WHAT CAME AFTER By Sam Winston

Here’s a great book I recently enjoyed reading … WHAT CAME AFTER by Sam Winston, set in a future America that has suffered an economic collapse resulting from corporations hijacking the government in service of the wealthy. Now millions are dead of starvation, huge parts of the country have been abandoned and lie in ruins, the rich (Ownership) live in walled cities served by a worker class called Management, and what used to be the middle class lives on plantations, helping to grow genetically modified food they can’t eat themselves, without getting sick, unless they buy it back from the corporation that owns it. When Henry Weller, a mechanic who can fix anything, helps the richest man in the world, the president of AmeriBank, resulting in the latter owing the former a favor, Weller decides to journey on foot to New York to collect, resulting in a conflict between the men and a second journey, this time into the wilderness of what was once middle America. I thought the premise was all too plausible, enjoyed Winston’s singular voice, and liked Weller as a character–a committed father and brilliant engineer who gets through the worst of things by sheer stubborn will, his wits and some luck. Recommended.