Disruption Series by R.E. McDermott

The grid is down, the world is in flames, and FEMA is demanding his ship and cargo, but Captain Jordan Hughes isn’t buying it. When the lights go out, seemingly for good, Hughes quickly finds being stranded far from home on a ship with working generators and a cargo of ten million gallons of irreplaceable fuel isn’t exactly a low profile position. Faced with rising crew discontent, and surrounded by worsening violence ashore, things can’t get much worse — until they do... moreThe grid is down, the world is in flames, and FEMA is demanding his ship and cargo, but Captain Jordan Hughes isn’t buying it. When the lights go out, seemingly for good, Hughes quickly finds being stranded far from home on a ship with working generators and a cargo of ten million gallons of irreplaceable fuel isn’t exactly a low profile position. Faced with rising crew discontent, and surrounded by worsening violence ashore, things can’t get much worse — until they do. As the remains of the federal government become increasingly corrupt and self-serving, Hughes joins a ragtag band of sailors, farmers, preppers ex-Coast Guardsmen, and dissident soldiers in an effort to re-unite his crew with their families and use remaining resources to rebuild a devastated society. Along the way they face a desperate and starving population, rampant violence from street gangs and escaped convicts, and powerful warlords created as an unintended consequence of the federal government’s ill-advised use of mercenaries. less

PUSH BACK the second book of THE DISRUPTION SERIES is now available. Earth reels in the aftermath of a savage solar storm, a global disaster of unprecedented proportion which leaves most of the world without electrical power or the means to restore it. Across the world, the responses of unprepared national governments’ are too little, too late. In the U.S... morePUSH BACK the second book of THE DISRUPTION SERIES is now available. Earth reels in the aftermath of a savage solar storm, a global disaster of unprecedented proportion which leaves most of the world without electrical power or the means to restore it. Across the world, the responses of unprepared national governments’ are too little, too late. In the U.S., order collapses and opportunistic forces rise to fill the power vacuum, as what remains of a self-serving federal bureaucracy prioritizes the survival of politicians and bureaucrats over that of the general population. As chaos and starvation spread, isolated pockets of survivors unite to survive. In Texas, Captain Jordan Hughes and a ragtag group of seamen and ex-Coastguardsmen gather their families close and resist the depredations of a hoard of escaped convicts. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a similarly determined group of survivors attempts to use salvaged resources, not only to save themselves, but also to feed the hungry. But not everyone is happy about the efforts of the valiant and resourceful few. Secure in his Camp David compound, a corrupt president consolidates power and builds a mercenary force to deal with any possible challenges to his absolute authority and to seize all dwindling resources for ‘government use and fair distribution.’ Survivors of the natural disaster are thus dealt another blow as they’re betrayed by the very government established to protect them. Do they knuckle under to a dictator, or do they PUSH BACK? less