Tagged: masq1
Apocalyptic Organ Grinder by William Todd Rose
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
A fatal virus—a biowarfare experiment unleashed on an unsuspecting world—has reduced the once-mighty United States to a smattering of tribes dueling for survival in the lawless wilderness. The disease-free folk known as Settlers barricade themselves in small villages, determined to keep out the highly contagious Spewers—infected humans who cannot die from the virus but spread the seeds of death from the festering blisters that cover their bodies.
Tanner Kline is a trained Sweeper, sworn to exterminate Spewers roaming the no-man’s-land surrounding his frightened community. As all Settlers do, Tanner dismisses them as little more than savages—until he meets his match in Spewer protector Lila. But when hunter and hunted clash, their bloody tango ignites a firestorm of fear and hatred. Now, no one is safe from the juggernaut of terror that rages unchecked, and the fate of humanity hangs on questions with no answers: Who’s right, who’s wrong . . . and who’s going to care if everyone’s dead?
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Whatever my expectations were starting Apocalyptic Organ Grinder, they were blown away within a few chapters. William Todd Rose packed so much into this novella that I hardly know where to start.
Let’s start off with his world-building. It was fascinating, terrifying and worst of all, believable. The divide between the Spewers, the people infected with a horrible disease who pass it onto healthy people and the healthy people is realistic. Spewers are outcasts to be put down like animals upon sight by Sweepers like Tanner, who will do anything to keep their friends and family safe. Yet the atrocities aren’t limited to the uninfected because the Spewers’ hands aren’t clean either in this war. I love how in Apocalyptic Organ Grinder both sides are relatively ambiguous; it’s left up to the reader to decide for themselves who’s good and who’s evil. Personally, I decided both sides are a mixture of good and evil.
Both Tanner and Lila were fascinating characters. Tanner will do anything, which includes kill Spewers, in order to protect his little girl back at the settlement. He does have a guilty conscience and wrestles with it and it’s that struggle that brings Apocalyptic Organ Grinder to its horrifying conclusion. His hands are certainly not clean and we do feel more sympathy for Lila, the Spewer who only wants to protect her family and her tribe from Sweepers like Tanner. Since we get to see things from both perspectives we’re left to judge the characters by their actions and internal struggles.
The plot was fast-paced in this little novella and I read the whole thing in one sitting. Reading a book in one sitting is not unusual for me as my regular readers will know, but frantically flipping the pages to do so is. William Todd Rose certainly knows how to create suspense in a limited number of pages. He is also quite even-handed with the perspective switches so that we get enough switches to understand both sides of the story but not so many as to become confusing or annoying. In short, Apocalyptic Organ Grinder may not have a completely unique premise, but it does have awesome characters, great world-building and suspense.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
Sky’s End by Lesley Young
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
A secret she must never share. A secret that two warring species are determined to control. A universe’s future at stake.
Twenty-year-old Cassiel Winters joins Earth’s new space academy in hopes of finding her brother, one of Command’s top pilots and her only family, who’s been reported MIA. But she quickly realizes she may not be cut out for life in space, where female cadets are outnumbered, competition’s fierce, and she’s already failed her hand-to-hand combat test once.
Even the station’s most respected officer, Lt. Damian King, probably can’t help Cassiel pass the second time around – so why is he so interested in her progress? If only one of her freaky déjà vu visions would offer an answer instead of mysterious messages like hide.
When Cassiel’s manipulated into a perilous mission, she encounters a warrior species bred to protect the universe from an even greater threat. And she learns that her secret visions are at the heart of it all.
Now Cassiel must fight to control her own destiny and race to save her brother – even if it means pretending to be the pawn of Prime Or’ic, the cold-as-steel Thell’eon leader. Even if it means risking her life, facing hard truths, and making the ultimate sacrifice.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
If I had to describe Sky’s End in one word, it would be disappointing. Lesley Young had such an amazing premise here that I couldn’t help but request it from NetGalley. I mean, a young female space cadet in a mostly male world working to find a way to save her brother (who is missing in action) sounds like a great sci-fi premise. Throw in some marauding aliens bent on wiping out humanity and you have an apparent winner. Except Lesley Young had some problems with not only what she was writing about, but how she wrote.
There are a lot of awkward phrases throughout the book, but not enough to annoy me. What annoyed me was that some things were described in ridiculous detail (mainly the Thell’eons) and things like Cassiel’s surroundings weren’t described at all. It was akin to be dropped into a dark room with a bunch of talking heads at some points in the story. Okay, so I could ignore even that, but all of the futuristic technology that is named but never explained really grated on my nerves. I don’t like it when authors talk down to their readers, but sometimes it’s okay to explain the things your main character casually mentions.
The plot was truly confusing at some parts. Why they sent Cassiel out on a mission knowing she’d be captured by the Thell’eons is a mystery to me, even though there was sort of a weak explanation about how they like human women. The plot twists that I don’t want to reveal involving the real threat to the universe were also ridiculously confusing. I re-read certain scenes twice to make sure I wasn’t missing something and still didn’t completely understand what was going on. I think Lesley Young definitely knows where the plot was going, but that she had a hard time getting the message through to readers.
Cassiel was an okay character, I suppose. I could feel that she truly loved her older brother and wanted to find him, that she was confused about the Prime Or’ic and Damian and that she wanted to do the right thing in the end. Yet at the same time, I didn’t really feel her emotions. Throughout the course of the story Cassiel gets angry, sad, happy, etc. but I never really could connect with her on that emotional level I can with most characters. I’m not sure if it’s something on my end or the author’s, but it definitely affected the way I felt about the whole story.
Overall, I’d say that Sky’s End really just wasn’t for me. There was such an awesome premise, but Lesley Young never really did live up to it. I finished the book and just felt confused and let down by the ending. The plot twist completely blindsided me and not in a good way. It was more of a “Huh? Where’d that come from?” way.
I give this book 1.5/5 stars.
Hollowland by Amanda Hocking
(Cover picture courtesy of Amanda Hocking’s Blog.)
“This is the way the world ends – not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door.”
Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way – not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies.
After enjoying Amanda Hocking’s Trylle trilogy, which was admittedly light reading but still good, I decided to give Hollowland a go. I mean, it’s about zombies and it was free on Amazon at the time so why not? I had already read Amanda Hocking’s work and liked it so it seemed like it would be a winner.
Except it wasn’t. The plot was so cliché that I could pretty much predict all of the plot twists. And certain elements were so unbelievable that I have to laugh. A pet lion, really? Even if it was tame before the apocalypse, it certainly would not have stayed tame after Remy freed it from a bunch of zombies. Okay, if I suspend disbelief on that front long enough I still find the rest of the plot either trite or unbelievable.
Harlow is thirteen but is so immature you would think she’s eight years old, Remy knows how to get things done but is an unemotional robot and Lazlo is just plain annoying. I don’t want to spoil too much, but the fact that Remy’s little brother is taken by the government for immunity testing and Remy wasn’t is just a little unbelievable considering they’re siblings and therefore could share the same DNA that makes them immune.
The characters were unlikeable and the plot was, well, nonexistent. Remy and the gang do a bunch of travelling and get chased by zombies a couple of times, find the quarantine zone and just relax until the very end. Trust me, you can predict what happens at the end by chapter two. Honestly, I would have expected quite a lot more from Amanda Hocking, considering that I enjoyed her Trylle trilogy. Sure, it was a little predictable and there were a few clichés, but there was nothing on the level of Hollowland.
Moving on from the characters and the plot, I did find one good thing about Hollowland: the zombies. The zombies are more of the 28 Days Later fast zombie type than the traditional slow type. They display a lot more intelligence than zombies in some books and even lay an ambush for the characters at one point. However, there is exactly zero information on the virus/parasite/whatever that caused the zombies and virtually no backstory about how or when the apocalypse started. It’s frustrating because that’s the one element I actually enjoyed in the story.
Overall? I’d give Hollowland a solid ‘meh’. The zombies are okay, but the characters and plot are either boring or unbelievable.
I give this book 2/5 stars.
Zombie, Inc. by Christine Dougherty
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Twenty-five years after the deadly plague, the United Five State Republic’s most successful company, Zombie, Inc., is in trouble. Will a simple case of dwindling supply and lessening demand be the end of them or will Zombie, Inc. find a way, however unpalatable, to survive?
Zombie, Inc. is an awesome new twist on the whole evil corporation trope. I don’t say that lightly either because the evil corporation trope is done quite a bit these days, not entirely undeservedly. Politics aside, if you love zombie novels you’ll love this new take on the zombie mythos.
Christine Dougherty’s zombies are pretty standard fare: they’re generally slow but the new ones are obviously stronger and faster. However, what’s done with the zombies by Zombie Inc. is incredible: since zombies aren’t as much of a threat as looters 25 years post-apocalypse, they’re used as chained-up watchdogs. Zombie Inc. has built its whole business model on the fact that there will be enough zombies to supply this guard dog demand, but now that the zombie supply is running out what will the corporation do?
I think you can sort of guess, but let me tell you more about Christine Dougherty’s post-apocalyptic evil corporation. People at Zombie Inc now work seven days a week because it’s safer, they work ten hour days minimum and get only 2 days off per year for their first year of work. Two days a year! And the world is so changed that everyone just accepts this without question; Zombie Inc. is there to protect you, after all. In between the chapters in a series of training manual clips, press releases and advertisements we learn a whole lot more about Zombie Inc. and its less than savory business practices.
With world-building like this it would be easy to let the evil corporation theme steal the scenes and leave the characters undeveloped. I won’t say that Christine Dougherty had absolutely amazing character development, but her characters were interesting and generally well-developed. I particularly liked Carl’s backstory, even if Candy’s was a little random. Once we got to see things from Dill’s (Dillalia’s) point of view, she started to carry the story on her shoulders, especially toward the end. Carl was still my overall favourite character because of his tragic past, but Dill was decent enough.
The plot was well paced and although some of the plot twists were a little predictable, the characters and awesome world-building more than made up for it. In short, if you love zombies, you’ll love Zombie, Inc.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
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Water by Terra Harmony
(Cover picture courtesy of Terra Harmony’s site.)
Elemental powers in the palm of her hand…and it won’t be enough to save her.
When Kaitlyn Alder is involuntarily introduced to a life of magic, she becomes part of an organization hell-bent on saving the Earth. Just as her new-found life holds promises of purpose, romance, and friendship, the organization divides and a rogue member holds Kaitlyn hostage. Now one of the most terrifying men the human race has to offer stands between her and Earth’s survival.
Water is a contemporary eco-fantasy, the first of a four book series. This novel contains adult language and sexual situations (some non-consensual).
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Water is an interesting book, for lack of a better word. It has some interesting magical scenarios and some good characters but it also made me slightly uncomfortable, which I suppose was Terra Harmony’s intention. If some of the scenes here hadn’t made me uncomfortable I suppose I should be in therapy right now.
Part of what I loved about Water is the whole mythos surrounding Gaias (women who control the elements). Kaitlyn accidentally found out she was a Gaia like many before her. She can control all of the elements, but unlike so many heroines actually has to train long and hard before she can even begin to master some of the most basic tasks. Her relationship with Micah complicates things slightly in her training and I like how when he does terrible things to her in the name of ‘training’ she gets mad at him and stays mad. No Insta-Forgiveness here, thank goodness. Later on, when we learn some of the horrifying implications of being a Gaia and what has happened to past Gaias a lot of what happens to Kaitlyn makes sense.
Obviously, I liked Kaitlyn as a character. She’s a heroine who, when she gets mad, stays mad at someone. Of course she’s capable of forgiveness, but some of the things that happen to her (the greenhouse incident comes to mind) aren’t easily forgiven. She isn’t a kick-butt heroine all of the time, but nor is she a damsel in distress. Her actions once she’s kidnapped prove that despite the psychological, physical and sexual torture she’s put through. I don’t want to go into much detail because of spoilers, but Terra Harmony put in a trigger warning for a reason when it comes to the last half of the book.
The only thing I didn’t really like was Shawn as the villain. On the surface he seemed like he had some motivation, but when you peel back the thin layers he’s not what I would consider a memorable villain. Maybe later on he gains far more motivation for wanting to get rid of Kaitlyn, but at the moment he definitely seems like your stereotypical mad villain. I’m picky with my villains, so that’s a comparatively minor complaint when you consider all of the good things Water has to offer.
The plot slowly becomes fast-paced after Kaitlyn discovers she is a Gaia and I’m so glad that Terra Harmony knew something about pacing. The tension slowly ratchets up as it builds up to the climax and even the ending doesn’t bring total relief. What a cliffhanger to leave readers with! Despite my misgivings about Shawn, Water was an overall great read that has some really good things going for it. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Air.
I give this book 4/5 stars.