Katherine
Honestly… where to begin. The concept is cool, and I do think the way the story is told is fairly unique. I haven’t seen this exact style before, and I do think it would work for this… if other things were better. I do have the issue of this being VERY choppy- I understand the premise is a series of interviews, and you have to put the pieces together yourself. However, at times this… didn’t work as well as I would’ve liked. It really needed a bit more to tie interviews together, or at least introduce people and their role in everything better. Sometimes that was fine, sometimes I barely understood who was talking. This especially comes to fruition at the end of the book, where it’s wrapping up a lot of these “interviews”- I didn’t remember who half of them were and kept having to search for their name. It’s at least competently written- the prose isn’t bad, and each perspective does seem fairly unique even if I don’t understand what someone’s role was and why they’re being interviewed at times.
Now, I realize this was published in 2006, which was a very different time. Some of the political takes (I’m not going to go into detail) are incredibly naive, stereotyped, or unrealistic. Or all of the above. It’s a zombie apocalypse book, I can have suspension of disbelief, but only to a point. You mean to tell me the US military would be THAT stupid? That modern war weapons wouldn’t work because you had to get a head shot? The logistics were set up SO badly that the tanks ran out of AMMO? And air support? What’s that?? That was truly the dumbest portrayal of a modern military I’ve ever read.
Some chapters were actually good and portrayed a fairly realistic idea of how humanity would react, but unfortunately that only happened in a handful of the US chapters and the international chapters were… sure something. The stereotyping was BAD. And while some takes on human psychology were good, some were SO INCREDIBLY BONKERS I have no idea why Brooks thought it was a good idea. Between the good chapters and the “what the fuck” chapters, it was mostly kinda boring. It goes into some aspects that you might not think of, but it doesn’t always do the best job explaining itself… either Brooks tried TOO hard and it comes across as technical jargon mumbo jumbo, or he didn’t try much at all so the reader is confused on why that chapter is there at all.
Honestly, for book quality I’d probably give it 2.5-3 stars, but the amount of stupid so outweighed the good to me that I’m mad it wasn’t better. This could’ve been SO GOOD! AND IT WASN’T.
Honestly… where to begin. The concept is cool, and I do think the way the story is told is fairly unique. I haven’t seen this exact style before, and I do think it would work for this… if other things were better. I do have the issue of this being VERY choppy- I understand the premise is a series of interviews, and you have to put the pieces together yourself. However, at times this… didn’t work as well as I would’ve liked. It really needed a bit more to tie interviews together, or at least introduce people and their role in everything better. Sometimes that was fine, sometimes I barely understood who was talking. This especially comes to fruition at the end of the book, where it’s wrapping up a lot of these “interviews”- I didn’t remember who half of them were and kept having to search for their name. It’s at least competently written- the prose isn’t bad, and each perspective does seem fairly unique even if I don’t understand what someone’s role was and why they’re being interviewed at times.
Now, I realize this was published in 2006, which was a very different time. Some of the political takes (I’m not going to go into detail) are incredibly naive, stereotyped, or unrealistic. Or all of the above. It’s a zombie apocalypse book, I can have suspension of disbelief, but only to a point. You mean to tell me the US military would be THAT stupid? That modern war weapons wouldn’t work because you had to get a head shot? The logistics were set up SO badly that the tanks ran out of AMMO? And air support? What’s that?? That was truly the dumbest portrayal of a modern military I’ve ever read.
Some chapters were actually good and portrayed a fairly realistic idea of how humanity would react, but unfortunately that only happened in a handful of the US chapters and the international chapters were… sure something. The stereotyping was BAD. And while some takes on human psychology were good, some were SO INCREDIBLY BONKERS I have no idea why Brooks thought it was a good idea. Between the good chapters and the “what the fuck” chapters, it was mostly kinda boring. It goes into some aspects that you might not think of, but it doesn’t always do the best job explaining itself… either Brooks tried TOO hard and it comes across as technical jargon mumbo jumbo, or he didn’t try much at all so the reader is confused on why that chapter is there at all.
Honestly, for book quality I’d probably give it 2.5-3 stars, but the amount of stupid so outweighed the good to me that I’m mad it wasn’t better. This could’ve been SO GOOD! AND IT WASN’T.