Captivating disaster survival story

Would you listen to Gray again? Why?

Yes, definitely. This writer creates a compelling narrative that keeps the reader's attention. The characters have personality that I could relate to, although as a work of fiction the writer does take some liberties with caricature. I loved the excitement and mystery concerning what had caused the event that now appeared to disrupt perhaps most of the world. We still don't know how much of the world was affected. I will look for more books by this writer.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Gray?

The book had many memorable and exciting moments and to state them might spoil the story for the next reader. The characters' struggle for survival following the event, was it nuclear or was it some natural disaster event, the characters didn't know to begin with, and it's only hinted at. The reader draws a conclusion on what may have caused the event.

What does Lauren Fortgang bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

The best thing about an audio book is that you can get on with chores whilst listening. The narrator had a pleasant voice and an accent that I found comfortable to my English ear. An American accent, but not an overly strong accent. An American accent was appropriate for this book, as events are based in the USA.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Oh I wish some producer would. The earth burned.

Any additional comments?

I really recommend this book.

11 people found this helpful

A bleak apocolypse

Did you read The Road and think it was just too cheerful? Then this is the book for you!
This is a remarkably bleak apocolypse - unlike most end of the world scenarios there's almost nothing left just lying around for the survivors to utilise. This is a gripping story of survival with an excellent narrator.
I dropped a couple of stars, as occasionally I felt there was too little curiosity by the characters about certain situations. This was obviously essential to keeping the sense of mystery, but wasn't that well written, and strained credulity too much.

8 people found this helpful

Posibly the best and deepest story I have read.

Deep characters, and through it all I allways felt close to them. As others have pointed out, this is a grim story and not one time did I think that corners where cut, or compromises made, or that the feelings where overplayed. It kept me up during nights and I overslept a couple of times during this last month, but it was worth it.

If you enjoy tales of the human condition, the philosophy of our nature and life itself, then don't hesitate, just buy this book and enrich your life with this tale.

(And please excuse any spelling-errors I may have made. English is not my first language and it's 4:17 AM as I am whriting this.)

6 people found this helpful

Gray it was not

I found this book far. from gray it was a fantastic trilogy I enjoyed every word
and performance was second to none

6 people found this helpful

Couldn't finish it

This is definitely my type of book (usually)
It has taken me almost a month to listen to it and I just couldn't finish it,
It was quite frankly boring
I got to book 3 and there was still no big revelation on what caused the world to be burnt to a crisp,
I want Mountain Man back!!

2 people found this helpful

Gave up as no new ideas up to that point

Narration
Lauren Fortgang is a competent narrator here (I have no other books narrated by her for comparison). It's not that super rare 5/5 experience (like your first military fiction or Mountain Man novel narrated by R.C. Bray), but the narration is competently done without unnecessarily drawing attention to itself. For better or for worse, there hasn't been much in the way of accents or dialect so far, so I can't comment on her talent/skill there. Just as some male readers struggle with female voices, some female narrators struggle with male ones; Fortgang does well here in that her male characters never distracted me from the story. Would use again with confidence.

Story
As you'll know if you've looked for this title on Goodreads, the beginning is quite a slog, and I had a good number of misstarts. Sure, it's harder to make that part engaging as the protagonist has no friendlies to have dialogue with and no antagonists to fight, but the author made his own bed there. Besides, even (wo)man-vs-environment can still be made interesting to people with a prepper bend. Things get a little better as more characters are added, but the prose never really gets too exciting. The biggest sin however seems to be that 24 chapters in (so presumably a bit into what was originally book 2), we haven't been treading any new ground. It's the same lot of homo homini lupus tropes we've seen in end times fiction for more than 50 years (mild spoiler: stsilatnemadnuf suoigiler dna ,slabinnac ,sdrolraw / seiteicos tsicsaf ,yas ot si taht), the last of which is generally unrelatable to Europeans. (I have no intention of blaming an American author for perhaps writing primarily for Americans, but it's still pertinent info for Europeans).
Finally while I otherwise liked the protagonist well enough, her constant worrying about whether she might be an albatross to her companion even after she proves her worth can get a bit tiring, and so can be the constant worry about rape -- sure, it's a valid concern in a post-apocalyptic world, but it's a valid concern in our world too, so it brings a sense of "same old crap, different day" to a setting that most probably want a change from their regular lives from: "It's the apocalypse. Everything's changed. Well, except this one bit."
My ideal version of this book would probably have been more of a mix of survival, exploration, trying to find out what happened, and trying to rebuild within the possibilities of the now non-industrial society, and to the needs of the new world -- some or all of which may yet happen in part 3, but I can't wait that long. Chapter 24's "I really can't do that tired trope a single time more" broke my will to read on and find out.

NB Giving a star rating to a purchase you haven't completed is always a bit iffy, but unfortunately, Audible makes that a prerequisite for a written review. Let us call it a rating for the first book, then.

2 people found this helpful

Survival in an ice age

Different from other survivalist fiction, this book leaves our protaganists searching for food and signs of life follwing an event which sends the world into a new ice age. The characters were rounded enough to make you care about what happens to them and the story was believable. Of all the things that could bring an end to the human race, this is the one that is the most scary and I wouldn't want to survive in this land.....

2 people found this helpful

Pure addiction

Great story that develops and twist all the way through. Very thought provoking as to what you would do when the day comes!!!

2 people found this helpful

Not a bad read

I did enjoy this book, it was very easy to listen to but I feel the ending seemed a bit rushed, like the author got bored and just wanted to finish it in a hurry.

5 people found this helpful

Dystopian novels at their best.

Totally believable 24 hours of pure joy, if not for the characters, certainly for me. Sucked in from the start and didn't disappoint all the way through. Thoroughly recommend.

1 person found this helpful