The Doors You Mark Are Your Own by Okla Elliott and Raul Clement

In this pseudo-translated historical text, originally written by an author from a time in our own alternate distant future, we learn of a world before that time yet occurring after the fall of our own (or possibly our recent past). As stated by the book’s own summary, this “blends elements of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Golden Age Hollywood.”  The main story itself is that of a world that had been nearly destroyed due to events not limited to, but largely centered on, the contamination of the world’s water, causing nekrosis in all those it infected.  However, various dying cultures managed to come together and settle around a clean water source and survive, though on a much smaller scale than they previously existed.  Now, that same contamination has reappeared and tensions are growing within and amongst the various cities.  In the greatest and most powerful of these cities, Joshua City, the leader uses this reemergence as an excuse to declare war on the others, starting with the herdspeople of Ulan-Ude, as the first step in gaining power of all seven cities.  However, this military campaign has led to civil unrest within Joshua City’s own borders.  The foremost of the points of view shown to us belong to that of Nikolas, Marcik, and Adrian.

As noted in the summary, this book is fictitious but still possesses a very real air about it.  Along with footnotes, there are moments within the false history/story—which is to say, not including the prologue(s)—when the nonexistent original author, Aleksander Tuvim, and the two real authors but self-described translators, Okla Elliott and Raul Clement, will pause the story and speak to the readers directly, elaborating on certain events in this history, providing both their own opinions and context on matters in such a way that it adds to the wonderful blurring of the line between historical retelling and fictitious story.

Though not a completely encompassing element of the The Doors You Mark Are Your Own, the book almost comes off as a ‘before’ story that so many popular series in entertainment lack.  This isn’t to say that the story isn’t outstandingly brilliant in its own right, but it is still an interesting element to consider.  In most stories, movies, or shows—most good ones, anyway—that begin with the key conflict already ongoing will have, at some point, a character briefly address the history of how and why the conflict came to be.  While that may address and clarify some key points, the audience is still left wondering about other details.  Given that this is the first installment of a lengthy trilogy, I’m interested to see whether the series will stay anchored in the current setting of Nikolas, Marcik, and Adrian’s timeline, as this book is itself just a ‘translation’ of Tuvim’s documentation of recent historical events, or if the story will precede to see change in his time, as the ‘translators’ of the book are well into the future of Aleksander Tuvim’s timeline.  Regardless, the book as a whole is marvelously crafted and has left me wondering just how the story will proceed. 

What is in a name?  At the end of the 8 page prologue—which is nothing when compared to the bulk of the book—a pivotal character (really, the pivotal character) in Tuvim’s modern day has a flashback.  While it means nothing at the time, it carries with it an implied weight.  At first the reader is only left to wonder at what it might mean, who are the people mentioned in it, what is so important about the name, what does ‘Messenger’ mean?  In fact, the prologue as a whole is well executed, giving bits of information to the reader, dropping names and events, keeping the reader curious throughout the book as they wait to actually see it unfold, see how the present came to be.  The prologue’s vagueness is perfect and it’s a promise of an exciting story to those who read on, a promise that it keeps.

Nikolas the Revolutionary.  A doktoral student turned revolutionary, and younger brother to Marcik.  Nikolas is a realist, aware of how the world works, with ambition and the wherewithal to achieve his goals; he is also aware that he doesn’t know everything and, as such, is always able to concede to that fact.  While he may sometimes come off as arrogant, he does what he believes is best for the largest number of people, which brings about the obvious pros and cons of any philosophy closely resembling “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”  He wanted to become a doktor because he believed that he would be able to find a cure for the nekrosis caused by the water contamination.  When he found he couldn’t work within the system to help the people, he instead decided to change the system in order to help the people.  One problem with his character development is that his progression in certain areas fall slightly into the category of ‘Instant Expert.’  It isn’t much, but to even be in this category to a small degree is disheartening for a book with events that are otherwise very realistic and well thought out.  At the same time, while he gains high skill levels almost unbelievably quickly, he utilizes them in a believable way, making it a hard point to judge.  Do we attribute his growth speed to being a ‘natural’ or a ‘genius’ and overlook it or do we let that point stand out as a flaw in the story?  I’ll leave that decision to each individual reader.

Marcik the Soldier.  A Guardsman, a soldier of Joshua city, and older brother to Nikolas.  We are introduced to a Marcik who suffers in no small part from arrogance, similar to his brother Nikolas.  However, where Nikolas at least has acceptable reason for his arrogance, Marcik has none, being an unlikeable character upon his introduction.  During his military training, as well as the experiences he has while active, he is broken of that arrogance, and fully comes into his own as a character whose tale is a blast to follow.  We follow him for the entirety of his military career: leaving home for basic training, being deployed and surviving through many small encounters, getting captured and tortured, and many, many, many more events that to merely name would ruin. 

Adrian the Nurturer.  A doktoral student who roomed with Nikolas in his first semester of school and is an ardent believer in the god of the Book of the Before-time.  Where Nikolas is a realist, Adrian is an idealist, aware of the limitations of reality, but chooses to look past them at what could be rather than what is most likely.  That being said, Adrian is effected deeply when his ideals are actually confronted and destroyed before him.  He spends much of the story doing good, but is always conflicted when weighing his thoughts and actions against his perceived correct moral thoughts and actions.  Thanks to his time sent with Nikolas, Adrian spends a lot of time thinking about the morality and subjective nature of the world they live in and the events that unfold within it.  What truly makes his character interesting is seeing why he is so important when the story already has two brothers on their own side of a revolution.  Is he a neutral party who has the ability to sway either side?  Or is it something more?

There are other characters who hold their own import, but it is around these three that the stories revolves, and the beauty of these three characters is simple.  While Adrian is neutral but, arguably, a good character, neither Nikolas nor Marcik are good or evil.  If you’ll excuse the binary, both teeter back and forth across the line between the two sides without ever fully falling into one.  In fact, it is on questioning this binary of good and evil that the story ends, though with a promise of even more development in the next installment.

With a book this size, over 700 pages, there is going to be a fair amount of world building.  This story is marvelously crafted, the characters are intelligently designed, and the events are both thrilling and thought-provoking.  While this may come down to nothing more than personal preference, the book can take a while before sinking its hooks into the reader, as the majority of the world building takes place all at once in the beginning of the story.  There are multiple stories all happening at once so, while it is written very well and is in no way boring, the first hundred or so pages are very exposition heavy.  This is the way the world is, this is how people have their allegiances.  Important stuff but it can take a decent amount of time to build steam.  However, get through that (not to say there is nothing exciting or interesting happening, there is) and you’ll be rewarded with an enthralling story that seems to explode before your eyes.

As I said earlier, this book is beautiful.  I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading and who I think could make it through all 700+ pages of this trilogy’s first installment.  While some may be turned away by that length, and the promise of 1400 more pages, I know there are plenty of readers out there who will revel in that fact.  To those readers, spend some time getting lost in this pure-baikal story.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy

Amidst the now dead United States—humanity and other forms of life nearly wiped out 150 years ago by a deadly pandemic and nuclear fallout—sits a small town, the Sanctuary, located in what was formerly known as St. Louis. From this desolate wasteland, a lone female rider appears from the land beyond its walls, land which, up to this point, has been described as holding nothing but death.  The people of the Sanctuary have been ruled by fear, under the thumb of the corrupt leader, Thomas Lancer.  With the appearance of this rider, Gawea, comes her promise of a better world, a promise that Thomas tries to silence in order to maintain his power, forcing Lewis Meriweather and Mina Clark, among others, to save her and find salvation for their town on their own, outside the walls, crossing 2000 miles/3200 kilometres by horse and foot.  With the possibility of water, of a way to save the people of the Sanctuary from the drought and famine, they have no choice but to follow this mysterious girl to Oregon.  And after all that time and radiation, both from the fallout and UV exposure due to the vanished ozone…things have changed.

I can honestly say that when I first picked up this book, I didn’t know what to expect from it. It seemed like it had promise, the title of The Dead Lands alone caught my interest, though that is definitely more a personal interest than anything else.  When I saw that it had a quote from Stephen King's review that was definitely not a negative factor in its favour, but I can’t say it swayed my decision too much [so…good job for the editor and publishing company there].  However, I have to say I’m very glad I picked it up.  The book started out leaving me slightly unsure, a little bit confused as to how it would go, but interested nonetheless.  It’s also a story told from numerous perspectives and, while it wasn’t something I’d expected, anything told from at least three viewpoints, three well-written viewpoints, always wins points in my book.  This is your atypically typical dystopian fiction story.  When I read the brief description of the book I was expecting a much different kind of dystopian fiction novel.  I won’t get into how it differed, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise that I received when I read it.  What I can say is that it was enjoyable, it was fresh, and that the slight difference from typical dystopian fiction novels kept me highly interested.

There are several key characters in this story, resulting in several points of view that the reader is able to see from, and I would have trouble determining who I thought the best one was.  Each had minor flaws (not personality flaws, but flaws in how they were constructed), some of the slightly less important ones bordering stereotypical and boring at points, but the very least I can say is that none of the characters were bad (morally, yes, but not in the way they were written).  They were nicely crafted, had their share of character flaws, and felt more real than placeholders.  I should probably address the fact that the two most central main character were named Lewis and Clark.  Yes, this is essentially a retelling of their exploration.  At the same time, I’m fairly certain nothing would’ve been lost by given them different names (among other details of the story that closely tied into the real life Lewis and Clark).  I mean, it’s definitely a fun detail, to say the least, but at the same time I can’t tell if it seems a bit too forced.  A bit too on the nose.

BEWARE, SOME SPOILERS BELOW BUT THESE ARE SOME POINTS I’D LIKE TO ADDRESS.  I’LL MAKE IT EASY TO SKIP PAST IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE.
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Magic and Wizardry.  Essentially, this book combines dystopian fiction and, what I saw as, Arthurian fantasy.  So for anyone out there, anyone out there who has wondered at the possibility of human kind being able to develop magical abilities, this book, by means of using a hundred and fifty years, radiation, a mysterious illness, evolution, or some bizarre combination of these things, has allowed for that world to be created.  The world has ended, society has collapsed, pockets of humanity have managed to come together and stay alive, preventing the eradication of the human race, and in that time wizards are born.  Two of the main protagonists, Lewis and Gawea have what can only be described as magic powers, and they’re not the only ones.  They’re explained as effects of evolution/mutation, so maybe that’d be a bit more accurate way to describe their abilities, but I’m sticking with magic.

Alright, that might be a bit of a stretch, but it was my first reaction to the story. 

While there’s the obvious Lewis and Clark retelling in this story (Re-imaginings of Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, John Colter. I also looked at what could have been some overlay with the King Arthur lore, this being one of many great quests.  Thomas as Uther Pendragon, Lewis as Arthur, Aran Burr as Merlin, Gawea as Morgana, the Sanctuary as Camelot, something like that.  There were some other connections that I saw between the stories, but I only have a precursory knowledge of Arthurian lore.  I’d love to have someone highly knowledgeable in it read and analyze The Dead Lands to see what, if any, connections could be made.
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OKAY, IT’S SAFE TO READ AGAIN, THE EVIL SPOILERS ARE HIDDEN AWAY AND CAN’T HURT YOU ANYMORE, I PROMISE.

As for the special twist in this dystopian fiction that makes it different from many others, I can honestly say I had no clue that would lead me to expect what happened.  When I read a dystopian fiction, I expect to see a very close to life, a very similar world, to the one I currently live in.  While this story does have that, it also has something more, and that thing that it has, that little something more, makes this book something that is unique.  It’s not bursting with uniqueness, but it has a spark and, whether or not you enjoy the genre(s) that this book falls into, to find uniqueness in literature is fairly rare.  I think, for that fact alone, this books is special.  But that specialness, that examination of the book based solely on its uniqueness, only really applies to those with no particular interest in this genre.  For those who actually have an interest in the dystopian fiction, science fiction, fantasy novel world, this book is damned amazing.

Overall, the story is, in the most general analysis of it, fairly standard.  With increasing saturation of the dystopian fiction, The Dead Lands tells a common story of life on Earth after society as we know it crumbles.  There’re a group of people who band together and, while dealing with numerous hardships, strive to complete their goal of surviving/saving other people.  While they try and do this thing, there is a bad guy who is doing something counter to what they wish to achieve.  I’m doing a lot of generalizing, but that’s the story.  Let’s be honest, that’s most of these stories, different bodies on the same skeletal structure.  However, while this story arc is fairly common, the twist that Benjamin Percy puts onto this story is highly enjoyable, and livens up this dystopian fiction.

While I love the story, there are parts of the writing that rubbed me the wrong way at point.  Mainly the progression of events in Lewis, Clark, and company’s journey.  Several months (passing a year potentially) pass over the course of this story, as the group is traveling 2000 miles/3200 kilometres by horse and foot across an irradiate wasteland.  That being the case, I understand how, when the viewpoint changes from that of one in the group to that of one still in the Sanctuary, and back again, the group has moved forward in time days, weeks, months.  Since they do, obviously things will have changed both within the individual and within the interworkings of the group, yet some additional explanation could be used, rather than the “well this is obviously how things would change” moments that are there.

The cast of good guys is lengthy and fairly diverse.  I could go off, listing each by name and talking about them but I’d rather talk about the bad guys, and this is already turning into a long review.  So, for the good guys, I’ll say that they’re all pretty interesting, mostly well-written, and I enjoyed them.  Same for the ‘neutral’ characters, or ones who shifted from one side to the other.  Now onto the bad guys.  Without getting spoiler-y, I’ll stick to the two main ones, Thomas and Slade.  While I, at first, enjoyed Thomas’ immature and youthful brand of bad-guy-ness, it quickly grew old and unbelievable.  When someone acts the way he does, you would expect that he would have the power to ensure that he can continue doing what he wants to do, no matter how foul.  Yet, he has almost no real power.  Slade, another crazy, listens and largely obeys him, but he’s one man in a city of thousands and Thomas has virtually no other allies among the citizens, the guards, the council, or…other places that I don’t want to mention for fear of spoiling more than I already may have.  The point is, he stays in power merely for the point of being an antagonistic force despite having very little believable and rational explanation for his continued success. 

As for Slade, he’s a well-written, if stereotypical, crazy bad guy.  He’s the head of the police force with a good amount of respect/obedience to stay in his position of power, though he comes off as a cut-and-paste Buffalo Bill.  He also likes the position he’s in, which is the only reason I can think for him to listen to Thomas, the man who allows him to do what he wants.  His misdeeds and grievances are rational (to him) and the string of reasoning he uses is evident to the reader so, while they may not sympathize with him, they can understand why and how he rationalizes doing what he does.  Taken together, they provide the drama back in the Sanctuary but, while that drama is entertaining and nicely breaks up the story of the journey, it seems insincere and too unbelievable.  Unfortunately, since this story makes up half of the world the reader experiences, that’s a major blow to the overall book

The story ends on a good moral note, in that it presents you with differing moral standpoints and, though Percy clearly chooses what the perceived correct one is by way of story progression, the opposing or “wrong” morals still make you stop and think about it.  Most of all, I was stuck wondering if I would have made the same choice that Lewis made and, if so, what would my reasoning have been.  Yet, even with that good quality, after everything that I’d been through, the ending felt rushed.  After carefully thinking about it, what I had initially thought was just a dislike for how The Dead Lands ended turned out to be a dislike for the comparative lack of substance that the ending possessed.  Not the epilogue, mind you, which I thought had a fun cliffhanger (though one that I think should be left alone, keeping this a stand-alone novel), but the end of the journey that took several months and a couple hundred pages.

I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend this story to anyone who is interested in dystopian fiction, fiction, fantasy, science fiction, manifest destiny, survival stories, and the list goes on.  Percy’s The Dead Lands is a book that I highly enjoyed and the time I spent reading it I don’t lament in the least.  It was time spent its existence for a good purpose.  Lacking any sense of elegancy, the best way, I feel, to describe this book is as follows:  it was really, REALLY cool.

Rating: 4/5

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Grasshopper Jungle is set in modern, poverty stricken Ealing, Iowa and narrated by Austin Szerba.  Sex and sexuality, adults, bullies, [censored], and sex. Austin and Robby, retrieving some items placed on the roof of the local mall by a group of bullies, decide to slip into “From Attic to Seller Consignment Store” where they see [censored], [censored], [censored], and [censored].  While in the store, the group of bullies break in and [censored].  As they sneak out, making sure to avoid the group of bullies, they see [censored], setting off a strange chain of events that [censored].

You’re probably wondering why I did that to the story’s summary. Spoilers are one of my biggest pet peeves, whether it applies to books, movies, games, anything.  Hate ‘em.  Don’t want ‘em near me, don’t wanna look at ‘em. I wish all spoilers would just die.  Okay, that last bit might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it irritates me to no end when I read the back of a book or the inside sleeve of a book gives away crucial information.  If I could go on and on about how much I hate spoilers, I would, complete with an extensive multimedia presentation.  However, I won’t because I’m talking about Grasshopper Jungle right now.  The reason I bring up my disdain for spoilers is because of what would have been ruined for me in this book had I known about it prior.  Nothing that would have destroyed my experience, but it would have taken away something special.  In keeping with that I have made the summary I normally include short and vague.  I want all you potential readers to have that same moment I did.  To best describe that moment, I’ll say this:  I never saw anything but the title of Simon Pegg’s The World End before I watched the movie.  My feelings of unadulterated bewilderment and pure glee when “the shift” happened (I’m hoping this is explanatory enough) in that movie perfectly mirror my reactions when I read this book.  Now that I’ve finished the book and read the back (basically, now that I’ve looked at even the most precursory information about this book) I see it’s actually not that a surprising a shift (much like World’s End wasn’t if anyone saw even a single trailer or looked at the movie posters).  However, I went into this book with only my experience of his earlier books—Ghost Medicine, Passenger, In the Path of Falling Objects—playing into what I expected out of this book (If I’d remembered Marbury Lens I may have seen it coming).  So, if possible, I’d like to give you the same experience I had.  Smith is great at writing captivating coming of age stories, and Grasshopper Jungle is that and more.  For first time Andrew Smith readers, this book is as excellent a place to start as any.

Now that I’ve finished belaboring that single part, I’ll actually get into the actual review.  Sex. Boom, the reader’s hooked.  This is a great coming of age story that, among the many factors to come, isn’t afraid to be in the head of an adolescent boy and elaborate on all of his thoughts.  A few of those thoughts aren’t even about sex.  Along with Austin’s many mixed feelings towards sex and sexuality, his overall attitude towards friends, romantic interests, adults, and bullies are dead on and I would challenge any reader to say that they can’t find a single instance in the story where they aren’t taken back to a similar moment in their own adolescence. [As this is a male character and I’m male, I can’t speak from experience, but I’d wager that this also applies true to females as well.]  The narrative style is that of first person train-of-thought for 10^th grade Austin Szerba, and I can’t imagine any other form being this captivating.  There’s always the issue that train-of-thought writing might sound too manufactured or it might be too erratic, but Smith has succeeded in spades.  Also, did I mention that Austin is very, very horny?

As a science fiction, Grasshopper Jungle is almost required to speak to some real modern day issue by way of its sci-fi narrative.   Grasshopper Jungle addresses sexuality in a way that isn’t typically addressed in YA fiction outside of novel solely dedicated to that topic.  This helps pull the topic from sensitive subject matter and makes it part of normal conversation so, regardless of the quality of the story (which is exceptionally high), the impact this book has and will have gets it major points in my book.  It’s clear in every one of his novels, but Smith has an interestingly profound understanding of what it is to be a teenage boy.

The quips and overall comedic tone in here are great.  They’re not forced, they’re clever, they’re fun, and they’re plentiful.  I started with a small list of lines that I thought about including here, but after I’d accumulated a couple dozen from the first forty pages alone (out of nearly four hundred) I realized that the list might exceed the length of the rest of my review.  Not a page will go by that you don’t chuckle, at the very least.  They also make sense, working with the established voice of the story and making the reader enjoy the act of reading while not pulling them out of the story.  Hell, forget quips, it’s all funny, the whole damn book.  And in every single chuckle and thoughtful moment of the book, there are hardly any “book” moments, and when I say “book” moments, I mean events that could only happen in a book.  Thinking them over, I could see them all happening in real life (well…with some obvious exceptions).  There’s a life in this book, making it more than a story and making it incredibly clear that no one could finish this book being worse off.

The premise of the story (and yes, this will be vague) is one we’ve all heard before.  Important/relevant older figure has store with strange odds and ends.  Kids break in.  Kids find things hidden away off main store floor.  Kids witness object’s misuse.  Chaos/plot ensues.  It’s a solid angle that works and Smith puts his own flourish on it.  The characters, primarily Austin and Robby, are also constructed incredibly well, coming off as intelligent and self-aware while being believable as teenagers, not appearing as teenage puppets worked by their adult and experienced creator. 

“The shift” that I referred to earlier—the cause of my vagueness and, most likely, your irritation towards how unhelpful my review is—results in one of the mostly calmingly surreal stories I’ve read in a while.  There is no loss in teenage awkwardness, no overselling of certain emotions, and the ending is a blast.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys slice-of-life stories, science fiction, and chuckles, as well as anyone dealing with, or trying to understand, teenager-hood.  Actually, I’d recommend this to anyone of any age who likes a good, fun story.  This is, at least, one of my top five YA novels.  Now, while you go read Grasshopper Jungle, I think I’ll go check out Alex Crow…

Rating: 4/5

Cannibal Reign by Thomas Koloniar

In Thomas Koloniar’s first novel, Cannibal Reign, we find ourselves preceding the end of the world from two perspectives.  The first is that of Jack Forrest and his friends and fellow Green Berets.  The second, that of Marty Chittenden the astronomer.  Both possess knowledge that very few others do:  an extinction sized asteroid is on course to collide with Earth.  Due to some inside information, Jack Forrest and crew gather supplies and outfit a recently purchased missile silo, preparing to survive within with carefully chosen family and friends.  Simultaneously, Marty Chittenden, the man who discovered the meteor in the first place, is doing everything he can to warn the rest of the world of the inevitable catastrophe, seeking the aid of the women loved long ago.  Unfortunately for Marty and everyone else on Earth, the United States government wants this kept a secret in order to prevent panic over this unstoppable event.

Marty Chittenden and those he falls in with find themselves in any number of dangerous situation.  The two sources of conflict are created by both his desire to go warn the planet despite the wishes of the US government and survival on post-apocalyptic Earth.  The situations they find themselves in are diverse enough that it’s interesting to see what will happen next, but there’s always the sense that their success has already been determined.

To all those horror movie characters who didn’t listen when I told you not to go in there, you could learn from this book.  Jack and his allies always make the right decision due to, what we are asked to believe is, their military background.  My knowledge of active military personnel begins and ends at what I’ve read or in movies and TV shows, but I can only assume that the main characters ability to act the way they do is because of said background.  For obvious reasons I don’t know how soldiers act when preparing to confront, and actually confronting, danger, much less confronting the apocalypse, but they’re portrayed here as faultless, in respect to their ability to work under incredible pressure.  Now that I think about it, in respect to just about every other way, too.

The logical actions of these characters was a unique quality of this book, something not often found in apocalyptic fiction (or many book genres for that matter).  In this, the logical (read ‘correct’) method of action is always taken by the characters.  Always.  Which can seem a bit unrealistic at times.

In Cannibal Reign Koloniar approaches the apocalypse with the belief that ‘might makes right’ and that, as a general rule, awful people will survive because they are awful to other people (with the exception of the main character, who are essentially inside traders as far as knowledge of oncoming doom is concerned).  Cannibalism, rape, tribalism, violence and more, everything one would assume to appear when there is no reason to follow now outdated societal laws and morals.  The world within this book is that of a worst case scenario of societal fallouts with only small and widespread pockets of humanity left to make the world better.

One of my key complaints with this book is that the characters felt a bit lacking.  Essentially, each character had a roll in moving the story along, but besides forming a purely mechanical relationship, they didn’t have much to them.  Character flaws were either nonexistent or didn’t amount to anything that had any visible impact on the story.  The characters were too logical, too perfect, and too plain. 

The storyline had a similar problem.  While problems and conflicts that arose throughout the story brought interest with them, they didn’t have a lot of density.  The character did their perfectly logical thing and went about it the best possible way.  The events of the story were handled perfectly.  And in any story that wants to grip the readers and keep them wondering what will happen next, perfect is boring.  Reading through this book I found myself not finding any points to stop and wonder at the twists the story had taken or the actions of the characters.  My attitude towards it was that of “okay…and?”

I was glad to see a story with characters who acted rationally, but now that I’ve seen it, I realize why I don’t see it more often.  People rarely act in such a way that is always beneficial to them, especially given these circumstances.  However inexplicably easy to overcome they may have been.  Along with some added complexity and tension to the plot, the characters need work to seem more real and deserving of the reader’s interest.

Mechanically, the plot and characters could both be improved, but the spirit of the story makes it worth the read.  Is it brutal at moments?  Yes, however it’s brutality that’s not out of place.  For all those interested in Dystopia/Apocalyptic Fiction with the right bit of Military Fiction mixed in, I recommend you pick up Cannibal Reign for your next rainy day.

Rating 2.5/5

I should caution those readers out there who might be turned away by, or in any way insulted by, incredible violence by men towards women simply because of sexual reasons.  While it is displayed in a way consistent to this specific view of the apocalypse and is present throughout the entirety of the book, it can be seen as bordering on, if not crossing, the line of excess.