The Big Dark

I really did not appreciate the scene with the guy with delusions talking about invisible toys because it just adds to the idea that mental illness makes someone into a creepy predator. It was totally unnecessary and ruined the rest of the part where Charlie seems to learn that people in a psych hospital aren't dangerous.

I also felt like Webster Bragg was presented in ways that fascists usually don't act. They tend to keep their more extreme beliefs under wraps until they have already persuaded other people to accept their less-obviously white supremacist ideas. Fascists don't just start ranting to unwilling listeners about how might makes right; they use underhanded techniques to make their ideas seem more palatable at first.

This is not to say that people like Webster Bragg wouldn't respond to disaster like he did, but that fascists would typically not be so loud about ideas they know make them unpopular with their neighbors unless they had nothing to lose. And since deer hunting is still happening in the town, people other than the Braggs do have hunting rifles.

I felt like the parts where Charlie was alone on his skis were well-written, and when he dropped the jerky I absolutely knew some animal would start following him and sincerely hoped that it wasn't a bear.