I tried to finish this one, I really did, I kept reading hoping that at some point there would be some suspense, but to no avail. The friends and family members playing the role of "protagonist" were all magically prepared for all situations through the first 126 pages of the book, and things that would have ordinarily been a challenge weren't.I really started to hate the "family" - while I realize that in a situation where we lose all our electronics, and are fighting for a dwindling food supply, means that people are going to behave a lot less civilly than they would ordinarily, the fact that every single person in the "family" had no qualms or hesitation about shooting people to death, even if they had not even been provoked by said people, without any sense that they were having to think about the morality and humanity of the "situations" they were in, started to get to me.Add to that, again, the fact that no one seemed to be challenged. No guns jammed, no one was in a situation out of their control, all the things that you don't usually rely on when you are writing fiction. I get this was a hybrid "information dump on how to survive the apocalypse" and a story, but the story was weak, at least through the first 58% of the book. Weak is probably an overstatement as the plot, whenever it did manage to shine through the layers and layers of information dumps was uninspiring at best. The whole thing reminded me of that cheesy TV special Al Gore sponsored/ghost-wrote about seven ways the world will end.My apologies to Mr. Tackitt, but I couldn't force myself to finish this. If there is no real conflict of any sort by the time a reader gets to nearly the 60% mark, it just isn't worth the effort to read the last 40%. I really enjoyed this book. I felt that the characters were developed for the right extent for the author's purpose of combining a survival book with a fantasy novel.There were distributing parts where the average person could not fathom that situation and outcome, but that is the point of putting it in there, to show what you would see.I love end of the world theories and this book showed a theory, preparation strategy, and survival techniques.
What do You think about A Distant Eden (2000)?
great book. hard to put down. a "how to survive doomsday" story. can't wait for sequel.
—Rago95
The usual post apocalyptic novel. Things came way to easy for these people.
—jatts
Enjoyed it. Felt it raced to the end and just fizzled though.
—tina
Exactly how I imagine the end, very scary...very!
—shiba
