I wrote a collapse thriller about what happens when the systems we take for granted stop working
Hi there!
If you ended up on my profile because I mentioned When the Grid Goes Down somewhere, this is probably the post you’re looking for.
I’m Daan J. M. Holland, and When the Grid Goes Down is the first book in my Black Grid series.
The basic question behind the book is pretty simple:
What actually happens when the power doesn’t come back on?
Not just for an evening. Not a neat 24-hour blackout where everyone complains about their freezer and then life continues normally.
I mean when electricity, communications, electronic payments, fuel distribution, water systems, logistics and eventually public order begin failing at roughly the same time.
The story follows ordinary people trying to navigate that collapse, including a detective who gradually finds himself caught between doing what the law says he should do and doing what might actually keep people alive.
And that conflict is really what the book is about.
There are supplies, violence, shortages and survival, obviously. But I was much more interested in the uncomfortable decisions underneath all of that.
How long do you keep sharing when you don’t know when the next delivery is coming?
When does protecting your family become abandoning everyone else?
What happens to decent people when following the rules starts putting them in danger?
And how much of our normal behaviour exists simply because the systems around us are still functioning?
A lot of the background came from researching real disasters, blackouts, shortages, civil unrest and infrastructure failures. I deliberately set the story in the modern world rather than some distant post-apocalyptic future, because I wanted that little voice in the reader’s head saying:
“Hang on... this isn’t actually impossible.”
That’s probably the reaction I’m happiest to hear from readers.
I don't want you to finish the last page and simply think, “that was a fun apocalypse.”
I want you to put the book down, look around your house, and spend the next few days wondering what you would have done differently.
If that sounds like your kind of dystopian/survival thriller, it’s called:
When the Grid Goes Down
Daan J. M. Holland
Black Grid – Book 1
Paperback, hardcover and Kindle editions are available.
Paperback & kindle:
Hardcover:
And if you’ve already read it: I’m genuinely interested in one question —
Which decision in the book made you think the most about what you would have done?
Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC