Imagine if a volcano erupted that's a thousand times worse than any volcano in our lifetime? That's what happened about two years before SUPERVOLCANO: ALL FALL DOWN begins. The eruption was the center point of the first book in Harry Turtledove's new series. I have not read the first book.

ALL FALL DOWN seems to cover about two years of the aftermath, and it focuses on one family, including an ex-wife and an ex-boyfriend. It is slice of life, the way life is after a megadisaster.

The supervolcano of the title erupted in Yellowstone National Park. One of the family's adult children was living a few hundred miles away and has ended up in a refugee camp. Another adult child is stranded in Maine, where it's pretty much winter all the time. The rest of the family, and the ex-boyfriend, are all in the Los Angeles area.

Turtledove explores the supervolcano's effect on the economy, transportation, utilities, and the food supply in these different parts of the country. The novel is also a study in family dynamics under extreme stress. That's it.

It's like a fictionalized essay about what might happen if a massive volcano blew up and made it rainy in southern California and even colder in cold places like Maine. We also get a lot of introspection about how if it's this frigid in Maine, how cold must it be in someplace-that-got-really-cold-even-before-the-supervolcano.

I also found it hard to follow the passage of time. I'm guessing the book covers a two year period, because one character is pregnant early on and the child is speaking in sentences by the end. The author doesn't include dates or six weeks later. You just have to guess based on what the characters are saying or thinking.

While it behooves everyone to consider the types of disasters that could occur in our lifetimes, I can't recommend this if you're looking for an action-packed man-against-nature kind of story. If you enjoy a quiet, thoughtful book about what life might be like for one family in the aftermath, this one's for you.