Book Review: Revelations (Extinction Point #3) by: Paul Anthony Jones I gave this book three out of five stars. I enjoyed this read, and I was happy to learn more about Emily’s story. I’d like to say this was a four star read, but I didn’t have any trouble putting the book down, so it didn’t meet my threshold. However this book, the third in the extinction point series, is better than the second book. What I liked about the book: 1) Am I just a sucker for romance, maybe. To me the romance between Emily and Mac was very organic, and I enjoyed the realistic building of attachment between them. You could see them getting together like a Mack truck, but it was not awkward or shoved down the reader’s throat. I kept thinking there could be more to it, because it kept falling short of me being wrapped up in them emotionally. I think given the situation the characters were in, the slow pace of it was very appropriate. There was plenty of opportunity for more. The reader is told about several conversations that took place between them, but we don’t actually get the pleasure of witnessing them. 2) I liked finding out the “why” behind it all. I may not agree with the themes or the outcome of the book, but the resolution was there. 3) I loved all the environments the author takes you through. From the frozen arctic, to life on a submarine, to one of the most famous US military installations in California, and then to see the red forest take down Las Vegas-the author did a tremendous job making all of it real. What I didn’t like: 1) Some of the crazy decisions made by the people in charge. At one point a sailor who was a sentry is killed in the night by one of the new world creatures. The commander signs off on not one, but two search party’s, even though he admits to knowing they were never going to find their comrade. He did it to make the other sailors “feel better”. No, no he would never jeopardize the safety of who is left in order to make them feel better. That not only didn’t fit the common sense test, but it is something not even the worst of officers would do. They land in the middle of Las Vegas crumbling under the red forest. Mac leaves a guy solo to watch over a helicopter, after they lose a UAV to a flying monster? Are you freaking kidding me? Not going to happen. He would never jeopardize safety by leaving him alone like that. 2) To much exposition and not enough dialog. As much as I loved being in the environment, I felt like I was reading the same descriptions over and over again. Yes-yes the climbing red vines, the debris-strewn path, more vines. The last third of the book got very repetitive and I found myself wanting to skip down the page. 3) I didn’t get why the sailors were mocking Emily when she relayed what happened to her in Las Vegas. They apologized and admitted they were wrong for thinking her stories back in Alaska were crazy. Why are they suddenly giving her a hard time? In the authors notes at the end he mentions future stories about Emily. I’m curious to see what those would contain. Will they revolve around her red eyed son or the fact she thought there was an alien observer in her consciousness. Very creepy ending, but a good way to set up future books.  

Last week I reviewed Extinction Point, and this week I am reviewing Exodus (Extinction Point #2) by Paul Anthony Jones. I gave this book three out of five stars. 

**This review does contain spoilers about this book.**

The fast paced action and terror continues in the second book Exodus of the Extinction Point series. I enjoyed the tense roller coaster ride the author creates as Emily makes her cross country trek to Alaska.
What I liked the most:
1) I loved the opening of the book. What a “Ground Control to Major Tom” moment.
2) I like the attempts the author has made at creating strong female characters. He does it with the commander of the space station, Emily, and I even saw it in Rhia. Could all of the characters use a little more polish-sure, but kudos at what’s there. It’s far better than others I’ve seen.
3) I liked the mystery of what attacked the seven frozen dead near the end of the book. It really made meeting Jacob a little more eerie. I thought Emily was kinda crazy not taking a closer look at them, but they left a lot of open doors for book 3 which I liked.
Things that bothered me:
1) I don’t think it was necessary to come up with some mysterious weather impervious valley to create more survivors from the red rain. I think it would have been more interesting for her to stumble across a clan of preppers living in a bunker. Simon asking if she was there to save them like she’s with the government, wow he’s dumb.
2) She left all of her gear at the other house-how stupid is our protagonist Emily? Come on she was supposed to be getting better at this survival thing, not worse.
It was like a bad horror movie when Simon left his kids to go retrieve the Durango. I was irritated when this happened because it just did not fit the common sense test. Why is he leaving his kids with a stranger? A father abandoning his kids to go get a vehicle when he knows there is an unquantifiable danger lurking about-NO WAY. They didn’t stick together to save time-he gets car and stranger lady is going to pack the kids stuff? NO WAY. We knew what was going to happen when Simon left and it pissed me off. I think it would have been more dramatic to be ambushed by the creepy creature at the other house and have to watch the creature take over Simon and then come for the kids. No need to split up, the terror of it all would remain the same. And it was a little bizarre how little miss “I don’t know how to drive” magically figures it out enough to ram the creature not once but twice-without flipping or destroying the SUV. What happened to all the cool rifle skill’s Emily gave us in book one?
3) I did not believe her character should have had so much unease at the drop in temperature. The woman did grow up in a small town in Iowa, she should be in her element. She’s from the Midwest, people from this part of the USA know all about winter-it starts in November and drags into late March. She should have been having flashbacks to her childhood. Not reminding herself of the cautions Jacob gave over the phone about the cold.
4) If I’m not mistaken this is a kill or be killed scenario. If you are going to kill a kid-turned alien get it over with. Why was it more important to spare his sisters feelings than keep them all alive? Why did she not shoot the alien Ben when it was hunched over Rhia in the middle of the night? Emily’s dealt with enough creatures at this point to know the boy Ben is dead. Does she really need to overnight with an alien to spare his sisters feelings? And why are they burying him in a rose bush-without a shovel-when the red storm is raining on them? That’s one of those sorry dear-we need to leave him here and press on moments.
5) Why is Emily freaking out on Jacob over the other people not being there? She broke into an apartment in book one because she was so desperate to find another living human. I don’t think she would have not gone to Alaska even if he did tell her what happened. Besides he’s basically saved her life dragging her there.
I still look forward to reading book 3 and seeing how this series shakes out.

 

This week I am posting my review of Extinction Point by, Paul Anthony Jones. This is the first book in his series. I rated it four out of five stars. The third book in the series released this week. I am kind of excited to dig into it.

A scary and action packed book, I enjoyed it. I look forward to finishing the series. I can’t help but wonder what will happen to the protagonist Emily.
What I liked about the book:
1) The construction of the red rain-to the extinction of life on earth was very well done. It was scary, and brutally real to witness through Emily’s eyes.
2) The creatures and what she learns about the fallout from the red rain is so fascinating. I was right with Emily-terrified through every grotesque moment.
3) The authors handle of loss, shock, and not letting the protagonist “magically” find her way out New York City. Emily suffers physical pains from getting hurt, she spends a night terrified in her closet, and has to suddenly plan for daily food and water when a day ago she was eating lunch in a café. She struggles emotionally through it all, dealing with the death of her boyfriend, her parents, her neighbors, and co-workers. I felt her reactions were sincere and genuine. When the protagonist is faced with a particularly disturbing “creature” she makes it to safety and finds she wet her self. That was real-and we see Emily do her best to keep it together.
I hate to say these were things I didn’t like, but more questions I think an editor should have exposed.
1) Jacob and his Alaskan friends found her how again? Social media-which kind? I really wanted to know this. Why-I don’t know call me crazy, but I think I’d be posting stuff to Facebook before I made phone calls to the White House or political parties. I think her “contact to do list” was a little backwards-but that’s just me. The White House-really?
2) Her priority of what she needs to take. I don’t know, was this just supposed to reflect or be more “true to life” of an average person’s survival competence? She’s smart enough to acquire a sweet bike, and take a small stockpile of bike extras, but looses her brain when she hits the camping store. She upgraded her bike but STILL sticks with a lame used army ruck. WHY? She was already chafed by the thing when she was at the store. I was in the Army, I carried those rucks, I know intimately how horrid those things are. I can get you a laundry list of other women who have served who will all agree with me-Those damn things were NOT made for women to carry. You couldn’t pay me money to carry one of those POS into the backcountry. Her food rations, does she like to carry more weight than necessary? Why on earth did she choose to carry heavy canned goods over lighter-and made for long shelf life backcountry food? Idiotic. Her reasoning, because she did think about it, no she’s going to resupply on the road. Only when she’s on the road she did this once. Her clothing supply, it was adequate before she hit the camping store. But once there I would have turned the camping store out. The first leg of her journey is roughly 150 miles-and she’s not going to get pants to pedal in. NO-WAY! I’ve pedaled enough to know she will be raw as all get out after 30 miles weighted down like she is. I’m sorry her jeans would be in the dumpster. I also would have turned out any house I slept in, but maybe that’s just me. She didn’t even look for sunglasses or dogfood-and she knew she needed those. I’d have scrounged up a map-stopped at a bookstore and picked up a good old Randall McNally with pages dedicated to each state. It’s not like she’s going to MapQuest her route-does she magically know all the interstates to Alaska?
3) Screw the bike-I would have taught myself to ride a motorcycle. I get how a car could be trouble with so much debris on the road, but a motorcycle/dirt bike she could have figured out. No way would I have been as calm as she was about pedaling her way to Alaska from New York.

Troy: Lord of The Silver Bow by: David Gemmell

I rate this book five out of five stars. Cover to cover I enjoyed this book. I figured I would, the Praise For David Gemmell page included a comment from Anne McCaffery who said, “He’s several rungs above the good-right into the fabulous.” I completely agree with her after reading this book. There are many things I could gush about Gemmell doing in this book-but I’ll stick with the three things I liked the most.

1) Characters, I don’t think there was a character presented I was not drawn to know more about or invested in and was cheering on. Ladi-dadi-everybody Gemmel had me meet I wanted to know more about. Even the Egyptian Eunuch who made garments for trade. Reading his chapter I was laughing to myself thinking, “I even like this guy. Gemmel you are a freaking genius!” You learn about the character you are following while also learning about the characters they are interacting with.

Gemmell divvied up chapters into scenes where you follow one of his various characters. The story moves forward, but you view it from the different character points of views. A brave risk, and thankfully taken up by an experienced author. This style of writing can loose the interest of the reader due to lack of empathy for certain characters, or the failure of the author to move the story forward. Readers will skip over scenes involving the characters they don’t like, or put the book down all together. I never once felt the urge to do either of these.

We get to view the protagonist through many character points of view and all of them have different opinions of the man and his actions. Just like in real life, I loved being able to form my own opinion of Helikaon. Born with a natural leadership talent we get to see how he was nurtured out of it, and then developed back into it. We get to see the mentors who influenced the young prince, and watch the drama of them confronting Helikaon over different actions he took in the book. These chapters offered some beautiful conversations about grief, how a monarch influences his people, and how we recover from haunting sorrows of the past.

When he introduced Andromache I was holding my breath. Can he do this, will he do this? Can he pull off a strong female without making her a non-relatable psychopath, whore, or worse someone we might believe to be strong-but never get to see in action? Oh he pulled it off-and I’d say he knocked the strong female character right out of the park. She was defiant, brave, and a woman who knew her own mind, and limitations. She also displayed heart and compassion.

I loved how Gemmell portrayed Odysseus. Brilliant-especially how he brought to life the theory that Odysseus was most likely a form of early drama and not just an example of oral history.

2. I enjoyed how Gemmell created a solid balance of non-fiction elements into the story. The Greco-Roman world came to life, but we were not subjected to pages upon pages describing buildings, clothing, furniture and food. It was relevant and aided the action and drama.

3. Gemmell knows how to write a battle scene. He’s not afraid to take on the task of writing the horrors of battle. In my opinion there are many fiction authors to chicken to try. They skim over the battles-because its hard to write them and you can easily fail trying for a laundry list of reasons. Kudos to an author who cares enough to get the details right, but not douse us in each sword stroke of every soldier on the field. The weapons were right, the use of the weapons was right, the strategies were correct-and as someone who cares about these historical realities it was blissful to read. The battles were awesome. My favorite scenes being Blue Owl Bay, and then the culminating battle at the end. “Death is coming!”
I ended the book wondering where Gemmell’s books have been all my life and looking forward to discovering his other works.