Book Review: Final Dawn pt 1 & 2 by Mike Kraus

When the end of the world arrived, it came not with a bang, as most expected, but with more of a "pfft" instead.

Humanity has been torn asunder and brought to the edge of total annihilation in less than an hour. For those who died, it was a quick death, so fast that their brains didn't have time to process the pain signals from their nerves. For those who survived, the true horror is about to begin as they struggle to not only stay alive, but find out what happened to bring such a quick end to the world as they knew it.

My Review:
Four people are going about their ordinary lives when the nuclear explosion hits. Nancy is leaving Denver for a new job in Miami. Leonard is a bitter engineer working 22 years for the sanitation department and is stuck underground. Rachel is in her basement when her house explodes. Marcus is on a solo camping trip. Each of them now has to decide what to do next and where to go to find safety, while dealing with the thought that life as they knew it is over. But the blast was just the beginning and they are about to witness a strange living entity hunting down survivors...

I never follow serial novels as I find them too expensive and it is unsatisfying to read in small chunks when it is better to read a whole novel. However if a first episode or two are available free or very cheap, it is a good way to try a series and see if it is worth reading on, but only if a full omnibus is available. In this case I decided to read the first two parts of this serial novel to see what I thought of the writing and the story. I decided that I liked it enough to buy the full omnibus paperback. I hope to get that read soon.

My one objection to this format from a plot point of view is that each POV is short and it switches to someone else just as something interesting happens. This happens in pretty much every multi POV serial novel and because of this I often find it hard to really get to know the characters and care about them. In the case of this book, I found the actual storytelling to be very good and attempts are made to get you in the heads of each character. It is more successful in that task than others I have read but as I said this format makes it hard for a story to flow and characters to develop the way they do in a normal novel.

This first part had me curious enough to read the second part (which I have also reviewed) and I then bought the omnibus. I liked it enough to buy it to find out what happens but I do prefer a full novel to read, hence the lower star rating. It is a decent read so far so we'll see how the full omnibus is, which I'll review seperate. 

Read September 2017
3 stars

My Review:
Rachel has realised that it was a nuclear attack and now she has to get to Washington as she has the skills to put things right. Linking up with soldiers seems to be a good idea until she sees the swarm. Nancy finds a safe place to hole up in but it doesn't feel safe enough when she sees the swarm outside, so she is on the road again. Leonard starts to locate supplies for his journey to South Carolina and leaves the power station. Marcus sees a humanoid version of the swarm and is scared that it is tracking him.

The swarm become a more important part of this story in part two and it certainly ramps up the tension with each of our survivors seeing them. It also becomes clear just how dangerous this thing is going to be, whether in swarm or human form. I'm somewhat intrigued by this thing and look forward to finding out what it is and how it came to be, and hopefully seeing what Rachel is going to be able to do to stop it. We have our characters in somewhat more dangerous moments which helps the reader to care more about what is happening to them.

I don't want to write too much about the actual plot and spoil it for those who want to read it but it is certainly amping things up as the story goes on. There is more tension and danger in this part and it was entertaining to read. It was this part that convinced me to go ahead and buy the omnibus edition so I could read it all in one. I'm looking forward to doing that.

Read September 2017
3.5 stars