Extinction game - Gary Gibson

When your life is based on lies, how do you hunt down the truth? Jerry Beche should be dead. Instead, he's rescued from a desolate Earth where he was the last man alive. He's then trained for the toughest conditions imaginable and placed with a crack team of specialists on an isolated island. Every one of them is a survivor, as each withstood the violent ending of their own alternate Earth. And their new specialism? To retrieve weapons and data in missions to other apocalyptic versions of our world. But what is "the Authority," the shadowy organization that rescued Beche and his fellow survivors? How does it access timelines to find other Earths? And why does it need these instruments of death? As Jerry struggles to obey his new masters, he begins to distrust his new companions. A strange bunch, their motivations are less than clear, and accidents start plaguing their missions. Jerry suspects the Authority is feeding them lies, and team members are spying on him. As a dangerous situation spirals into catastrophe, is there anybody he can trust? 

My thoughts:

We humans to seem to suck. This sci.fi with a very apocalyptic theme is filled with it.

The world ended and Jerry is the only human left (well I guess there could be someone hiding somewhere, but he sure found none.) Then these people show up and take him to another world. He gets sent on missions to other parallel worlds, all which have ended too. Well not all, but those they find are not good ones.

But why are they being sent to parallel worlds? Why are they not told anything? 

It was an interesting book. It felt sort of light too. And wow, so many parallel worlds. 

There is an ending, even if there are open threads. But I did see that there is another book, about another person, and I can't really say more.

Conclusion:

Interesting concept and good story

Paperback, 400 pages
Published October 1st 2015 by Pan Macmillan (first published January 1st 2014)
The Apocalypse Duology #1
Sci.fi apocalyptic
Library

Audio book Giveaway and interview: SC Flynn

Today I have a short interview with author SC Flynn, and you can win his book Children of the Different that I reviewed two weeks ago.

Tell me about yourself.

I was born and brought up in Australia, but for many years I have lived in Europe: first London, then Milan and now Dublin. My second language is Italian and my wife is Italian. You are a bit of a traveller as well, I guess, ending up in Finland! 

Like most of your readers, I suppose, I am a great book lover. Followers of mine will have just seen that my library has expanded even more, with a whole new level added on top!

I am a lifetime jazz musician (trumpet). I grew up playing in my parents’ band and kept on going.

Tell me about your new book.

CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT is a Young Adult post-apocalyptic fantasy novel set in Western Australia, where I am from. Nineteen years before the story starts, most of the world’s population died from a brain disease known as the Great Madness; the survivors all had something different about their minds that saved them. Now, as a secondary effect of the Madness, at the beginning of adolescence, their children enter a coma, during which they travel through a dream-like world called the Changeland. Depending on what happens in the Changeland, the kids emerge either with special powers, or as permanently damaged Ferals.

The main characters are psychic twins: Arika (a girl) and Narrah (a boy). Separately, they have many adventures and face many dangers both in the Changeland and in the outside world. Their new powers turn out to be crucial for the future of humanity.

What was the inspiration behind it?

The landscape and creatures of Western Australia, above all. The state is so big that it varies from huge temperate forests in the south to tropics in the north, with a lot of desert in between. Like the rest of Australia, it is full of weird animals that lend themselves very well to fantasy. 

Arika and Narrah have lived all their lives in a small non-industrial community in the great forests of South West Western Australia, near where I come from. Their adventures take them to the city of Perth, the Indian Ocean and the desert.

All of these things are seen from the twins’ viewpoint. They can read and write, but their language and range of references is necessarily limited by their background. The simple, clear style of the novel reflects that, I think, and also suits the Young Adult age group.

Thank you so much!

Audio Book Giveaway
1 copy of Children of the Different (from audible.com so you have to have that)

1. Enter by commenting
2. Open to all (if you can download from audible.com that is)
3. Ends Sep 25th

And as always, remember that if I can not find your email then I can not find you.

The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse - Daphne Lamb and Fitreaders check in

#FitReaders is hosted by Geeky Bloggers Book Blog  and That’s What I’m Talking About.

Join in :D

Sat 4 km bike, 30 min walk

Sun 1 h walk and 30 min walk

Mon 4 km bike, 30 min walk

Tue 4 km bike, 30 min walk

Wed 4 km bike

Thu 4 km bike, 30 min walk

Fri, 4 km bike, 30 min walk

Meh week. I have worked for a couple of weeks now and had my first cold, and still has. No energy, lingering on almost fever territory. I know you should rest, but when I get them all the time I am all SIGH.

......................................

Welcome to the Apocalypse. Your forecast includes acid rain, roving gangs and misplaced priorities, in this comedic take on the end of the world as we know it, from debut author Daphne Lamb.

As a self-entitled, self-involved, and ill equipped millennial, Verdell probably wouldn’t have ranked very high on the list of those most likely to survive the end of the world, but here she is anyway. Add in travelling with her work addicted boss, her boyfriend who she has “meh” feelings for, and a handful of others who had no businesses surviving as long as they have, and things aren’t exactly going as planned. But despite threats of cannibalism, infected water supplies, and possibly even mutants, Verdell is willing to put in as little effort as she can get away with to survive. 

My thoughts:

This book meant to be hilarious, but it tried WAY too hard. I mean WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hard. It was ridiculous. In the end I wanted everyone to just die. They did not deserve to live because they were so stupid.

Girl whatever her name was, stayed on floor X with coworkers. People were dying from sickness on other floors. Society was crumbling and they were, wait for it, working. Yes working. Thinking of memos, why the phones wont work and shit like that. I was all, what? You are stuck in a building, starving, dying and working. Get the F out. Survive!

They are saved. And they continues being stupid. Not thinking of surviving and more. Just being stupid. Thinking of stupid things. I did not get it. Was I missing something? Was I supposed to laugh when they wrote notes in a board and pretended it was twitter? No. They were stupid, and if that is the people that survives an apocalypse, then humankind is doomed. And deserves to be wiped out.

It could have been funny, it failed.

Paperback, 218 pages
Published August 11th 2015 by Booktrope Editions
Apocalyptic humour
NG

Blod and Ram discuss World War Z

We lost a Lady Scoundrel in a mountain of books so from today it's just me and Ram discussing braaaaaaaaaaains!

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks

Ram: Are you sorry that I talked you into reading this?

Blod: Well....honestly I can’t make my mind up. Some parts were really good, other parts were boring and I skimmed. But still totally worth it.

Ram: That’s probably why it took me several days to read this book. Instead of skimming through the boring parts I pushed and read them too. And then the next oral account was brilliant and I’d read until I realised there was something else I had to do. 

Blod: Good for you. Alas, I am lazy and some military parts were just sooooo snoozeworthy. I had to skim those

Ram: The endless lists of ammunition and weapons capabilities weren’t my idea of fun but I managed because of what those parts represented. The wastefulness of existing hierarchies and the lack of common sense. 

Blod: First, yes, god, the weapons stuff. I can’t stand that stuff, so I fear I did not think as much as you did in those parts. Though there were some military stories that were really good. I guess it was the heavy tech ones that was not for me. And I am not big on the whole military=heroes thing.

Ram: That’s because you’re a Finn and not an American and this book definitely is an American novel written for Americans. Even the parts set in other countries felt like criticism towards some American values and fears to me. Like it would have been too much if everything had happened in continental USA only. And it wouldn’t have been believable considering the modern world and how easy it is to travel around the globe.

Blod: Totally. This was truly the American we will win over those freaking zombies too! And how in the end it was those who rallied and first cleaned their own country and then went forward. Not a fan of that. Why did everyone else suck except for the US...oh and Cuba, ha. 

Ram: And why was the Finnish story not about Finns?

Blod: Sad sad day. I am sorry but why did we perish. Do we not know how to survive when it gets cold and it snows...

Ram: And practically every house has a firearm or ten because people hunt and then there are the crazy gun collectors but that’s a story for another day. I’m pretty sure I’d just gone home and we’d have managed just fine without escaping North. I don’t have any castles near by where I live like you do ;)

Blod: Lol, I forgot that Finland and Yemen has most guns per people ;) And the whole go North...eh, I already live in the North. The whole of Finland is in the north, we can deal. It gets cold, it gets dark. And my castle is sadly far south, the one up here we tore apart and build other things. Stupid us.

Ram: Anyhow, what did you think about the post Zombie War world? 

Blod: Maybe...MAYBE the learned that people should stick together and also learned to treat our planet better. Hopefully, andI like to think so

Ram: I thought that it showed how fixing one thing doesn’t magically fix all the other problems and that there’ll always be new challenges for humanity. And as for the Russians, that felt like the author’s true fear for what could happen to Americans. The religious extremism and assassin priests. 

Blod: Still a cool part, the whole making babies for Russia...scary!

Ram: You almost typed Stalin, didn’t you? Making babies for Stalin. Another fear that’s dangerously close to becoming reality seeing how the abortion issue is being handled in the US right now.

Blod: Now you are scaring me, I do not like to think about the dark hole US could fall into. Religion, crazy people and guns...

Ram: I’ve yet to start speculating the hot mess Europe is turning to so...

Blod: Crazy racism? We do have that. I read something in the paper about the sound of boots echoing through Europe, nice. We are such a sweet people.

Ram: I don’t know about that. We do try but sometimes we make idiotic mistakes and because people are inured to being told what to do after centuries and millenia of authority figures, kings and queens and such, we’re slow to take action sometimes. The French have their riots occasionally though.

Blod: I think we need to get back to the zombies ;)..ok any favorite story you remember?

Ram: I didn’t have a favourite story, I thought the different accounts blended in together nicely and I just liked the whole thing.

Blod: Some stories stand out more for me. Like the Chinese sub and the blind guy in Japan. And I still wonder what happened to Israel after the wall and civil war.

Ram: That’s true, we never got back to those but we had the Canadian girl saying she tries not be bitter. What was that? 

Blod: We always did get back to the US stories....

Ram: Because this is an AMERICAN book.

Blod: Oh I forgot ;)

Ram: Would you recommend it?

Blod: Yes, sure some parts dragged but hey zombies! And I still think about where I would run. I am deadly scared of zombies.

Ram: I feel like I need to get a shovel now and ask Dad to sharpen the blade for it. So, yes, read it. For the society critique if not for the zombies.

Blod: I did like the society critique. And then I think about the movie I have not seen...yeah, we have to see it and discuss it in the fall.

Ram: Let’s do that. 

Review: The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker

“It still amazes me how little we really knew. . . . Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.”

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

My thoughts:

I liked the prose in this novel. It fit the book perfectly. There was a slow rhythm to the book, a gradual slowing to life just like to the earth. Nothing crazy happened, it was not the usual kind of apocalyptic fiction which is more like standing on top if the roof shouting. Here we just watched those on the roof and contemplated our fate.

Julia is 11 when the earth starts moving slower. There is much to deal with. White nights, long cold dark days when the sun never rises. The world is crumbling around them. Life needs darkness and light to survive, but here they get to much of both. Gravity is turned on its head, the magnetic fields suffer. But people try to go on, they try to cope, they have hope. And that is the beauty in this book, life goes on. Sure there is looting, sure people goes into hiding, but we watch a normal family adjusting to the slowing. All while the main character Julia is dealing with her own crisis. There is s boy she likes, her friends grown apart. It's a coming of age story in an age of silent despair. 

The slow building melancholia hit me in the end. Marvelous. It felt real, it felt scary. No one knew why it happened, but it happened. An earth that does not turn, well turn fast anyway.

This was an end of the world that I liked. It was scary in another sort of way. It kind of does not hit you at first. It creeps up upon you and festers like a bad sore. The end of the world does not need to be all violence and crazy turn of events. It can be silent too.

Conclusion:

A great book that I recommend. Just get into the rhythm.

Cover

Not a favorite, but, well, it kind of fits in the end

Genre: Fiction, apocalyptic
Pages: 288
Published: June 2012 by Random House
Source: For review