restraining morals about killing and the exercise of power.

So overall, I liked it and will be reading his other two books about the “Cull,” sold packaged as the SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER omnibus.

In THE BEAUTY by Aliya Whiteley, each night, Nate tells the men gathered around the campfire of their community, members of humanity’s final generation, about life before a fungal plague claimed all women on the planet. Strange mushrooms are growing in the graveyard where they buried their women, suggesting a presence that eventually manifests and offers comfort in exchange for love. Happy with this gift, Nate tells the men the human race can continue, but it must change, and so must they. Some, particularly the young, embrace the change, while the rest fight to the death.

What a strange little story this turned out to be, featuring elements such as golems made from the dead, violence, body horror, and inter-species sex. The style is ethereal, almost Biblical in the telling, though presenting a story as more a fable than grounded in reality had the effect of engaging this reader’s brain more than his gut. As the relationship between the men and their new companions develops, things just get weirder. I thought thematically the novel would had have something to say about gender, but while the story seems to suggest a philosophy, it never really becomes apparent, and if it did, it sailed over my head. The story is freaky and it just is, offered without explanation or apparent theme. Which is all fine, as it was a fun read.

My only real complaint was it ends abruptly. In the edition I purchased, the story simply ended, and I was presented with a “bonus story,” which takes up half the book. I ended up feeling a little robbed, though this isn’t a complaint against the story but the publisher, which could have simply said the book was a collection of two novellas/short stories.

In THE END OF THE WORLD RUNNING CLUB by Adrian Walker, meteors pound the earth, devastating the UK and leaving the entire country cratered. Edgar scrambles to get his wife Beth and two small children into the basement with some food and water while the sirens are wailing. After rescue, they end up an undermanned military base. While helping with a foraging mission, his family is taken by foreigners sent to evacuate any survivors. Stranded, Edgar and his comrades must travel across a scarred Britain to get to the evacuation point on the coast. Travel is near impossible in any other way except on foot, and the clock is ticking on the boats leaving, so one day he starts running …

Despite a meandering start, it’s a pretty solid post-apocalyptic novel, with many gripping scenes and plenty of insight into the practicalities and mentality framing survival. Thematically, the story is similar to TRAIN TO BUSAN, in which a neglectful father learns the importance of family when everything else is stripped away by the apocalypse. The characters are for the most part likeable, their actions and dialogue realistic, and the scarred vistas they cross horrible and dangerous. In between, we have a series of stock villains one encounters in apocalyptic literature, from bandits to warlords, in sprawling subplots. The result for this reader is the novel might have really roared if it had been about a third shorter, and if the main character, who acts as the narrator, was more likeable.

Overall, I think it’s a great book for people who don’t normally read apocalyptic literature, and for genre fans hungry for an interesting if well-traveled story.