One word placed carefully after the other with heartfelt necessity, sentences that keep you reading and fully immerse you into the scene with eery realistic imagery, you feel the desolation, the solitude, the love, and the loss. This author has a potent and poetic prose, repeating and orchestrating a fine symphony, a cadence of reflections on world gone topsy turvy and the lost, all this has you subdued by the jugular and hypnotically taken into its haunted and unforgettable realm. A road to somewhere story. I loved its simplicity, grace, and terrible beauty. The praise from James Lee Burke, a great writer and novelist, should be enough of a reason to read this, he, William Faulkner, and Cormac McCarthy, to name a few, all write great stories with the haunting and the unforgettable, their writings with tragedy intertwined are a cycle of retelling that transcends in many forms from the Greek and Shakespearian tragedy tale till now and continues on into the new writers to come with this author being one of them, with this debut of a grande voice.
Excerpts:
"He turned off the light. Blended with the sound of the storm was the sound of the wash against the shore, the tumble of the whitecaps. A cold wind blew in off the water and he pushed the hood from his head and felt the wind and rain on his face and leaned his head back and felt it around his neck and ears and it was in those moments that he could feel her still there. Still there when there was only the dark and the sounds of what she had loved. He closed his eyes and let the rain soak into him and she was there at the edge of the water, the salty foam rushing around her ankles and her hair across her face and her shoulders red from the sun. He let himself fall back and he lay stretched across the horse, his arms flailing to the sides, the barrel of the shotgun pointing down toward the wet sand and the flashlight dangling from his finger-tips. The rhythm of the waves and the crash of the rain and the solitude and the big black world around him and it was in these moments that he felt her there. "Elisa," he said. He sat back up in the saddle and pulled on his hood. He looked out across the dark ocean and listened and he thought that he heard her. Always thought he heard her no matter how hard the wind blew or how hard the rain fell. He listened, tried to feel her in the push of the waves."
"The kudzu had begun to creep like some green, smothering carpet, taking over roads and bridges. Finding its way up and around chimneys and covering rail lines. Swallowing barns and houses. Sneaking across parking lots and wrapping itself around the trunks of trees and covering road signs. The constant flooding and drying out and temperature swings had split the asphalt of parking lots and roadways, the separations becoming the refuge of rats and skinny dogs. Chunks of beach had disappeared as if scooped out by a giant spoon, leaving the flat waters of a lagoon where people used to sit with their feet in the sand and drink beer from cold glasses and eat shrimp from a bed of ice served in a silver bowl. This was Cohen's world as he navigated the Jeep carefully through the rain and the debris."
"He reached out his hand. He was shaking and he took heavy breaths to try and stop it but he could not. She hovered there in front of him as if waiting for something and he closed his eyes and it was then that she became more clear as she was lying there with her head in his lap and his hand on her pregnant stomach. On the asphalt of Highway 49, underneath an eighteen-wheeler, surrounded by the screams of those who were running for it as they had all seen them coming, the handful of tornadoes breaking free from the still black clouds, like snakes slithering down from the sky, moving toward the hundreds, maybe thousands of gridlocked cars that were only trying to do what they had been told to do. Get the hell out of here. Don't pack anything. Don't stop. Get your family and get in your car and get the hell out of here and that was what they had done. Like they had all done so many times in the last years but this time there had been no head start. No window. Only get in and get out. And the tornadoes splintered out of the sky and weaved toward them and then exploded through the bodies and the cars and trucks, metal and flesh being lifted and catapulted."
"And this would be the last memory that he would have as he lay dying. The memory of kneeling there, in this place where he had been a boy with a mother, with the pieces of the holy glass in his hands. Not the realizations of what he had done, the flesh and blood that he had claimed along with Aggie, the women he had corralled and made his own, their bodies and their minds and maybe even their hearts and souls, unlocking the doors when he wanted and feeding them when he wanted and doing what he wanted when he felt the urge. For what other reason was there to keep them? He didn't think of them or the men he had separated them from. The blood on his hands and the tilth on his fingertips. He didn't think of the man that he was and the power he had grasped and he didn't sing for forgiveness or call out for redemption. In the next hour, as he lay dying, he thought only of that moment of serenity, kneeling next to the church where he had been a boy before he had grown into a man and realized the clarity of strength, his knees damp in the wet ground and in his palm the blue and red and purple glass. As he lay dying, his flesh ripped like fabric, his blood flowing freely like the rain that came so often, he thought only of those beautiful shards of glass and the weight that they carried, and he found it difficult to comprehend that while he held those small holy things, how something so big and so powerful and so violent could have been so silent as it crept up behind him."
"IN HIS PREDICAMENT, THE ONLY THING AGGIE COULD DO WAS THINK. AND HE did. He thought of the sweaty nights in the sweaty room with the sweaty snakes slithering through his arms and around his neck and waist as the organ played and the people sang and shouted. Thought of how it moved them and how the men wanted to shake his hand and the women wanted to be led by him and how he did lead them all the way and how good it felt when they were only nodding, no matter what he asked them to do. He thought of fists against his face in barrooms and the thrill ride of whiskey and the summer dark and he thought of nights in jail staring out of a square window at a black dotted sky when he felt like he was at the bottom of a well. He thought of the anarchy of the evacuations and how it filled him to be alive in the midst of the panic and he thought of once when he was a boy and a man who was living with him and his mother had slammed her against the wall and he thought of the knife he had stuck in the back of the man's leg later as he slept on their couch and the sound the man had made as the blade sank in. He thought of the work he had done to gather a community and he thought of the crying of the newborn child and he thought of the purity of the rising sun across the horizon in the morning after a storm. He sat there, tied to the trailer, the rain on him as if he were nothing more than stump, and he imagined that the thunder was calling him, a voice from somewhere out there speaking to him in a language that only he could understand. He soaked in the rain and listened to the thunder and his arms ached from being stretched and tied. What more can you give to them? What more can they want: It has always been like this, they did the same thing to Him. He gave them all they could want and all they could need. He showed them the path to glory and they tortured Him, spit on him, watched Him bleed and bleed and bleed. And now here I am and all i did was protect them, shelter them, feed them. All I did was lead them through the storms, a watchful shepherd and his Mock, and now I can scream out in the night and they will hear me and no one will come. Not a one. It has always been like this. And it always will be. He thought of how this was going to end, realizing the things he had gained and the things be had lost, and it almost seemed to him like these thoughts were the thoughts of another man's life."
"Then she had found herself alone and she had discovered that there were plenty of things in this work that were unimaginable. She had never been able to understand this place with these men and their roped-down trailers. Never been able to conjure anything more horrific than this as she lay down at night. Instead of creating new worlds, her dreams were filled with fascinations of escape. Filled with fascinations of revenge. Filled with the faces of those she had loved and now missed. And in the waking hours, she could only wonder where they were. Wonder if someone was looking for her. Wonder if anyone was still alive who cared. She was certain she had family. Somewhere. But this new world was so vast and shifting and unanswerable that she hadn't been able to create anything but an unhappy ending for herself and the others. The little girl whose mind once was a carnival of ghost tales and spirit worlds and the romance of hurricanes was now a young woman whose insatiable imagination had been replaced with the sharp edges of the real thing."
"As they sat there in the dark, the weight of it all began to collapse around them in the confined space. The storm muted all and left them suspended in the absence of sound. A steady, heavy drone. Mariposa slumped in her chair and Brisco lay across her lap. Nadine held the baby, her head bowed and resting on top of the tiny bundled body. Kris stretched out her legs and rested her bands across her stomach. Evan stared at Brisco. Cohen stared at his hands. Quiet, fatigued silhouettes.
They were small things against this big thing. Against this enormous thing. Against this relentless thing. Small, exhausted things whose lives had become something so strange and extraordinary that it didn't seem possible that they could be anywhere but sitting in this abandoned building in this abandoned land in this storm-tilled night in this storm-tilled world. They sat still and exuded exhaustion. Maybe even hopelessness. Maybe even helplessness. The day had begun with the idea of a finish line, but that idea was being washed away in this torrent of despair."
“When the final days came, it was said that Satan walked the Earth in the guise of a crow. Those who feared him called him Scarecrow or sometimes B
“When the final days came, it was said that Satan walked the Earth in the guise of a crow. Those who feared him called him Scarecrow or sometimes Black Jack. I know him as the Crowman”
This excerpt is from the very first line of the novel. With regard to this creature with black feathered wings and sharp lethal beak I have had many a harrowing encounter. There was, let me mention first, this movie The Birds by a master of the dark Alfred Hitchcock and then there was appearing of this black feather creature many times in The Stand by Stephen King a master-craftsman storyteller of the macabre. To top it all one day of a winter month driving my car, stooped at a red light, I see to my right on a patch of grass two crows attacking a beautiful cute squirrel mercilessly, it had no joy in escaping the onslaught of this creatures of death, these symbols of doom.
Now to bring you to the attention of this story aptly titled Black Feathers I feel a conspiracy brewing here and the markings of the darkness rising the Crowman cometh. This being a story of fiction I agree has no resemblance in the realm of the real world I know but low and behold I cant helpeth, I seeth the signs of the darkest days riseth upon us all.
Now to this wonderful captivating tale set in a world plagued and strife with unrest, social disorder, crime, and debt ridden. There are two gleaming diamonds among the rough from two different families who are to lead and have a part in the destiny of the earth and in its darkest days a key importance in the order of the world. One is a boy, Gordon, not yet reached adulthood that finds that he is on the run due to certain desperate and deadly circumstances, he runs from the Wardsmen, another menacing presence of the macabre.
The other main important character in that of a girl, Megan, she has been taken under the wing of Mr Keeper he is to guide her on a road, the likes of magic and the surreal.
Then finally the star of the show the Crowman when and how will he come the story shall divulge you of this knowledge, It is not often the denizens of a town have the Crowman visit, sometimes people refer to him by the name of Black Jack or the Scarecrow.
There are many images of the macabre painted with words in this tale land stricken terrified by disaster and the end of days ahead but there shall be some light for the people are in need of saving.
The author has done well crafting great characters and having the reader feel the scenes in showing the turn of events in his great writing. I still remember his successful tale of macabre Meat and as Stephen King said about that novel “Joseph D’Lacey rocks!” I am sure he would say the same and give a nod to this novel.
Megan and Gordon’s’ destiny is set in motion and to be fulfilled they are to see the dark days that befall the world ahead, the reader will learn of their part in the workings of this page turning unstoppable train journey of a tale to an unknown destination and end.
This story has epic qualities like that of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King that went on for many volumes, The Black Dawn Saga has plenty more to come in its next installment and I anticipate it to be just the right length and hope it to have volumes with the same quality of writing. The reader I hope will learn that the U.K has amongst themselves a very capable writer to paint with words and embed them amidst a realm away from the reality, of our daily trappings, a passage of time to escape to for a while the darkness sets aside into an equilibrium and balance.
“It was a man. At least, I thought it was to begin with. He was tall and thin with a proud chest. He wore black from head to foot: the black hat, of course, and about his shoulders a coat of black plumes, which dropped to below his knees. The coat was open, though, and I could see his tight black trousers over his slender legs. The bottoms of his trousers splayed out over his boots, making them seem huge. At his cuffs, too, sprouted sleek black feathers and the sun, gone cold somehow, caught them and twinkled there like quartz on velvet. The feathers obscured his hands. His black hair was long and silky, like it was wet. And his face…’
“When the Crowman returns to our land you will know that the dark times are at an end. For he will spread his wings across this nation and draw away the black veil that has covered it for so long. It will be a cleansing. It will be death and rebirth. Pray for his swift arrival that we may be delivered. Pray for the coming of the Crowman that we may be, at last transformed.”
The characters and setting win in this novel. The sparse post-apocalyptic setting is described with sentences written in short sparse prose. I liked tThe characters and setting win in this novel. The sparse post-apocalyptic setting is described with sentences written in short sparse prose. I liked the characters used and the way he wrote this, a good flowing on the road to somewhere story.
We had Hunger Games to keep us entertained in dystopian adventures and now I think Enclave is a rightfully successor of a story. The main protagonist We had Hunger Games to keep us entertained in dystopian adventures and now I think Enclave is a rightfully successor of a story. The main protagonist is a Hunter and all her life she has been breed to Hunt, hunting is all she knows. Equipped with basic tools of killing she kills Freaks amongst other things. She knows not much at all of the upside world, for she has lived underground has not tasted the Sunlight or seen, cars or guns. The Enclave are a gang who consist of Brats, Hunters, Breeders and Elders. Enjoyable action packed read.
Recently i finished reading a real good story Robopocalypse and it seemed on the outllook that World of War Z was going to be similar. Even though thisRecently i finished reading a real good story Robopocalypse and it seemed on the outllook that World of War Z was going to be similar. Even though this book was written first, Robopocalypse surpasses it in creativity, thrill, characters and narrative. The reports on the Zombies were very drap and lack luster its seemed their was more blabber about politics than anything else, the stage was set there was so many lovers and likes of this story i hate to be the hater and dis-liker. I was holding off reading this in a good way that i was waiting for my appetite for zombie flesh to mature, then to find the zombies was a no show it was a big flaw in the plot. The accounts from round the world on the zombie situation was also told by characters that you felt no love for and the story was loosing the plot as the book progressed....more
MY REVIEW The story is set in an time when the country is divided into districts and each year a girl and boy is selected 2 from each district to compMY REVIEW The story is set in an time when the country is divided into districts and each year a girl and boy is selected 2 from each district to compete in a game of survival pitted against each other until only one winner remains that's 24 contestants. From district 12 is Katniss Everdeen a girl who lives in the seam, hunts in the woods trades in the Hob. She's going into the death game. Before the game of death all she new was survival and hunger. This a good page turner for all ages well written, you really feel you're there in the moment rooting for this young skilled girl and her fellow contestants.
Let the games begin!
September 12, 2008 Stephen King talks of The Hunger Games
Stephen King finds a new YA novel as scarily addictive as his favorite arcade game.
The Hunger Games
As negative Utopias go, Suzanne Collins has created a dilly. The United States is gone. North America has become Panem, a TV-dominated dictatorship run from a city called the Capitol. The rest of Panem is divided into 12 Districts (the former 13th had the bad judgment to revolt and no longer exists). The yearly highlight in this nightmare world is the Hunger Games, a bloodthirsty reality TV show in which 24 teenagers chosen by lottery two from each District fight each other in a desolate environment called the ''arena.'' The winner gets a life of ease; the losers get death. The only ''unspoken rule'' is that you can't eat the dead contestants. Let's see the makers of the movie version try to get a PG-13 on this baby.
Our heroine is Katniss Everdeen (lame name, cool kid), a resident of District 12, which used to be Appalachia. She lives in a desperately poor mining community called the Seam, and when her little sister's name is chosen as one of the contestants in the upcoming Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. A gutsy decision, given the fact that District 12 hasn't produced a Hunger Games winner in 30 years or so, making them the Chicago Cubs of the postapocalypse world. Complicating her already desperate situation is her growing affection for the other District 12 contestant, a clueless baker's son named Peeta Mellark. Further complicating her situation is her sorta-crush on her 18-year-old hunting partner, Gale. Gale isn't clueless; Gale is smoldering. Says so right on page 14.
The love triangle is fairly standard teen-read stuff; what 16-year-old girl wouldn't like to have two interesting guys to choose from? The rest of The Hunger Games, however, is a violent, jarring speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense and may also generate a fair amount of controversy. I couldn't stop reading, and once I got over the main character's name (Gale calls her Catnip ugh), I got to like her a lot. And although ''young adult novel'' is a dumbbell term I put right up there with ''jumbo shrimp'' and ''airline food'' in the oxymoron sweepstakes, how many novels so categorized feature one character stung to death by monster wasps and another more or less eaten alive by mutant werewolves? I say more or less because Katniss, a bow-and-arrow Annie Oakley, puts the poor kid out of his misery before the werewolves can get to the prime cuts.
Collins is an efficient no-nonsense prose stylist with a pleasantly dry sense of humor. Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local eightplex; you know it's not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway. Balancing off the efficiency are displays of authorial laziness that kids will accept more readily than adults. When Katniss needs burn cream or medicine for Peeta, whom she more or less babysits during the second half of the book, the stuff floats down from the sky on silver parachutes. And although the bloody action in the arena is televised by multiple cameras, Collins never mentions Katniss seeing one. Also, readers of Battle Royale (by Koushun Takami), The Running Man, or The Long Walk (those latter two by some guy named Bachman) will quickly realize they have visited these TV badlands before.
But since this is the first novel of a projected trilogy, it seems to me that the essential question is whether or not readers will care enough to stick around and find out what comes next for Katniss. I know I will. But then, I also have a habit of playing Time Crisis until all my quarters are gone. B --Entertainment Weekly(Stephen King)
Started of a good read promising set up Amy and Wolgast good characters, first 250 pages were good but it all seemed to hit flat and I was not pleasedStarted of a good read promising set up Amy and Wolgast good characters, first 250 pages were good but it all seemed to hit flat and I was not pleased with the ending. The novel has been compared to The Stand in some reviews it's no way in same league, the Stand surpasses in skill of story telling than this novel. In the end was maybe 400 pages too long that killed the good momentum at the first half. I was and many readers, expecting more it had all the elements for a good story but failed to deliver in the end....more
A non-fiction story that shows the horrifying and stark reality of the unforgiving deadly insidious power of a certain virus, the Ebola virus. A story A non-fiction story that shows the horrifying and stark reality of the unforgiving deadly insidious power of a certain virus, the Ebola virus. A story that proves that truth can be more scary than some tales from fiction. Engrossing and a deadly read, terror and concern will run through your veins the next time you have flu symptoms that feel different from the norm. The author has done well in using facts in a spine chilling and captivating thriller with well crafted storytelling and writing. A must read.
One by one the people are stricken by an insidious contagion. There is no class no race or religion It strikes those in its proximity relentlessly and indOne by one the people are stricken by an insidious contagion. There is no class no race or religion It strikes those in its proximity relentlessly and indiscriminately. Unforgivingly it takes hostage of the denizens of a town and slowly it works it way through the whole government. Desperate people in desperate times, do desperate things and the author has here puts you amidst this desperation and turmoil. It's ugly and it's compassionate the scenario there is no ugliness of the eye but ugliness via the nose. They become humbled and changed without their sight despite all the terrible and brutal days they have to endure. Their is also something more powerful at work in this great story Love A contagious force that works indiscriminately Weans its way into and through the obscure and closed heart It will prevail and instil something magically Love and hope To survive they need it. A wonderful story of love is embedded in this bleak scenario Love a resilience in the face of adversity. The band of people the struggling few that keep together realise their greatness in numbers but not only that the ones in this story you walk with feel possibly some comfort due to the companion of one gifted and lucky soul. A numbing experience watching the person you love before you loose command over their wellbeing their helplessness in things we take for granted on a daily basis. The paralysis they endure is one that remains etched in the minds of many. They have hope. This band you follow must survive without walking the line of barbarism like many have done. The women become bargaining subjects for food their suffering heard and felt and so the land is stricken with the same calamity repeated in many corners. The author takes you from the beginning with The first blinded man in this contagion and keeps you with this first group contained left to their own devices eventually abandoned by a government who becomes none existent. This story of people overcome by virus, diseases and zombie plagues has been told many times before. I like the way this author has told this. It would be better for the reader to have not seen the movie adaptation first. The plight of the parties involved keeps you hooked to the eventually end of the affair their end their surviving or their falling. This story highlights a situation that could be true to any souls that fall victim to a plague or chemical warfare. The tragedy, the horror evokes and illuminates a humanity in some people loving and helping one another while others want to abuse the situation. A calamity A darkness White blindness a story that is thought provoking and heartfelt a powerful fable told in a flowing prose.
"When they'd woke up in their ward and found they were blind and started bemoaning their fate, the others put them out without a moments hesitation, without even giving them time to take their leave of any relatives or friends who might be with them. The doctor's wife remarked, it would be best if they could be counted and each person gave their name. Motionless, the blind internees hesitated, but someone had to make a start, two of the men spoke at once, it always happens, both then fell silent, and it was the third man who began, Number One, he paused, it seemed he was about to give his name, but what he said was, I'm a policeman, and the doctor's wife thought to herself, he didn't give his name, he too knows that names are of no importance here. Another man was introducing himself, Number two, and he followed the example of the first man, I'm a taxi driver. The third man said, Number Three, I'm a pharmacist's assistant. Then a woman spoke up, Number four , I'm a hotel maid, and the last one of all, Number five, I work in an office. That's my wife, my wife, where are you, tell me where you are, here, I'm here, she said bursting into tears and walking unsteadily along the aisle with her eyes wide open, her hands struggling against the milky sea flooding into them. More confident, he advanced towards her, where are you, where are you, he was now murmuring as if in prayer. One hand found another, the next moment they were embracing, a single body, kisses in search of kisses, at times lost in mid-air for they could not see each others cheeks, eyes, lips. Sobbing, the doctor's wife clung to her husband, as if she, too, had just been reunited, but what she was saying was, This is terrible, a real disaster. Then the voice of the boy with the squint could be heard asking, Is my mummy here as well. Seated on his bed, the girl with dark glasses murmured, She'll come, don't worry, she'll come."
"Now, with all the beds occupied, all two hundred and forty, not counting the blind inmates who have to sleep on the floor, no imagination, however fertile and creative in making comparisons, images and metaphors, could aptly describe the filth here. It is not just the state to which the lavatories were soon reduced, fetid caverns such as the gutters in hell full of condemned souls must be, but also the lack of respect shown by some of the inmates or the sudden urgency of others that turned the corridors and other passageways into latrines at first, only occasionally but now as a matter of habit."
"You have no idea what it is like to watch two blind people fighting, fighting has always been, more or less, a form of blindness, This is different, Do what you think best, but don't forget what we are here, blind, simply blind, blind people with no fine speeches or commiserations, the charitable, picturesque world of the little blind orphans is finished, we are now in the harsh, cruel, implacable kingdom of the blind, If only you could see what I am obliged to see, you would want to be blind, Forgive me, my love, if you only knew, I know, I know, I've spent my life looking into people's eyes, it is the only part of the body where a soul might still exist and if those eyes are lost, Tomorrow I'm going to tell them I can see, let's hope you won't live to regret it, Tomorrow I'll tell them, she paused the added, Unless by then I, too, have finally entered their world."
"They cannot imagine that there are moreover three naked women out there, as naked as when they came into the world, they seem to be mad, they must be mad, people in their right mind do not start washing on a balcony exposed to the view of the neighbourhood, even less looking like that, what does it matter that we are all blind, these are things one must not do, my God, how the rain is pouring down on them, how it trickles between their breasts, how it lingers and is disappears into the darkness of their pubis, how it finally drenches and flows over their thighs, perhaps we have judged them wrongly, or perhaps we are unable to see this is the most beautiful and glorious thing that has happened in the history of the city, a sheet of foam flows from the floor of the balcony, if only I could go with it, falling interminably, clean, purified, naked. Only God sees us, said the wife of the first blind man, who, despite disappointments and setbacks, clings to the belief that God is not blind, to which the doctor's wife replies, Not even he, the sky is clouded over, Only I can see you, Am I ugly, asked the girl with the dark glasses, You are skinny and dirty, you will never be ugly, And I, asked the wife of the first blind man, You are dirty and skinny like her, not as pretty, but more than I, You are beautiful, said the girl with the dark glasses, How do you know, since you have never seen me, I have dreamt of you twice, When, The second time was last night, You were dreaming about the house because you felt safe and calm, it's only natural after all we've been through, in your dream I was the home, and in order to see me you needed a face, so you invented it, I too see you as a beautiful, and I never dreamt of you, said the wife of the first blind man, Which only goes to show that blindness is the good fortune of the ugly, You are not ugly, No, as a matter of fact I am not, but at my age, How old are you, asked the girl with the dark glasses, Getting on for fifty, Like my mother, And her, Her, what, Is she beautiful, She was more beautiful once, that's what happens to all of us, we were all more beautiful once, You were never more beautiful, said the wife of the first blind man. Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that cannot bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armour, we might say, The doctor's wife has nerves of steel, and yet the doctor's wife is reduced to tears because of a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, mere grammatical categories, mere labels, just like the two women, the others, indefinite pronouns, they too are crying, they embrace the woman of the whole sentence, three graces beneath the falling rain."
An epic story it made me reminisce of other epic stories with similar good versus evil characters, like those of Lord of the rings and the dark tower An epic story it made me reminisce of other epic stories with similar good versus evil characters, like those of Lord of the rings and the dark tower series. The black Frankenstein, is what he used to be called in his wrestling days, known as Josh and the Bag lady known as Sister creep are two memorable characters that are courageous with plenty of heart. They really made the story that much more great, and obviously Swan a young girl who is a main character through the whole story. She can rightful be placed in the hall of fame of young gifted courageous girls like that of Matilda and the girl from the Firestarter by Stephen King(seen the movie not read yet).
The story starts of with a bang literally, two nations engage in a war and cross a point of no return, that results in mass destruction and annihilates most of the country into apocalyptic status. In the post apocalypse setting a band of pilgrims, survivors of the destruction are put to the tests of their lives. They are set out on a journey, a few groups are to cross paths and their destinies intertwine together. Swan a girl that sees the kindness and beauty within all ugliness really gives the dispirited souls and destroyed hearts hope for a better and prosperous future. Will the world blossom again and plant life once more spurt out it richness and fill the stomachs of the starved?
There is a dark evil force still present, evil started the ball rolling and it won't leave until every soul is wiped from the earth and the land totally destroyed. This evil does have many faces. Good and evil cross paths many times in this story, war and death is still ever present after the great destruction as groups fight for control and power over land and food. There will be more blood, will there be peace?
Finally I completed this novel i was holding off this novel for a special time for some time, it is lengthy but every page worth it. I even listened to this simultaneously via audiobook so that's twice I covered the story. Even more of a great reason was my interview with this humble writer Robert McCammon. Visit my webpage to read the interview during March 2012 >>>>http://more2read.com/review/interview-with-robert-r-mccammon/...more