u/New-Temperature-4067

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I've read quite a few collapse/SHTF books over the years. One Second After was memorable for how it portrayed the human consequences of losing the grid, Patriots for the preparedness and logistics, and Going Home for the survival journey.

I really liked that series.

More recently I came across When the Grid Goes Down by Daan J. M. Holland. What stood out to me there was the European setting and the slower progression of the collapse: grid failure, shortages, military response, barter and social order gradually deteriorating rather than everything turning into chaos immediately. For me the change in location meant that the very setup and thus the effects of a shtf scenario are very different. This perspective really changed how i view my preps.

I'm looking for more books like these.

If you recommend one, give a short description of the plot too, and tell me why it stuck with you. Was it the realism, characters, preparedness details, collapse scenario, moral decisions, or something else?

Especially interested in lesser-known books.

​

I've read quite a few collapse/SHTF books over the years. One Second After was memorable for how it portrayed the human consequences of losing the grid, Patriots for the preparedness and logistics, and Going Home for the survival journey.

I really liked that series.

More recently I came across When the Grid Goes Down by Daan J. M. Holland. What stood out to me there was the European setting and the slower progression of the collapse: grid failure, shortages, military response, barter and social order gradually deteriorating rather than everything turning into chaos immediately. For me the change in location meant that the very setup and thus the effects of a shtf scenario are very different. This perspective really changed how i view my preps.

I'm looking for more books like these.

If you recommend one, give a short description of the plot too, and tell me why it stuck with you. Was it the realism, characters, preparedness details, collapse scenario, moral decisions, or something else?

Especially interested in lesser-known books.

​

Hey everyone,

Bit of self-promotion, but I figured this might actually be relevant here since its kinda a one of a kind story.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading survival and collapse fiction, and one thing I always wanted to see was a story about what a prolonged grid-down scenario might actually look like in modern Europe. Im a bit of a prepper myself, or at least prepared for common calamities here such as blackouts, droughts and floods. I started researching incidents like this and found that around the world, a lot of localized "apocalyptic" things have happened. Most collapse books are fiction and stray from what is real and plausible. I wanted to fix that.

So I wrote my own book.

When the Grid Goes Down is a day-by-day collapse novel set in Roosendaal and the surrounding West Brabant area in the Netherlands.

The premise:

Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. NATO enters the war. Almost immediately, a coordinated cyberattack hits the European power grid.

The lights go out.

And they don’t come back on.

The story follows a Dutch police detective who happens to be a prepper, along with his family, friends, neighbors and people caught on the military side of the crisis.

I tried to avoid the usual “super-prepper with a bunker and 400 rifles effortlessly defeats civilization” approach.

Instead, the collapse develops gradually.

At first people wait for the electricity to return.

Then the phones stop working.

Fuel becomes difficult to get.

Supermarkets empty.

Cash becomes increasingly useless.

The military establishes checkpoints and starts relocating civilians.

Barter appears.

Rumors spread faster than reliable information.

People who prepared suddenly have something everyone else needs.

And eventually the question stops being when will things return to normal?

It becomes what exactly is normal now?

A lot of the survival elements are things I’m genuinely interested in myself: food and water storage, solar/battery systems, radios, firearms, transportation, neighborhood cooperation, military logistics, black markets and the uncomfortable decisions that come with having supplies while the people around you don't.

It isn't meant to be a survival manual disguised as a novel. It's a collapse story first. But I wanted the logistics and progression of the disaster to feel believable.

It's also deliberately European. No American interstate highways, FEMA camps or endless wilderness. Dense Dutch cities, row houses, bike paths, military bases, farms and neighboring Belgium all create very different problems when the infrastructure stops working.

The paperback is available on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/9083760707

Title: When the Grid Goes Down

Author: Daan J. M. Holland

Book One of The Black Grid Series

If anyone here ends up reading it, I’d genuinely be interested in hearing what you think — particularly about the realism of the collapse and preparedness side of it.

Any feedback will either be considered in the 3rd print or considered for book 2 which im currently researching story elements for.

And because this seems like the appropriate place to ask:

If the entire European grid went down tonight and you knew it wasn't coming back for weeks, what's the first weakness in your own preparations you'd suddenly be worried about?

​

Hey everyone,

Bit of self-promotion, but I figured this might actually be relevant here.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading survival and collapse fiction, and one thing I always wanted to see was a story about what a prolonged grid-down scenario might actually look like in modern Europe. Im a bit of a prepper myself, or at least prepared for common calamities here such as blackouts, droughts and floods. I started researching incidents like this and found that around the world, a lot of localized "apocalyptic" things have happened. Most collapse books are fiction and stray from what is real and plausible. I wanted to fix that.

So I wrote my own book.

When the Grid Goes Down is a day-by-day collapse novel set in Roosendaal and the surrounding West Brabant area in the Netherlands.

The premise:

Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. NATO enters the war. Almost immediately, a coordinated cyberattack hits the European power grid.

The lights go out.

And they don’t come back on.

The story follows a Dutch police detective who happens to be a prepper, along with his family, friends, neighbors and people caught on the military side of the crisis.

I tried to avoid the usual “super-prepper with a bunker and 400 rifles effortlessly defeats civilization” approach.

Instead, the collapse develops gradually.

At first people wait for the electricity to return.

Then the phones stop working.

Fuel becomes difficult to get.

Supermarkets empty.

Cash becomes increasingly useless.

The military establishes checkpoints and starts relocating civilians.

Barter appears.

Rumors spread faster than reliable information.

People who prepared suddenly have something everyone else needs.

And eventually the question stops being when will things return to normal?

It becomes what exactly is normal now?

A lot of the survival elements are things I’m genuinely interested in myself: food and water storage, solar/battery systems, radios, firearms, transportation, neighborhood cooperation, military logistics, black markets and the uncomfortable decisions that come with having supplies while the people around you don't.

It isn't meant to be a survival manual disguised as a novel. It's a collapse story first. But I wanted the logistics and progression of the disaster to feel believable.

It's also deliberately European. No American interstate highways, FEMA camps or endless wilderness. Dense Dutch cities, row houses, bike paths, military bases, farms and neighboring Belgium all create very different problems when the infrastructure stops working.

The paperback is available on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/9083760707

Title: When the Grid Goes Down

Author: Daan J. M. Holland

Book One of The Black Grid Series

If anyone here ends up reading it, I’d genuinely be interested in hearing what you think — particularly about the realism of the collapse and preparedness side of it.

Any feedback will either be considered in the 3rd print or considered for book 2 which im currently researching story elements for.

And because this seems like the appropriate place to ask:

If the entire European grid went down tonight and you knew it wasn't coming back for weeks, what's the first weakness in your own preparations you'd suddenly be worried about?