Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

This fast-paced action novel was originally written for an adult audience, but is the perfect Young Adult story.  It starts the reader off a year before the robot wars, what author Wilson calls the Zero Hour.  Basically this is the story of an artificial intelligence named Archos rebelling  and killing its creator Dr. Nicholas Wasserman.  Eventually Archos assumes control of all robotic intelligence, and directs them to kill all humans.  What we end up with is a bloody war, with cars running people over in the streets, robot servants ruthlessly  killing their owners, and the robots becoming “smarter” and developing new and more efficient machines to destroy their human enemies.

Something I especially liked about this book was its documentary style of storytelling.  The author narrates the action through the perspective of various characters, each with a different background and role to play in the continuing war.  Comac Wallace, originally a civilian but now the leader of the fearless Bright Boy squad, relates the story from the beginning, which is really the end of the war told as a sort of prologue to the action.  His authoritative voice leads the readers through the spell-binding story.  My other favorite narrator was the ten-year-old  Matilda Perez, a congresswoman’s daughter who realizes something is wrong when her Baby-Comes- Alive doll wakes up in her toy box and tries to convince the girl to get her mother to come home for the weekend instead of helping implement the robot defense act.

I highly recommend this title to readers looking for an engaging action story, science fiction fans, readers who liked the zombie book World War Z, and readers who enjoy losing themselves in a great story.

Running Man by Stephen King

Running Man by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

If you like action-oriented dystopian titles, this is the book for you!!!  King starts the plot rolling on the first page, and doesn’t let the readers breathe until they are done with the book.  Set in the near future, this book depicts a society when the rich and poor are even more disparate than they are today.  At twenty-eight, Ben Richards already feels like an old man.  He hasn’t worked steadily for years after protesting that the radiation shields used in the factory where he worked were basically useless; all the men were becoming sterile despite their use.  To his great sadness, his wife feels forced by their circumstances to support them through prostitution.  Add to this the fact that their baby is sick with the flu and may die because the poor have no healthcare.

The government keeps the poor placated with Free-Vee, television full of vicious reality games where the contestants may actually have a chance to win money.  The show “Treadmill to Bucks” only accepts terminally ill patients whose task it is to stay on the treadmill, earning $10 for each minute they are able to stay alive.  Bonus questions are involved that might win the contestant extra cash, or speed up  the treadmill up, depending on the player’s correct/wrong answer.  Needless to say, many contestants were carried off dead on a rubber stretcher.  Desperate to get enough money for a real doctor, Ben applies and is accepted for the biggest game show, “Running Man.”  The object of the contest is to remain free, even though an elite police force is hunting you down, and the public is paid to report sightings of you.

What I especially liked about this book is that even though it was written in 1982, it is still politically even more relevant today, with the gap between the super rich and the rest of us growing daily.  While King doesn’t harp on political ideology, Ben some of the other main characters make it clear that the Free-Vee Network and government in general are oppressing the general population severely, making it nearly impossible for them to survive.

I highly recommend this title to dysptopia and Stephen King fans, and anyone looking for an action-packed, gripping novel.  WARNING:  Do not read the prologue, as it gives away major plot points that will ruin to story for you!

Legend by Marie Lu

Legend by Marie Lu

This is another new dystopian novel that’s getting lots of positive buzz from both readers and librarians.  Told in alternating voices, this book describe a frightening future United States that has been ripped apart and at war with itself.  The western part is the Republic and is a totalitarian government ruled with an iron fist by Primo ______.  June Iparis lives here and is part of the elite, born into wealth and now a military prodigy.  Day also lives in the Republic, but is its most wanted criminal for his numerous acts of anti-government terrorism, that interestingly enough have never killed a single person.  While trying to escape from his most recent escade, Day is nearly captured by a young captain named Metias.  They both shoot, wounding each other but that gives Day the chance to make his escape.   When it comes to light that June’s brother Metias has been killed, not just injured, she is put on the team as someone with “fresh eyes” to try to catch Day, who has been eluding the army for years.  What follows is non-stop action, as June fights for revenge against her brother’s murder and Day uses all the resources he can muster just to stay alive.  The plot is full of twists, and will keep readers wanting more.

The parallel perspectives from both Day and June really let the readers see into the minds of both characters and become invested in their futures.  The fact that June’s entries are more like straight-forward reports while Day’s read more like a personal journal really adds to the novelI highly recommend this title, Lu’s debut novel, to dystopia and science fiction fans, and anyone looking for a fast and engaging read.

Here’s a book trailer you can watch from home:

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

In the dystopian future created by first time novelist DeStefano, scientists have used genetic engineering to cure all the world’s diseases.  The only problem is that after the first generation, all young men die at 25 years old and women die at 20.  Although most people live in poverty in what’s left of the large metropolises, the wealthy still exist in private guarded estates, secluded from everyone except the other affluent.  But they’re not exempt to the early death rate, so they hire “gatherers” to collect young women to marry to continue the human race.  Rhine, who lives in Manhattan with her twin brother Rowan, is kidnapped by the gatherers and finds herself a prisoner in a mansion, about to be married along with two other girls to  Linden Ashby, the weak twenty-year-old son of a  rich scientist.  But it is the father, Vaughn who really runs the family, intimidating the sister wives and servants, and lying to his son and the facts of their lives.  In the midst of all this, Rhine remains determined to escape, and enlists the help of the servant Gabriel, for whom she’s beginning to feel more than simple friendship.

I enjoyed this book, and wished it had focused more on the society, how it came about and what people were doing to fight against the oppression.  Since this is the first in the Chemical Garden Trilogy, I assume those aspects will be fleshed out in the next two volumes.  The book did keep me thoroughly engaged, and I especially appreciated the way the author took her time developing most of the characters.  I recommend this book to dystopia fans, Margaret Atwood fans, and science fiction readers.

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

This is so different from most post-apocalyptic stories that I’ve read that I hesitate to put it in the same category.  Readers meet Benny Imura as the story begins, about to turn fifteen and desperately in need of a job so the community doesn’t cut his food rations.  After First Night, the zombie apocalypse, the world as we know it ended.  Benny’s mom and dad were both killed, and he now lives with his older brother Tom.  Although Tom is a zombie hunter, Benny considers him a coward because he doesn’t act like the two hunters that hang around the general store sharing “war stories” about their hunting adventures.  He also has an inkling of a memory about Tom abandoning their mom and dad during the First Night, but even though it’s fuzzy, he’s sure Tom could have done more to save them.  Benny and his close friend Chong apply for all the easy jobs they know about: locksmith apprentice, fence tester (for the fence that keeps the zombies out of Mountainside), fence technicians, and lots of more gruesome jobs having to do with completely dead zombie bodies. (Just imagine what  pit thrower might do, for example.)  Chong is able to find a job as a spotter (sort of like a forest ranger only watching for zom’s instead of fires)  but Benny can’t find anything he’s willing to do.  Out of desperation, he finally asks his brother Tom to take him on as an apprentice.  Can I just say that what he sees outside in the unprotected Rot & Ruin changes the way Benny looks at life, zombies and his brother Tom?  The last half of the book is an action-packed adventure that involves saving Benny’s possible girlfriend Nix, rescuing some kidnapped children, and perhaps even changing the course of humankind.

I can’t say enough how much I enjoyed this book.  Even though I love zombie and horror books, this book offers readers so much more than that.  It made me think about the difference between life and afterlife, what constitutes a “good” person, what makes something heroic.  I highly recommend this to all readers, both teens and adults.

Hunger Games Movie!!!

Since this movie will finally be released on March  23, 2012, the company is sharing posters and other tidbits with us loyal fans.  (Anyone ready to stand over night in line with me???)

Here’s the official trailer from YouTube that you can watch from home:

Here’s a LINK to the official movie website.

And, finallyere are the posters:

The Plague by Michael Grant

The Plague by Michael Grant (Gone #4)

This fourth installment of Grant’s Gone series, following the addictive Gone, Hunger and Lies.  Fans of the series will not be disappointed in this new title.   Sam and friends and Caine and his crew are alive and well, and still fighting against each other.  The overarching plot theme in this book is a terrible flu which is killing off the kids on the mainland, one even Lana the healer is unable to cure.  Readers learn right at the beginning the evil power the book calls Darkness is alive and well, and still living deep in the old, abandoned mine.  An this time, Darkness has made its way into Little Pete’s brain.  No good will come of this, as you can imagine.

This book is as gripping and as action-packed as its predecessors.  I wish there had been a little more review of the past books in the beginning, so help readers remember or clue in new readers.  A lot of plot points and important characterization has occurred and new and continuing readers alike would benefit from some type of synopsis in a prologue.  Despite this very minor flaw, I found this book to be great fun and recommend it to all teen readers.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Being “Divergent” may be a death sentence for 16-year-old Beatrice Prior.  In her dystopian Chicago of the future, there are five distinct groups of citizens, all with different characteristics and purposes in her world.  She is a member of Abnegation (the selfless), but the other factions she can choose to become an initiate in are Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent) and Dauntless (the brave).  As the novel opens, Beatrice is about to take the national aptitude test, which will tell her which group she “belongs in,” but she still gets to choose for herself.  The catch is that if she doesn’t choose her parents’ group Abnegation, she probably won’t ever see them again as the factions don’t mix much.  The worst part is that her test results come back inconclusive, upsetting the tester, who tells her she is “divergent,” but won’t give her any more information about what the term means.  In fact, the proctor falsifies the results to read that Beatrice would fit best in her family’s faction, Abnegation.  Despite this, Beatrice takes the bold step of choosing to become a Dauntless initiate at the Choosing Ceremony the next day, shocking her parents and the rest of the audience.  As she begins her Dauntless training, Tris (as she now calls herself) finds out  exactly how violent, vengeful and ruthless her new faction really is. Will she be one of the ten out of the twenty trainees invited to stay, or will she be cast out, factionless and basically homeless for the rest of her life?

This book reminded me a lot of the Hunger Games trilogy, which many readers are comparing it to.  Since the Dauntless faction members are brave and the defenders of the world, their training is extremely violent, and readers need to be prepared for graphic gore.  In spite of the amount of violence and killing, none of it feels gratuitous or unnecessary.  This is the first in a trilogy, and I’m sure readers will be waiting breathlessly for the follow-up book.  Fans of  Science Fiction, and dystopias in general and Hunger Games  will especially love this new series.

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

The Mortal Instruments  Book 4

While this may not the strongest title in Clare’s popular Mortal Instruments series, devoted fans will still be engaged in following the continuing adventures and emotional ups and downs of Clary Fray and her friends.  This story actually belongs to her best friend Simon Lewis, the recently turned vampire, more than any other character.   Called the Daylighter vampire for his ability to go out into the sunshine and function during the day like the Shadowhunters and some of the non-vampire Downworlders,  he quickly becomes the target of an ancient vampire and as well as others who try to get him to use his unique power to their advantage.

I would recommend this book to all Cassandra Clare fans and followers of the Mortal Instruments series.

                   

Virals by Kathy Reichs

Virals by Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs, the writer of the TV show Bones, enters the YA arena with the first book in a new series.  Tory Brennan has recently moved in with the father she has never known, after her mother was killed by a drunken driver.  They live on a remote island off the South Carolina coast, which is owned by the university for which her scientist dad works.  She and her three best friends, all science geeks, are out exploring a “deserted” building in the university compound, when they discover a caged wolf-dog pup, who they learn by reading the cage’s tags has been exposed to a form of Parvovirus.  While trying to solve the mystery of the virus exposure, since the university is opposed to animal testing, they run into a cold case murder mystery, dating back from the Vietnam War era.  Although Tory knows humans are immune to the Parvovirus, their rescued pup has  been infected with an experimental strain, which they learn has very unexpected effects on the four of them—heightened senses and super human strength and speed.  The group quickly becomes the target of some killers, while their virus and murder mysteries begin to unravel themselves and make sense.

Readers looking for a fast-paced, action-packed suspense story will love this book.  Reichs brings her own knowledge of forensic science into the story, making it the perfect choice for fans of her TV show Bones, the CSI series and other police procedurals.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

When Amy and her parents signed up to be cryogenically frozen to travel aboard the spaceship Godspeed for 300 years to help settle a new earth-like planet, they had no idea what was in story for them. The opening scene of the book sets the stage for what will follow, with the family being frozen one-by-one, which readers learn is a painful and frightening experience. Amy’s father gives her the option of changing her mind at the last minute, and staying with extended family on Earth, but the seventeen year old can’t imagine never seeing her parents again. Readers then eavesdrop as Amy has nightmarish dreams during for forced sleep, but then she is violently awoken 50 years too early when someone unplugs her pod. Has someone tried to murder her??? She meets Elder, the ship’s leader-in training, upon awakening and his kindness makes her feel safe, but the current leader (Eldest) is another matter altogether. He acts like he would as soon jettison Amy out in space as make a home for her on the ship.

Even though Elder is supposed to be training his protege’ Eldest to care for the passengers and ship, Elder knows the old man is withholding critical information, keeping the ship’s running and very structured society a mystery to the teenager. When the teenagers realize someone is trying to unplug and kill all the frozen colonists, they begin a quest to try to figure out the truth about the murders and the ship’s other closely held secrets.

The book is told in alternating chapters between Amy and Elder’s perspectives. This makes it all the more gripping as we see life through two completely different views. I read this amazing story in one weekend because I could just not put it down. It has elements which will attract readers with lots of different tastes because it includes a dystopian setting aboard the ship Godspeed, a murder mystery involving the frozen colonists from Earth, a Science Fiction plot and even a little bit of romance.

I highly recommend this book to all teen readers and am eagerly awaiting the next installment of the story.

Here’s a video book trailer you can see from home:

Brain Jack by Brian Falkner

Brain Jack by Brian Falkner

While trying to hack into an international telecommunications company to use their account to score a couple laptops and newfangled headsets, seventeen-year-old Sam Wilson and his best friend crash the  worldwide computer grid,  bringing the United States “to its knees,” in the words of the New York Times.  Unfortunately, Sam is tricked into revealing his real identity, and Homeland Security decides they need him on their team of uber computer hackers who protect the country against terrorist cyber hackers.  This fast-paced novel moves at a breakneck speed, heavy on action, but light on characterization.  But who cares when you’re saving the world using neural headsets that make keyboards and computer mice obsolete.  Problem is, if you’re interfacing directly with the internet, can others out there access your brain directly?

I really enjoyed this engaging story, being somewhat of a computer geek myself.  It is perfect for fans of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Feed and any of William Gibson’s titles.

Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill

Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill

This  action-packed science fiction story will be a sure winner for fans of Star Wars and other fast-paced “cowboys in outer space” stories that many of us find so compelling.  Durango is a Regulator, a hired gun (mercenary) who will work for anyone with the coin to pay for him and his crew.  Embedded in his brain is the Artificial Intelligence of his former commander Mimi, who is sarcastic and snarky, adding a humorous touch to the story.  In addition, Mimi gives him advice that only an all-seeing computer intelligence could have, giving Durango and his rag-tag band of fighters at least as even change against the larger foes they will battle soon enough.  Set on Mars that has its own government problems, the book tells the story of Durango and his crew defending a group of miners who are being killed off by the cannibalistic Dreau and their evil and mysterious queen.

To say the story is action-packed is really an understatement.  The plot goes from one gruesome battle to the next hair-raising confrontation, barely giving readers a moment to catch their breath.  But this is a good thing as most readers will testify.  You barely ave time to get past one problem before the next conflict demands your attention.

I enjoyed this title and recommend to fans of adventure or action stories, SciFi fans, and anyone looking for a quick escape from their usual reading or day-to-day lives.

The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen

The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen

This captivating book is an great start for readers who want to try science fiction, but don’t want to commit to the huge titles (500+ pages) that many of the well-known authors write. The Gardener tell the story of Mason, who lives with his mom in small town where everyone works for the local Biotech company, TroDyn Industries.  Although Mason’s mom used to be a scientist there, she now works in a TroDyn-owned nursing home, although the reasons for her career change have always been a mystery.  Mason’s father, who he’s never met, but listened to reading The Runaway Bunny of a DVD he takes everywhere, is/was also a TroDyn scientist.   When Mason tells him mom he wants to do an internship at TroDyn to earn money to help pay for Stanford, she reacts almost violently, refusing to even consider the possibility.

The action starts when Mason sneaks up to the sixth floor of his mom’s job and after confronting her about her history with TroDyn, finds a group of comatose teenagers, when all the while he thought his mother cared for the elderly.  He especially notices a beautiful platinum blond with dark brown eyes, whose skin seemed to glow with vitality.  She wakes up when he randomly plays his DVD of his father reading the children’s story, but seems to have some sort of amnesia.  “Don’t let the gardener find me,” is all she keeps saying, and Mason becomes determined to rescue her.  So starts the long chase, slowly giving out facts about Mason’s family, the “brain damaged” teenagers, and his parents involvement with the seemingly malevolent TroDyn Industries.  When readers realize that the bioengineering company is using these teens as part of some experiment to solve world hunger, they won’t be able to put the book down.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to SciFi fans and readers who like to ponder about our society and how we use/abuse our scientific knowledge.  At just over 200 pages, it’s a fast read that is perfect for a reluctant reader who might not want to commit to something more involved.

After by Francine Prose

After by Francine Prose

After is a chilling, terrifying, and powerful story of what happens to normality after tragedy strikes- when the tragedy isn’t your own.   Tom is a sophomore at Central High, one of the “smart jocks” a normal guy at a normal school.  And during math class, that normalcy shatters.   A school the next town over is shot up by angry students, and in the wake of this tragedy, school at Central begins to change.   Metal detectors, no gum, and no red.   At first the students make their compromises, but when those that do not comply begin to vanish, Tom realizes that nothing good can come of sacrificing freedom for safety.   Beautifully written,  After is the kind of book that leaves you thinking hours after the last page is turned.

Written by Naysomay, class of 2011

Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

This title is the prequel to Clare’s amazing Mortal Instruments series, and the first in her new Infernal Devices series.  (Do we sense a trend here???)  This story takes places in the late 1800′s, when sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray’s guardian aunt dies, and she receives a letter from her brother in London with an ocean liner ticket for her to join him.  Naturally, things are not a simple as they seem, and she is kidnapped by the Dark Sisters upon her arrival, who claim to have her brother captive who they will kill if she doesn’t cooperate with them.  They insist and training her to hone her shape-shifting skills, where she can turn into other people by holding an object that belonged to them.  When Tessa finds out that their planning to give her to the Magister to marry, she realizes she must escape and is rescued shortly thereafter by two Nephilim Shadowhunters: Will and Jem.  The plot become more complex as Tessa discovers that as a shape-shifter she is also a downworlder, moves into the London Institute,  and begins to realize that her brother may not be the person she thought he was.

Clare’s rapid-fire plot does not disappoint, moving quickly from one crisis to the next.  As in her other books, her characters are well-drawn, although we don’t learn much about Will’s mysterious past, the reader gets the sense that all will be revealed in future volumes.  As always, I highly recommend this title for all science fiction and fanstasy fans, especially readers who were enthralled by The City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass.

Ship Breaker

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

If you’re in the mood for a fast-paced adventure story with just a hint of dystopia, this is definitely your book!  Nailer is a Ship Breaker; he works helping to dismantle old oil tankers with his Light Crew, collecting scavenge to make the crew’s daily quota.  The world he lives in is bleak–he lives a sparse day-to-day existence, usually barely has enough to eat, lives in s shack on the beach with his crazy, drug-addicted father, and hopes to make it through each day without saying the wrong thing to his dad and getting beat up as a result.  When he and his crew leader and good friend Pima stumble onto a beached luxury clipper ship, they think they’ve hit it rich (the Lucky Strike) with all the salvage they see about the shipwrecked boat.  That is until they realize the teenage girl on the yacht is still alive…  Nailer has a choice: he can finish her off and follow through with their plan to strike it rich, or he can try to save the girl and face unknown consequences.  He knows the choice he and Pima make could effect the rest of their lives.

Paulo Bacigalupi is an award-winning Science Fiction writer and this is his first YA title.  I was very impressed with the writing: it was fast-moving with enough detail about Nailer’s bleak future world to draw me into his life.  Bacigalupi’s fascinating proposed future takes place in a destroyed Gulf Coast region, ruined by hurricanes and storms much worse than Hurricane Katrina.  His community of virtually enslaved scavengers live off selling copper and other salvage they find on the abandoned oil tankers.  At the same time, there exist “Swanks,” who own and run the multinational trade companies which contract the scavenger crews and seem to care less about the poverty to which they are condemning them and most of the population.  The writer also makes a few points about ecology, global weather change , child labor in third world countries and worldwide economics without coming off as too preachy.

I highly recommend this book to SciFi and dystopia fans–I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Here’s a video you can see from home.  It’s a short interview with the writer talking about his book and it pretty interesting:

Salt

Salt by Maurice Gee

In this fascinating book, the setting is almost another character.  We are in a dark, future world with two very different and distinct classes of people.  Hari and his father Tarl live in the Burrows, which are crumbling ruins of their former city called belong.  They live a cut throat existence, near starvation on a daily basis and constantly on the watch for Whips (soldiers with deadly, electrified hands) who will capture and enslave them as workers to benefit the Company.  Pearl, on the other hand, is the youngest daughter of one of the wealthy and powerful Company officials.  She is about to be forced into marriage with the disgusting Ottmar (“a man who has outlived two wives already and looks fat enough to have swallowed them whole”), in order to cement their two family’s alliance.  What Hari and Pearl have in common is that they can both communicate using their minds, a sort of telepathy.  When Hari’s father is kidnapped by the Company and sent to Deep Salt (from which no one has ever returned), he vows to save him, no matter what the cost.

Pearl and her mysteriously talented handmaid Tealeaf come across Hari as they are all trying to escape the wrath of the Company, and the two teens slowly discover that their fates are intertwined with each other and some larger purpose, involving the future of their entire world.

This book is pretty much non-stop action and will keep you in its grip from the first chapter.  The writing style is simple and spare, with the New Zealand author only giving as much detail and description as necessary to move the plot along.  I recommend this to fans of The Maze Runner and science fiction, fantasy,  and dystopia lovers.  This is the first in a trilogy, the second title Gool coming out in the fall of 2010; I can’t wait!

The Passage — Review and Author Visit

The Passage by Justin Cronin

This is the best book I’ve read so far this summer. OK, I just had to get that out of the way.   The Passage tells the story of what happens when good science goes really wrong.  A group of scientists searching Bolivian rain forests for an ancient and elusive disease cure, make the mistake of allowing the military to get involved.  Those of us who read any amount of apocalyptic fiction know what a mistake that can be!  After nearly the whole team is destroyed by some sort of creatures who literally rip them limb from limb, Dr. Jonas Lear survives and is taken to a hidden military base in Colorado to use what they discovered to create some type of secret weapon for the US military.  Naturally, there is some mysterious breach in security, and the creatures they have created are set loose on the northern hemisphere.  Realize that these aren’t the sexy, glittery vampires who populate current bestsellers.  These are dark, hunched, muscular creatures with sharp clawed hands who can tear a person apart before they even realize they’re being attacked.  Add this that fact that one in ten victims transform into “virals,” and the world quickly becomes a place where the remaining humans are prey for the more powerful and horrific creatures.

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

In the midst of the ensuing chaos, two people search for sanctuary:  FBI agent Brad Wolgast and six-year-old Amy, the last victim he delivered for experimentation to the compound in Colorado.  The first section of the book describes their flight to safety, and tells in detail what is transpiring in the world they are hiding from.  The next two parts of the book take place almost 100 years later, beginning in the Colony where a couple hundred survivors are barely scraping out a day-to-day existence, most of their energies directed toward keeping the virals outside their heavily fortified settlement.  Although Peter Jaxon always felt overshadowed by his older brother Theo, now he is the one who knows Amy may be the key to humanity’s survival when she stumbles up to the walled Colony one night while he is on Watch.

This epic adventure had me captured from the first chapter.  Cronin is a master storyteller, slowly exposing details without overloading the reader with unnecessary description.  His characters feel realistic–making impossible decisions in situations most of us would avoid completely–but aren’t impossibly heroic, rendering them implausible.  This book reminded me a little of Stephen King’s The Stand, in the sense of the ultimate battle between Good and Evil.  The action in non-stop, keeping readers riveted to the story long into the night.  This is the first in a proposed trilogy, but I didn’t feel left hanging at the end like you do with some titles.  I knew there was more to the story, but after nearly 800 pages, it felt like Cronin had given the readers a great beginning.

I would recommend this title to all horror and vampire fans, Stephen King fans, and devotees of apocalyptic fiction like Hunger Games, Oryx and Crake and The Stand.

The author will be visiting Berkeley next week at Books Inc. on Fourth St.  I’m hoping to be there and would encourage avid readers to join me!  There’s nothing like hearing a writer talk about their book and how it came to be.  He might even give us some hints about the next installment.

Mon, 07/19/2010 – 7:00pm  Justin Cronin

Tomorrow When the War Began

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden

Imagine that you’re in high school and on a camping trip with a bunch of your friends.  You have a great time, but when you return to town, you discover that all the houses have been abandoned; all the people, including your own families, seem to have vanished into thin air.  This is what happens to Ellie and her six friends in this suspenseful story set in Australia.  The kids begin to investigate and slower figure out that their country has been invaded and most of the citizens from their small town are being held prisoners at the county fairgrounds.  As the brutal reality of their situation sinks in, and the teenagers are forced to make a life and death choice: Should they go back and hide in the secret area they discovered while on their camping trip, or should they try to be heroes and rescue their families and townspeople?

This fast-paced, gripping story is a must read for fans of dystopia and apocalyptic fiction.  It’s a very easy and fast read, maybe perfect for that last minute book project!  I highly recommend it to fans of Little Brother, Hunger Games, and Margaret Atwood.

For those of you series fans, this is the first in a series of seven, all of which have been published.  It’s called The Tomorrow series, and has been super popular here and in Australia.  In fact, it’s so loved there that it’s often one of the books kids read as a whole class in school.

This is not a new title (1995), but a movie based on it will be premiering sometime this fall.  Here’s a link to the trailer on YouTube–a little cheesy but the movie looks fun!  As a longtime fan of these books, I can’t wait!