Chicago Bob: A Novel about Environmental Challenges

James Sheets
Wheatmark (2007)
ISBN 9781587368776
Reviewed by Ron Standerfer for Reader Views (5/08)


What if Al Gore and the environmentalists have it all wrong?  What if the culprit behind all the earth’s ills is not mankind, but Mother Nature herself?  This is the premise of “Chicago Bob,” an entertaining and educational book by James Sheets. Readers should not be fooled by the title which is catchy but almost incongruous when viewed side-by-side with the subtitle which is, “A Novel about Environmental Challenges.”  The latter does a far better job of describing the book and it is evident that the author takes his job of novelist and scientific narrator very seriously.

The basic premise of the book is that a massive break-away iceberg in Alaska releases a deadly flu virus that decimates most of the earth’s population and then on its journey south, triggers a chain of natural catastrophes that thrusts the globe into a mini-Ice Age.  The survivors, which include Chicago Bob, are a hardy and creative lot, who manage to fall back on Ice Age skills for food and shelter, and then slowly but surely begin to reconstruct civilization based on their memories of technology from previous times. It is an arduous and time-consuming task, continuously interrupted by a barrage of natural disasters from Mother Nature’s bag of dirty tricks;  disasters that include earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, flooding and more.  At times it was a process of one step forward and two steps backward. Still, the survivors endure and soldier on.

“Chicago Bob” will not be ready for prime time until it is given up to an editor who can ferret out a variety of misspells and misapplication of words that are sprinkled throughout the book.  On page 138, for example, he says, “After some time pasted…  I’m pretty sure he meant passed.  But never mind that.  Once the story starts to carry you along such minor peccadilloes are scarcely noticeable, if at all.

James Sheets has done his homework and has managed to tell a dramatic and complex story in a simple, direct narrative fashion, without resorting to hyperbole or techno-babble.  This makes “Chicago Bob” a must read for those who are concerned about their planet and the welfare of future generations.  So, how long has this thing with Mother Nature been going on?  For millions of years, apparently; perhaps since the beginning of time. And what is our prognosis for the future? Sheets leaves room for the reader to draw his or her own conclusion, but leaves a tantalizing clue in the last sentence of the book, “Nature continued to be the force that governed the Earth.”

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