Paul

Stephenie Meyer for dudes

Revisado: 04-10-25

I am very interested in the basic scenario of post EMP attack survival, and expected to at least be entertained. But as far as I got with the story, it was seriously undermined by the authors inability to write dialogue, develop characters or even describe scenes.

This reads more as a script than a book. Everything is stated bluntly, with minimal, functional detail. Like one writes when on first learns to write in the primary school. For instance, instead of describing the situation as how it would appear under a certain emotion, the writer states the feeling of the character amongst the listed main facts of the situation. It is as if the writer expects someone to stage and act his story alive, and add all the missing dimensions to it. But as far as I know, this is supposed to be an independent work of fiction. A fiction writer is expected to breath life into his story himself, not to wait someone to buy the filming rights. He should make the readers feel like they are living the story, experiencing things that they have not actually lived. That did not happen with this book. I've read cookbooks that were more emotionally gripping. This reminds me very much of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer – this just is written for dudes.

Back to the story, there is an immense contrast between the how problematic the situation is told to be, and how unproblematically the characters acted with each other. Parents are divorced, kids are separated from each other to different states, the dad's super busy at work, the kid's going through all the teenage crap, and on the top of it all, the whole country gets nuked. I would have expected some tension in the book even before the nukes, let alone after it, but none exists: everything is peachy. The book lacks tension and dimension, and gets very boring very soon. Not unlike the one Twilight book that I started but didn't finish. Just like this one.

Edit: I listened to this as an audiobook. While reader gets rather annoying too, seen the material he's working with, I find it hard to judge him for that. Perhaps it just results from him trying to make the writer's tepid narration feel more alive.

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superficial & annoyingly read

Revisado: 06-03-21

The author's presentation is superficial to the point of being faulty. He gives us a ton of quotes, and particularly from Voltaire's letters on England are good. His commentary adds nothing and reduces much.

The main reader is excellent. However, all the quotes are read by somebody else with mock German, French, Scotch and whatever accents. It is particularly annoying that the mock accent by which Voltaire is represented sounds like Dracula, since the book is full of Voltaire quotes.

You'll be much better off reading Voltaire's Letters on England and Rousseau's Social Contract instead.

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Wonderful little strories of horror

Revisado: 03-28-21

These are some of the best horror stories I have ever read or listened. The author has both the imagination for intriguing and creepy stories and the skill to tell those stories in a manner that makes them alive and weirdly believable even when they are manifestly surreal.

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Mostly bad literature

Revisado: 03-27-21

If you get this for free, it is worth the listen for Romero's preface, which was pretty interesting by itself. Other than that, the book consists mostly of badly written and dull stories about vets and "bombshells" during a zombie apocalypse. Fair enough, zombie apocalypse was what these are meant to be about, but that doesn't excuse for bad writing and unimaginative storytelling.

The greatest disappointment was no doubt Russo's story, which may work as a script but also read as a script, which makes for some clumsy literature. It is so badly written that it fails to engage with the reader's/listener's emotions despite feeding a bunch of children to the zombies.

Some of the stories were written as mémoires of a zombie attack survivor, but some more interestingly as those of a zombie or somebody about to die in a zombie attack. Some of these latter ones were just silly, but some worked very well.

Mike Carey's "In that Quiet Earth" was a weird take on the theme, and an interesting listen. I was also positively surprised by Max Brallier's story "Snaggletooth". These are definitely the two best written stories in this book and each worth a listen.

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Cursing doesn't make the message clearer

Revisado: 11-23-20

This is a good lesson in that needless use of swear words doesn't improve the clarity of the message. Expressions such as "bullshit", "shit that goes down in our in our lives", are less, not more substantial than the expressions describing the particular things that you actually mean to talk. The repetitive use of such expressions impoverishes language and diminishes its descriptive capacity. It obscures the content of your speech. Thus, if you want to be straight to the point, it is advisable to avoid needless foul language. In addition, when reading from a paper, swearing really comes out as fake as fuck.

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A treasury of old vampire stories

Revisado: 11-21-20

This is a veritable treasury of old vampire stories. Much from the time before the classics. Some amongst them are excellent, and almost all more interesting than the more contemporary writings.

Do not expect jump scares. These are mostly slow moving tales of seductive and hypnotic vampires, mysteries that the hero tries to solve rather than battles he or she fights in open. Some of them are also rather humorous.

The reader is excellent. It often feels incredible that all stories are read by the same person.

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A book everybody should read

Revisado: 07-22-20

This is a history that is not taught, in fact is constantly denied. Of course, the documents proving it have been classified, and most of the witnesses killed, whereas propaganda to the contrary has been spread by all media and basic education. But now that it is known, it should be known by everybody. Chances are it changes the way you see the world.

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Awfully written

Revisado: 07-11-20

This is what happens when the writer cannot figure out any narrative solutions, but decides to write the story nonetheless.

The book is narrated in first person, present mode, but it certainly does not come out as the protagonist's present thoughts or experiences. The narrator quite bluntly just tells the information that could be interesting for a modern day reader, such the typical gender roles and fashions of the day, the situation with the war etc. She also describes her hair colour and opinions, family members and such. This all comes out as if the writer had just read a history book and put its content in first person and present mode. Nobody thinks like this. Nobody experiences a history book depiction of the events around her or him.

Perhaps the story is not meant to be read as the description of the protagonist's first hand experiencing of the events, but as if she was telling the story to somebody. But then, to whom is she telling the story, and why is she telling it in present mode if it already happened? Why does she feel the need to tell things about her social circles that should be bloody obvious to her reader/listener.

I'm puzzled as to why nobody posed these questions to the writer. Why was this allowed to be published in this state? There are many good ways to narrate the historical context for the reader unfamiliar with it, but no such narrative techniques are used in this book. By consequence, the narration has no credibility, and thus the reader will not feel any connection with the protagonist nor with the events. The whole story comes out terribly pretentious.

I'm keenly interested in the history of the early United States and the rise of the modern republics in general, and it seems to me that the story that the writer wanted to tell would interest me. But I just can't torture myself by finishing a story this awfully told. So I didn't.

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not a thriller

Revisado: 06-29-20

This is not a thriller, let alone a fast paced one. It took beyond the halfway of the book for the first hint that this might be a thriller and not just a story of man getting over a tragic loss. That possibility of a thriller motive was thereafter swiftly erased.

I might have enjoyed this book more if it was not so badly misadvertised. For it is not a bad book on overcoming a personal tragedy, and it is not utterly badly written either.

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An excellent dramatisation of a classic tale

Revisado: 06-02-20

Really enjoyed everything about this great piece of audio drama. The story is what it is, an adventure story that you probably remember from your childhood. While that genre often is disappointing, at its best it has that sense of adventure, of going out to an unknown world and growing while learning to know it, which does have an appeal. Maybe out of nostalgia or because of the quality of this particular story, or perhaps because of how well it was dramatised, this one appeals to me. If adventure stories appeal to you, you are bound to like this audio drama.

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