The biggest fantasy in this book is that China would wipe out all the people in the US, Canada and Mexico... Um, who would buy all the STUFF China produces? China has replaced Russia as the stock bad guy, but in reality has never in its history pursued an expansionist foreign policy - a role the US has assumed as its Manifest Destiny. Aside from that, the story moves along at a nice clip, but like a lot of dystopian novels, it seems simplistic. None of the characters know much about history, or have much culture on offer other than a generic white bread fare. Only one token Black person, one token Asian, no Latinos, no Native Americans, no gays, etc. The story closely resembles an old fashioned cowboy movie: frontier justice, Ma 'n Pa 'n the kids vs. the rustlers. In the end the small town prevails, a symbol of the Jeffersonian myth of the small farm-based community, without any of its gruesome facts about the genocide of Native Americans, slavery, and capitalism's insatiable greed - facts that could actually educate readers about what is causing the real ongoing apocalypse.

I would have given this 4 stars because right up until the last few chapters, it was quite good. It's not a great novel because there are a lot of details that didn't get really explained and could have stood being fleshed out more than the author did. I also felt the ending wasn't spectacular and that things could have gone a bit longer - seemed like he decided the book was long enough, so that was a good place to end. All in all, the good parts reminded me somewhat of the (cancelled) tv show Jericho while the meh parts reminded me of the new fall 2012 Global show Revolution (which will hopefully be cancelled).

Really great book!

An interesting take on a very possible post-apocalyptic future.

Not a bad post-apocalyptic book. In fact it's better than crap like the Hunger Games which is little more than a novel writte like a TV show. The main plot of Hunger Games involves a silly fight-to-the-death reality competition. It doesn't come across well in writing. Eleventh Plague isn't great but it has some good moments and good characters. To the commenter Ace_E360, I believe it was a worldwide plague which is why there was no 'relief effort'. The characters say Canada and Mexico were also hit by the plague. It's likely other countries were as well.

Honestly? Its really not the best book out there. Its fluffy and funny, mostly because it tries too hard not to be. The characters are absolute, either all good, all bad, or plain douches (into which category the main character falls; He's just a little self centered and he comes across as a would-be bully.) The situation is, frankly, more than a little ridiculous. I mean, really? Biological warfare wipes out all of America and there's no international relief effort? I'm skeptical.