The Wild Lands

 Greci, Paul. The Wild Lands. 2019. 384p. 603 mins.  ISBN 978-1-25018358-3.Available as an audiobook on Overdrive. 

Alaska in the 2100s has been scorched by climate change. The land got warmer, and it grew increasingly difficult and expensive to transport food and goods to provide for its residents. As a result, the United States government announced it would abandon the state. Most of the population joined convoys heading south to the mainland or north to the Arctic, where they could be picked up by ships. Some, however, chose to stay behind and survive off the meager resourced the land provided.

Travis' family is one of those who stayed. At first there were still wild salmon and game, but two large wildfires in a row killed off most of the land and its animals. Fairbanks, where they were living, was ravaged, leaving behind only a layer of ash inches deep. As the situation grew dire, people stop helping each other and began looking only for their survival. When the salmon didn't return, and with winter coming soon, it was time to leave. Travis, his younger sister Jessica, and their parents, packed most of the food they had, and they began walking north, following the mass exodus that had happened a few years earlier.

Dangers lurk everywhere, however. From armed men looking to seize food and rape women, to a land plagued with earthquakes, raging rivers, and impassable terrain, the family must struggle through it all. But when Travis' father is shot and his mother presumed dead, Jessica is all that he has left. Changing plans following his mother's recommendation, Travis and Jessica return to their ruined home in Fairbanks to gather more supplies and head south instead. There, they discover that four young armed girls have found their buried food, and they're in no mood to share. Travis manages to convince them he means no harm, just in time to confront a group of men who kill two of the girls.

Faced to flee, Travis, Jessica, Max and Tam head south, towards Anchorage and what, they hope, will be a return to civilization. But challenges remain as they trek through hundred of miles of ruined Alaska wilderness.

Fans of survival stories will appreciate this fast-paced story, even if it sometimes veer into the melodramatic. Those who have read Hatchet will enjoy Travis' survival instincts and the extent to which he goes to protect his sister. Other books to pick up on this theme include The Perfect Storm, Into the Wild, and Lost in the Pacific, 1942. All are incredibly true stories of survival. For more survival fiction, take a look at Ice Dogs.