Brad B.

11 in 13...

Revisado: 03-29-17

This wasn’t at all what I was expecting after reading all the positive reviews. I’m not sure if the standards about what constitutes “horror” have changed drastically in the last 40 years, or if I’m not refined enough to appreciate what many people seem to consider a classic. I listened to this in the evenings before going to sleep and instead of giving me the creeps all it gave me was a strong sedative effect.

In a nutshell, it takes 6 hours of exceptionally mundane back story before someone finally gets around to suggesting that an exorcism might be an option, then another 5 to get around to the actual exorcism. That’s ELEVEN HOURS of a THIRTEEN hour listen before you get to the point of the book. This irritated me so much I feel like restating it just for emphasis... ELEVEN HOURS OF A THIRTEEN HOUR LISTEN. By that point I had lost nearly all interest in the book. I was only sticking it out in the hopes that there would be some awesome pay off in the end to reward my persistence… there wasn’t.

Overall Mr. Blatty’s reading was low and monotone with sporadic bits of excitement here and there and lacked the range that might have made the story a little easier to listen to. With the exception of Kinderman, Dennings, and the demon all the other characters sounded very similar. This was most obvious when he didn’t adopt a more feminine tone when reading Chris MacNeil’s parts. If my attention drifted (easy to do with this one), it took a few lines to figure out who was supposed to be speaking once I focused back in. This was completely unnecessary as a female narrator was also credited but only read a few lines near the end as a child’s voice.

Skip it, please… ELEVEN hours of set up isn’t worth the climactic scene.

Now I know what you’re thinking, mine is one dissenting opinion against an overwhelming positively reviewed book so you may as well get it; odds look pretty promising you’ll like it.

Seriously though… skip it.

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esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

Best of an enjoyable series.

Revisado: 01-16-16

I've followed Cyrus's journey through the zombie apocalypse since the first book "The Undead Situation" came out in 2013. My guess is that if you're reading this, you have too. The series is practically required reading in a genre that has become bloated (Sorry about the pun.) with lots of sub-par stories.
Ms. Knapp did a fantastic job bringing the story back full circle. Not only is this accomplished through the main story line, which is to be expected, but also through subtle nods to the previous two books. Its that subtlety that I found particularly impressive. Just enough to catch your attention, but not so much that it encumbers the flow of the story. I won't spoil anything here, but you'll know them when you hear them.
As you'd expect, the usual cast of characters are back along with some new ones that shake things up some. Ms. Knapp has continued to refine and add depth to Cyrus's character since her first book, and "Ruins" is no exception. He's still the original z-poc sociopath; love him or hate him, he couldn't care less as long as he gets what he wants. Along those same lines, Ms. Knapp has also continued to raise the bar for her brutally descriptive treatment of a post apocalyptic existence. Its one of my favorite things about this book. To say she doesn't pull any punches is a gross understatement.
What can I say about Mr. Collins? He's the voice of Cyrus that we've all come to expect, in all his snarky bluntness. Few narrators capture a character so well. I doubt I could listen to anything else he's done without thinking "Cyrus V. Sinclair". The only reason he didn't get a full five stars is that while he has Cyrus "dialed in", other characters are not quite as polished.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Not what I was expecting.

Revisado: 12-23-15

Admittedly this book is a little different listen than I'm used to. My supernatural fiction tastes usually run more towards Richard Kadrey's "Sandman Slim" and Mike Carey's Felix Castor series. The action scenes in this listen are descriptive and fun, but too few and far between. In those long lulls between excitement the book is mired in pedantic Victorian gentile etiquette. It's mind numbing for a person listening more for the supernatural action aspects, rather than a tribute to the fastidious "gentlemanly arts" followed by the disciples of Beau Brummell. The performance was entertaining, with good variance for the different characters. Overall it was just not what I was hoping for.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

This one will make you use Audible's return policy

Revisado: 11-19-15

I don't know Thomas Watson, or his prepping or vocational background, but his protagonist isn't someone most people could probably relate to. He's a single nurse that contracts all over the country and makes a huge amount of money which he dumps into prepping. Plus, he's a Reserve Sheriff's Deputy that's a member of a special response unit and has a trained working dog that travels with him. So, to be clear, the protag is rich(ish) medically trained, highly tactically proficient LEO (in his spare time) with a dog that's smarter than most of the secondary characters.

In Watson's book, Nathan (the protag) spends days (the whole book mostly) acting as this Prepper Messiah to a group of store employees and a stranded family while defending the store from the growing civil unrest. Nearly every decision the Nathan made was counterintuitive to most experienced people who prepare for similar disasters. For example, after he's stranded by the EMP, he spends thousands of dollars buying last minute supplies at this particular store/restaurant/casino most of the book is set at. He bought so much that I expected him to try and buy a working car or ATV to start his 2000 mile trip home. Nope, well over 100lb pack and he's going to walk it. Hahaha; no way.

Beyond that, the character seems written more for an action movie than a realistic treatment of a disaster. Nathan kills people with the same nonchalance has opening an envelope with no reason or explanation as to why he can do this. In better books people defend themselves without hesitation, but they understand the gravity of their actions despite the necessity of it. As many military and LEO veterans know, just because the taking of a life is justified, sanctioned, or within the ROE, you still live with it. Mr. Watson never conveys this with his character.

Every time Nathan is about to put on his "hero hat" he has to make some sort of cheesy comment that had me rolling my eyes. Not one LEO I know would run up to a group of guys about to loot a store and yell "Pain train's coming! Who wants tickets?" or something similar. You just can't take this work seriously with content like that. Its pretty consistent throughout the book, as is his character's need to always remind people "I'm a cop." I should've counted how many times Nathan played that card, even when doing illegal things himself... "Its okay, I'm a cop". If he was going to throw out his moral compass after the disaster that's fine, but to constantly hide behind his badge became a worn out plot device.

Anyway that's about it. I'll be getting my Audible credit back on this one.

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esto le resultó útil a 11 personas

Slow... very slow.

Revisado: 06-29-15

I'm going to come clean right off the bat; I'm only around half way through the book. That being said, I feel like I could have jumped into the story right where I'm at and wouldn't have lost anything. The story is taking an agonizingly long time to develop, and the parts that are supposed to be "creepy" never really seem to hit that mark. Most of the content comes across as if I'm overhearing an incredibly uninteresting and mundane conversation held between people I couldn't care less about. As it progresses, I've found that those mundane conversations are becoming more and more annoying and hard to listen to. Right now I'm really struggling with finishing the book.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Not my normal genre of choice...

Revisado: 02-14-15

...but I'm glad I gave it a try. At the beginning I thought the main character's impulse control issues were going to seriously annoy me and I wasn't even going to make it through the first hour. Every time he said he wasn't going to do something, you could bet he'd break down within 30 seconds and soon be lamenting over his lack of will power and mistakes. However, once he went back in time this pattern wasn't quite as prevalent and the story became a pretty fun listen that moved quickly.

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Decent idea that gets bogged down quickly.

Revisado: 02-14-15

I now know more about wolves than I ever really wanted to. Don't get me wrong, the story has its moments but those moments were usually embedded among long monologs from the main character constantly speculating about the wolf's motivation for doing ANYTHING. It became very distracting through in a 19 hour listen, and gave me the impression it was mostly filler as it had little bearing on the plot. Mr. Collin's style was fitting for the main character, but his idiosyncratic way of narrating always made everyone seem agitated and out of breath. I finished the book not really caring about the characters or whether there would be a sequel.

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

Self serving glory hound.

Revisado: 01-31-14

Too strong? Maybe, maybe not. Captain Phillips certainly underwent a series of events that few people in the world could identify with, and for that his story is a unique and interesting. That much seems certain. What is uncertain is how much of his role was embellished after the fact to make him appear more heroic than he might have been in reality. I suggest this only to caution the listener to examine what Captain Phillips recounts with a critical ear. Initially, I didn't know much about the events recounted in the book. I watched the movie, found it entertaining, and wanted to learn more. However not far into the listen my "BS" meter began "pinging". I found a lot of his story extremely arrogant and self-righteous, and was beginning to wonder why he didn't walk on water right off the lifeboat to safety. After constantly being told why he was such a great captain throughout his career, how he continually outsmarted the pirates, and how his actions saved several of the crew's lives again and again I started researching the event to get a more complete picture. Without going into detail here, I will say there are multiple accounts of Captain Phillips' actions during that time. Most of these accounts conflict with what is set out in the book. I found many of the peripheral stories about Captain Phillips' pre-hostage experiences in the Merchant Marines burdensome and tedious. I didn't really care about what kind of a hard-case he was in academy, or how he met his wife. Some people would argue stories like that give a character depth, but in this case it just came across as filler for the book.

The narrator did a decent job with the story. I didn't really find his reading especially captivating, nor did it make a bad story worse.

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Good story in a single shot.

Revisado: 01-31-14

Overall I really enjoyed this story. It was an interesting concept loosely grounded in historical facts and entertaining to listen to. These days, I appreciate authors that can wrap up the story in one book. Sometimes I don't want to start the investment in a long series of books that inevitably end on cliff hanger after cliff hanger. Some people might see the plot as "formulaic" but its that straight foreword manner that made it an enjoyable listen. I only have one criticism; the author had a bad habit of cramming every historical figure he possibly could into the story. I understand that famous figures in military history were young "up and comers" in 1920 and some would conceivably play a role in these events. My issue is the steady stream of notable people that made cameo appearances through out the book in miner or insignificant roles just to add them in. Its starts out as a fun novelty and then becomes a little burdensome as it happens more and more. Its totally worth a credit if you're looking for a fun, straight forward listen.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Very dissapointing...

Revisado: 12-12-13

I guess I'll start off by saying I love the post apocalyptic / dystopian genre, especially those works that center around losing our modern way of life such as an EMP. Books like "One Second After" and "Going Home" are good examples of the premise done pretty well. That being said, this book is far more a fantasy piece than anything else. What makes the difference to me is an element of plausibility, that "could happen" factor. In this book, no explanation is given. On the surface I could live with that; but where it crosses too far into the fantasy realm is that after "the change" not only did electronics not work, but fundamental laws of physics changed too. Firearms dribbled out bullets at the feet of the shooter, steam power produced next to nothing, and gasoline wouldn't even burn as a fuel source. Why? No one knows! It just seemed like the author stopped trying. He might as well said "Magical fairy monkeys said so, and it was true." It makes about as much sense. I also found that modern people all of a sudden being able to use swords easily, craft bows, know how to farm, garden, spin wool to make clothing, and all the other similarly rare skills pretty far fetched. I thought that all the happy coincidences enjoyed by many of the characters pushed the limits of what I was willing to accept too. A person is out in the Oregon forest when she just so happens to stumble on to an injured hunter all the way from England who just happens to be a master bow maker of the old longbow variety. Wow, what a boon! She should have played the lottery before everything went down the tubes with that kind of luck. Speaking of that character, I get that she's Wiccan, more power to her (no pun intended) but does she have to constantly speak like she's an Irish fortune cookie? That get tiresome in a 20 plus hour book. Just answer a simple question with a simple answer, not everything needs a proverb or blessing attached to it. It really bogs down the flow. Its so pervasive that if the author curtailed it, the reading would be cut down to 13 hours.

Finally, one or two things about the performance. Mr. McLaren did a good job overall, and I've definitely heard worse. He does many Northern European accents well, which begs the question why, in a book that takes place in Oregon and Idaho, are there seemingly more English, Irish, and Scottish folks running around that just average Americans? I don't know if that's a problem with the writing and Mr. McLaren was being faithful to it, or his interpretation of the characters was too heavy handed. Either way it was distractingly incongruous.

The whole book feels like too much of a stretch for me to be happy with. It seems like a gamer or LARPer recreated the world they would be happy in with no regard for realism whatsoever.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas