When the Lights Go Out… Who Will Be Ready? All Gabe Thompson wanted was a rewarding and challenging career in the U.S. military. He’s about to get his wish. The government knows that a massive solar flare could plunge the entire world into darkness for decades to come, but few believe it will ever happen. The governor of Texas is hoping it won’t, but planning that it could. She implements … planning that it could. She implements her brainchild, the top secret Operation Nightshade, and Gabe suddenly finds himself chosen to train for the end of modern society.Â
When the government learns their darkest fear is about to become a reality, Gabe can’t warn anyone of the impending disaster–but he can stock his shelves and do everything in his power to ensure his neighbor, Lenora Diaz, will survive as long as possible.Â
Gabe must race against a cataclysmic solar clock if he hopes to be in position when the blackout descends.
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Overshadowed by Vannetta Chapman is a short story free for purchase on the Amazon website. It is a prequel to The Remnant series. Survivalists will like this story as there are tips for how to prepare for a coming disaster that will last, according to this story, approximately forty years. The event is not the Zombie Apocalypse and not Ebola or a similar type of virus. The devastation will stem from the effects of EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) that will have an origin from space, perhaps the sun. We don’t have to consider the source. Imagine that humankind must continue to exist without electricity. What caused it won’t matter.
Overshadowed follows the efforts of a State government (Texas) as its government officials plan for a system of government at the county level that will exist as near independent nodes because coordinated communication will not survive.
Gabe Thompson received the alert message for Operation Nightshade while at a neighborhood barbershop. He had one hour to get his “Go” bag and report to military headquarters where he would be briefed on the implementation of a program he had spent two years training for along with 254 others, the number related to Texas county organization. Before he left for the military base, he had given his apartment key to Leonora, a neighbor. She was free to take and use anything in the apartment Gabe would not be returning.
After Gabe left, Leonora went to the apartment to find it stocked floor to ceiling with canned goods and vast amounts of staples such as salt. Leonora did not know what was going on, but she worked in a hospital. She had been trained in disaster response and triage. It was not difficult for her to connect dots. She loaded as much of the supplies as possible in an SUV and left for her parents’ house in a small Texas town with no industries and no tourist attractions. No one ever stopped there. The city was used to being self-sufficient, and their ability to do so would be tested along with the rest of the world during the next cataclysmic event.
In an author’s note readers find this: “ Research by NASA scientists indicates there is a 12 percent chance a large storm will happen in the next ten years. This report stresses that a coronal mass ejection, or CME, is not physically harmful, but it could blow out transformers in power grids and disrupt satellite systems, including GPS. A recent assessment by the Department of Homeland Security reported to Congress that a massive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event caused by a solar flare could leave more than 130 million Americans without power for years.” (Kindle locations 717-719).
And to think people are worried about conspiracy theorists. This scenario seems to be much more likely and probable, disasters that don’t need the meddling of humans. Overshadowed is a four star Amazon read. The writing is good in this short story, and I look forward to reading at least some of the Remnant series.
From the minute I started reading Overshadowed I was hooked. This prequel to The Remnant series is mesmerizing! My Christian upbringing has prepared me for Jesus’s second coming and I am aware of the possibility of solar flares but this story has shown me what could happen if one occurred. Our society has become very dependent on technology but everything that we know and rely on could be changed in an instance. How could we comprehend being a nation without power for forty years, as suggested in chapter four? Would we be able to store enough food, water and other necessities to get us through the initial shock?
Vannetta Chapman has written a story that will forever change my awareness and I must read the other books in this series. I want to discover the fates of Gabe, Lenora and Suzanne and I need to increase my awareness. Yes, this is fiction today but…….
Typically I do not like to discuss novels such as this for all of the conspiracy theories that pop up; however, I am so glad that I took a chance on this short novel and read it all the way through.
“Overshadowed” is a prequel to a series written by Vannetta Chapman, one that many (like myself) might not ever give a chance due to the followers that tend to swarm when one reads such novels. I saw this story on my list to read and was tempted to remove it, but somehow I accidentally clicked the wrong button and ended up downloading it anyways.
This story is about a world that is about to change forever. Everyone hears of the theories of how the world might end, and what can happen if we were to be without modern technology; however, no one is ever truly prepared for when that possibility becomes a reality. You will follow the beginning story of two important characters, one in the know, and one just learning the truth for the first time.
Will Americans survive what is to come?