The Last Day | Andrew Hunter Murray | Book Review

Have you ever given thought to what will happen when the Earth eventually stops rotating and decides to cease its movement? Yes, that also means that the total equilibrium of day and night ceases to exist altogether, and we will all be simply thrown headfirst into an abyss of uncertainties. It sounds super scary, doesn’t it? Well, The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray is a super debut sci-fi thriller by Andrew Hunter Murray that explores the idea of what could possibly transpire post this apocalyptic catastrophe.

Now, thirty years after it all ended, the slow seemed the most natural thing in the world. It felt quaint to imagine people reacting to it with shock.

Yes, it’s 2059, and the world has stopped turning. As one half suffers from an endless frozen night, the other faces nothing but the blazing, burning sun. Only in a slim twilit region can life survive…

It sounds like a true rocking bombshell, doesn’t it? I mean, imagine with climatic changes and geomagnetic storms and all the other “queer and unusual” sightings and happenings we keep seeing and reading about every day, what if something bigger like the above would happen? 

Hmm, no no, my mind has not gone into paranoid overdrive or something. It is just that the idea of an apocalypse has always kept me deeply intrigued for hours on end. It has not been the idea that yes, indeed an apocalypse can destroy the world and I shall become a non-entity like countless others alongside me, it is more the thought that such a thing could possibly happen that makes me bothered and glued to its thought.

So, there is this amazing dystopian thriller by Andre Hunter Murray titled “The Last Day,” which I read quite some time ago. As I sat cleaning my book nook, I thought to myself, “First and foremost, this is a real rocker I have read and somehow not shared with you guys. Secondly, the most unusual thing about it is the fact that, alongside the main plot, a gist of which I have shared at the start, there is so much more happening in this one that you can barely contain yourself from not wanting to jump ahead to some pages further to actually check what became of that person/situation you are currently invested in.

In his debut, I believe, Andrew has created a story that has a fluid quality, going in several directions all at once. Firing up my imaginative horses, I could picture all the happenings so well in my mind’s eye courtesy of the wonderful description given by Andrew at all spots. I could see Ellen Hopper, the primary character, the scientist working on that oil rig, seeing the dead. I also want to comment on how the concept of the totalitarian government in Britain narrated herein has been blended and portrayed, seamlessly helping the flow of the plot.

Oh wait, did I reveal a bit more? Well, so Ellen Hopper, who is a scientist working on an oil rig off the coast of Britain, is studying how ocean currents have changed and what it eventually means for humanity’s survival. As she discovers a terrible secret from the past shared by her mentor Edward Thorne regarding how Britain has managed to establish itself in the aftermath of the “Stop”, she also becomes a party to a graver discovery-she is the only one who has the power to “stop” a “far greater evil from happening.” Can she do it before time runs out?

To begin with, there is an alluring, richly crafted world-building happening in this one. I especially must say the descriptions of Britain were completely consuming and intimidating, pushing the boundaries of my imagination beyond doubt about how and what would possibly be the scenario should things “cease” to “move” as usual. Yes, Britain in the future, in this hypothetical set up was somewhere else-a dark and yet uncannily interesting place altogether. It makes you feel like a full circle of sorts, the deja-vu of it, forcing you to go back to past roots, mulling over the English lands past dabbling with the world in totality. Um, never mind, no digging past skeletons here though, huh?

Coming to the characters, well, Ellen is a fine character, making you feel the struggles as well as the qualms of actually debilitating and surviving in that post-apocalyptic scenario. I could resonate with her “vacuum” kind of feeling; her emotional upheaval too, at places, was very evident, along with how eventually things transpire, moving on to the somewhat surprising, twisted kind of ending this one has. I won’t say anymore here, though, you guys have to read it to believe it. I personally, for one, wanted another end to this one, much more in the manner I had presumed it would be. Ah, never mind, vantage you see!

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For now, a great post-apocalyptic sci-fi, one of its kind, do pick up this smashing debut, which will surely make you feel back to the land of the oblivious infinite and yet inevitable future land.

So, I hope you guys liked my book review of The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray.

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Adios Amigos!