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Matthew Harrop is a lifelong inhabitant of Spokane, WA, where he grew up reading all the science fiction and fantasy he could get his hands on, especially when he could get his hands on something with a dragon on the cover. He lives with his beautiful wife and their menagerie of pets.
Reviewed by Fred Phillips for Readers' Favorite
Circles in the Dust by Matthew Harrop places us in the middle of a nuclear winter. With most of humankind wiped out, David has grown from a young boy at the time of the apocalypse to a man who mostly lives on his own in a small cabin deep in the woods. His hope has nearly diminished when he has an encounter with a beautiful young woman. She has come from the Base, perhaps the last community of humans on Earth; the last chance for humans to rebuild their society and secure a new place on Earth. But, the Base is under attack by Outliers who seek food and shelter. David is brought back as a potential savior who can use his years of surviving alone to find a truce between the Base and the Outliers. But can David trust this mysterious young woman, or the Mayor of the base, or his long-lost friend, the de facto leader of the Outliers?
The first portion of Circles in the Dust by Matthew Harrop takes place mostly in David’s mind; the narrative sometimes goes on for long stretches, but this is often to be expected in a post-apocalyptic novel. Though there are certainly some fighting and action scenes, Circles in the Dust is not filled with scenes of death, destruction, and war. It works on a more personal level to make us feel the desolation and danger of living alone, and to allow us to feel the hope a survivor might grasp for when he discovers there is actually a chance to build a new society and form meaningful personal bonds.
