Category Archives: Dystopian

A Day in the Life by Andrew Masseurs – REVIEW

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Today I’m reviewing A Day in the Life by Andrew Masseurs

Here’s the blurb

Michael awakens to a world where everyone has disappeared. Not only must he come to grips with the sudden loss of his family, but he must also survive in a changing, overgrown, dangerous world filled with new predatory creatures. A Day in the Life for a man on the edge.

Review

A Day in the Life is a super quick read at just over 80 pages, but boy does it deliver. I actually read the book then listened to the audio version just to see which was better and the narrator David Piper did such a great job of adding a manic edge to Michael as his world spirals.

Michael awakes one day to find his family already up and out… he goes for a run and things seem a little quiet.. it is a Sunday though… nothing too strange there.

When he gets home his family are still not back.. and their phones are still at home too.. they wouldn’t leave without their phones would they? At first Michael tired to play this off.. they will be ok.. they will walk back through the door soon.. but they don’t.

As Michael explores he finds no signs of anyone else either.. shops are empty..While he hurts at the thought of his missing family he must survive.. and the best thing he can do is stay put.. his family, if still alive will know where to find him.

We then see Michael tumble a little as he adjusts to being alone.. he goes out into the world and finds things to make his life as comfortable as possible, new cars, new TVs and so on.. but as you read you get the feeling Michael is in a little denile..keeping himself busy is stopping him from being overwhelmed by the pain of reality.

While out one day in hunt for supplies Michael meets a young girl who reminds him of his daughter a little.. he’s not alone in this world.. it makes him feel again and he only wants to help her..but this new world isn’t safe..and Michael can’t keep her safe..

Not to spoil things but this is where things spiral for Michael with pain added to pain.. pushing him closer and closer to doing something drastic.

There’s a spiritual edge to the tale as once or twice Michael sees the image of his wife… but it can’t be her can it.. if it was why isn’t she there with him?

Towards the end there’s a major reveal that explains what’s happened to the world Michael knew.. will this be a second chance..or is this the end?

For such a short tale I was amazed how much depth and emotion was present and while I loved reading the story I also really feel the narrated version really does the tale more justice than I could ever reading the tale myself.

The tale is dystopian in nature and makes you wonder what you may do if the world suddenly changed, it also makes you wonder what we’ve done to deserve the world we live in.. we take it for granted and for Michael his world is taken away overnight.. he’s not meant to survive but humans have a way of surviving don’t we..

As debuts go I can’t fault the story one bit, Impressed is an understatement. It’s not easy writing a book but to give such a full tale in under 100 pages.. wow.

I loved the characters and the development and that ending left me hooked..as in imagine what could happen next.

5/5 Stars

To find out more head to Amazon, Goodreads or Audible!

The Bastard Cadre by Lee Carlon – Review

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Next up on David’s Book Blurg I’m reviewing The Bastard Cadre by Lee Carlon

Here’s the blurb

Genre – Epic Fantasy/Dystopian

Take a stand. Defy the gods.

Avril was raised salvaging tech in the dead cities left behind after the apocalypse. He was happy, living quietly and avoiding the chosen’s holy wars, but a chance encounter reveals people are coming for him. Whether he wants it or not, he has a role to play in the holy wars and life will never be the same again. Neutrality is not an option for Avril as forces on all sides of the conflict learn who and what he is and set plans in motion to use him to gain the upper hand.

The Bastard Cadre is an ambitious science fantasy saga set in a futuristic dystopia where dragons soar above cities of technological splendor, and what’s left of humanity must choose between kneeling to malevolent gods and risking annihilation to fight them.

Review

I actually read The Bastard Cadre series some time ago and loved it..my only comment to the author was the covers lacked the first impression to make a reader buy the book.. well the author has clearly took that on-board and has released the series with fab new covers..not only that but book 1 in the series has had a rewrite… and to tease me there’s also now a book 5 to the series I’ve yet to read. To do the series justice I thought the best idea was to read the series again from the start to enjoy the ride once again J

What originally caught my eye was the author’s tag line.. epic fantasy without the word count. At 178 pages it’s perfect for a quick read and a great way to test if a series is for you.

The Bastard Cadre is the best series I’ve read and the rewrite for book 1 served only to improve on what I deemed perfection.. as if that was even possible.

The tale follows Avril.. he’s being raised (or rather protected) by Ethan Godkin but why?

After Avril and Ethan are attacked while on the road their life is turned upside down and Ethan does everything in his power to protect Avril… and that means calling someone he’d rather not..he’s stuck in a hard place and there doesn’t appear to be an easy way out.

Set in a futuristic dystopia era where cities are now wasteland you can’t trust anyone as most are struggling to survive… only the rich thrive while the gods play their little games.

A series of events lead Avril to the conclusion he’s not just another lost soul..he’s part of something bigger…but what…. there’s a connection to the gods themselves.. but why was Ethan hiding this truth?  Who can he trust?

I really enjoyed the setting along with the futuristic technology used by Avril to stay alive. I’ll be honest.. the plot was great and the setting perfect.. the detail given in under 200 pages sucks the reader in and leaves so many questions open setting the series up perfectly.

5/5 stars!

To find out more head to Amazon or Goodreads

Ghosts of Tomorrow by Michael R. Fletcher – Review

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Title – Ghosts of Tomorrow
Author – Michael R. Fletcher
Genre – Dystopian
Length – 369 Pages
Publication – Feb 2017
My Rating – 4/5 Stars

Synopsis

The children are the future.
And someone is turning them into highly trained killing machines.

Straight out of school, Griffin, a junior Investigations agent for the North American Trade Union, is put on the case: Find and close the illegal crèches. No one expects him to succeed, Griffin least of all. Installed in a combat chassis Abdul, a depressed seventeen year old killed during the Secession Wars in Old Montreal, is assigned as Griffin’s Heavy Weapons support. Nadia, a state-sanctioned investigative reporter working the stolen children story, pushes Griffin ever deeper into the nightmare of the black market brain trade.

Deep in the La Carpio slums of Costa Rica, the scanned mind of an autistic girl runs the South American Mafia’s business interests. But she wants more. She wants freedom. And she has come to see humanity as a threat. She has an answer: Archaeidae. At fourteen, he is the deadliest assassin alive. Two children against the world.

The world is going to need some help. 

Review

Quite an interesting story this one. People now have the choice to live forever as a machine and the black market trade in children to be used as killing machines is big business!

I loved the idea of the different chassis you could be downloaded into.

Griffin is investigating this black market and the crèches that supply the children, things don’t go his way and children die..this just spurs him on even more but you can see it affects him.

One such kid who didn’t manage to escape a crèche is an autistic girl, who gets named 88. Some very bad people want to use her highly intelligent brain in order to make money but she starts to become more aware of what they have done to her.

Their worlds collide when they both decide to track down who is behind the illegal trade. Without spoiling the story too much it tracks back to one man..and let’s just say he’s a little crazy..and he’s getting more and more unstable.

I enjoyed the plot a lot, very easy to follow. The best thing had to be the development of the story itself. I enjoyed the characters for sure but the plot itself is what kept me hooked more.

The idea of harvesting kids isn’t an easy one to swallow and it gets a bit gory at times with some violence but it all adds to the tale and makes it unlike anything I’ve read before.

It a brutal vision of the future and I does make you think about what could happen if technology keeps advancing. At times the action is gut punching.

A dark and grim tale but full of action and detail. Brilliant development throughout. All in all not a book that you’ll easily forget. If you enjoy the genre this will be right up your street and if like me you like the idea of people being transferred into robot shells you’ll love it. I loved that the author touched on the moral side of things also asking if machines should have the same rights as humans.. if anything like this happened in real life you know this would be something that would crop up so the tale really does make you think.

I received a review copy of the book in exchange for an honest review, my thanks go to the author for the chance to read/review their work

To find out more head to Amazon or Goodreads.

 

Blog Tour – Ascension (The Oasis Series #1)

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Title – Ascension (The Oasis Series #1)
Author – Jeannie van Rompaey
Genre –  Science Fiction/ Dystopian Fiction
Length –  Pages
Publication – April 2016
My Rating – 3/5 Stars

Synopsis

Meet the MUTANT HUMANOIDS. They may look a little different from us, but inside they’re much the same as you and me. Left on a diseased Earth, they live in windowless compounds, safe from the contaminated wilderness outside. Safe, yes, but their lives are restricted. When the mutant humanoids discover that some complete human beings, COMPLETES, have also survived and are living greatly improved lives on satellites, they determine to rectify this imbalance and claim their share of Earth’s heritage. Three-headed RA rules the humanoids with ruthless precision, but others are involved in a power struggle to depose him. Who will succeed in being the next CEO of Planet Earth? Sixteen -year-old MERCURY plans to start a new life on Oasis. Will it prove the Utopia he expects it to be? ASCENSION, the first novel in Jeannie van Rompaey’s Oasis Series, explores with humour and compassion the way humans respond to change. The future worlds of Earth and Oasis mirror our contemporary society. The division between the haves and have-nots widens and the lust for power leads to corruption. But there are idealists determined to build a fairer, more egalitarian society.

Review

This book follows the lives of the mutant humanoids on earth, who’ve been left behind after a plague has hit the world. It was very interesting idea from the author to say we humans bring on such a plague by how we treat the world we live in.

I found myself thinking throughout this book about the hidden messages within. The author not only touches on how we take our world for granted but also deals with issues such as racism. The author has done well to create a world so similar but so different to our own at the same time.

There are a lot of mythological references throughout the book which I really liked.

The story itself was very interesting, being told from different perspectives. I especially liked Mercury. About half the book relates to him and I enjoyed every bit. He was by far the most developed and the author clearly put some time into the character.

My 3 star rating is mainly due to the fact I was a little confused as to the target market for the book. Some scenes definitely felt more YA but then a few were most certainly adult themed.

The mutant humanoid army was probably the bit I liked the least, their characters being too fickle. I would have liked to see them struggle a bit under their leadership but they were one dimensional following orders blindly. This was the bit that felt very YA to me. Easy reading but it happened too fast.

To be honest this was an enjoyable but thought provoking read. I read it in 3 days thanks to the author’s style of writing, not over complicating things.

I think the author has set herself up nicely for the next book in the series, hinted at things to come. Enough has been given in my opinion to get you to pick up the next book when it’s released. I definitely see more conflict in the next instalment and I look forward to seeing how things play out.

Overall I enjoyed the story and underlying themes throughout give this book a little extra. It’s an interesting world the author has envisaged.. let’s see what happens next

My thanks go to the author and to Authoright for the opportunity to read/review this book and to be part of the blog tour. I appreciate it greatly

The book is available now. Head to Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com for more details

I was very lucky to be given a little insight to the author and how The Oasis series came about..Enjoy!

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The Oasis Series, Book 1 Ascension and Book 2 Evolution – Jeannie van Rompaey

I live on the subtropical island of Gran Canaria with my husband, a historian and artist, and spend most of my time writing novels, short stories, plays and poems. I also paint and TJ and I exhibit our artwork together. My daughter, Anieka, lives in London and we make frequent trips to see her, visit art galleries, go to the theatre and attend literary events. What a wonderful life!

I was brought up in the village of Weston, Northamptonshire, in a thatched cottage with shop attached so that my mother could combine looking after me with earning a living. I hated it when the shop bell rang and she called out to me to answer it and serve the customers. It broke my concentration from the stories I was writing. I’ll certainly never be a shopkeeper but my passion for reading and writing has never faltered.

I tend to be an eternal student. My formal education culminated in receiving an MA in Modern Literature from the University of Leicester in 1996, but I won’t ever stop learning. My career has included teaching, lecturing and running drama and creative writing workshops. I am also a theatre director, actor and voice-over. As Jeannie Russell I am a senior member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators and adjudicate at drama festivals in the UK and Europe. Next year I’m off to Frankfurt to adjudicate for FEATS – Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies. I’m looking forward to that.

I have four published novels, quite a few short stories and my plays have been produced on the London Fringe.  Themes include the power of creativity, the complexity of relationships and speculations about the future of our planet.

I became interested in writing dystopia because of my concern about the environment and the use of science in contemporary society. I have read several novels about future worlds, including Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, her trilogy, Oryx and Crake, the Year of The Flood and MaddAddam and Kazuo Ishiguru’s Never Let Me Go. They are both imaginative literary authors who have used their talents to write dystopian fiction. Reading their work inspired me to create my own future world.

Looking up at my painting of a three-headed man hanging over my desk, the character of three-headed Ra was born. He soon became the ruthless CEO of the mutant humanoids living in windowless compounds on a contaminated Earth.

As my novels are character-led, rather than plot-led, it wasn’t long before I was inventing more mutant humanoids to inhabit the claustrophobic worlds inside the compounds, characters who were turned out to be ambitious, determined and resilient.

I imagined another group of survivors, humans without mutations – completes. These lucky ones managed to escape the polluted Earth to live a privileged life on a manmade satellite called Oasis. Given a second chance they construct what they believe to be a perfect world, a utopia.

I could see that there would enough conflict between these two groups in their very different worlds to make a story. The mutant humanoids incarcerated in their compounds on Earth would surely envy or even resent the new life the completes were creating for themselves and want to share it.

That’s how The Oasis Series began. Ascension, Evolution and Renaissance.

I invite you to enter my world. Enjoy!

Website – http://jeannievanrompaey.com/