Review: The series is fun, but Untold Stories is more like A (Poorly) Mixed Bag.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2014
I'm going to have to buck the trend on this review.  I'd give the first half of the book only 2-stars, and the second half 4-stars.I've read all the books in John's series, and I reviewed the first five on Amazon.  I haven't reviewed again, until now, because I figured "in for a penny, in for a pound," meaning that anybody this far into the series was going to be happy and already knew what they were getting into.  The "A New World" series has evolved pretty well, been entertaining, and remained nicely coherent.Sadly, John's collection of vignettes in the first half of Untold Stories weren't particularly entertaining, and didn't really give me a sense of development that I'd hoped for.  Also, a lot of the writing was very two-dimensional: more like reading the stage notes on a theater or screen-play script than literature.  That's why I give the first half only 2 stars.Here's an example  from the San Francisco story: "As one, the entire group turns their heads to the side, looking down one of the side streets.  They don't move from their positions but stare down the road.  Shortly, red and blue lights begin flashing off the sides of one of the buildings near the group, strobing the entire area with their rapid pulses."  Great for scene direction, but not well crafted story telling.  A lot of the descriptive writing in the first half was like this.There was certainly a lot of death and violence, but that's already been established as expected any time Night Runners show up.  I was hoping more for more background or connectivity for events along the way, but the first half of the book was more of a few extra "bits" stuck on the existing series.  Specifically - the stories of death and tragedy let me know who the girl in the white dress was, or why there was a car crash at the intersection in Oregon, but OK...yup, they're all dead.  The story of the CDC director, Gabe, had promise, until he was sacrificed by the weird cult in Colorado...yup, we knew they were doing that and that previous sacrifices were all dead, too.  A small sense of justice, maybe, but nothing to fill out the greater story.  Finally, the story from Salerno, Italy, added nothing except the odd editing error for the family's baby Davide (a boy's name in Italian) starting the story as a girl and finishing as boy.  We knew that nuclear melt-down was bad in Europe.  And we knew that what happened to the survivors was tragic.  Slow death from radiation poisoning was just slow.Now, the fan fiction half of Untold Stories rates at least 4 stars.  The first story, "The Long Way Home," was great - I really believed the perspective of the Air Force security forces and their dogs.  It also re-kindled the sense of adventure and excitement John brings to his series when talking about flying the AC-130 on attack missions and on cross-country trips into unknown airports. Mike VanDeMark's description of making a combat parachute drop with a military working dog "jumped" (pun intended) off the page and made me feel like I was in the air and then on the ground with him.  P. Mark DeBruyn's "In for a Dollar...In for a Dime" was also fun.  I've ridden Puget Sound ferries many times, and his writing made me feel like I was back on one -- with a bunch of cannibalistic Night Runners!  H.J. Harry's "Civilians," offers a chance for a new and diverse group to meet up with Jack and Lynn in the "regular" series.Finally, my favorite, Sara Jones' "Sam's Boy," was heartfelt, unique and inspiring.  Writing from an aging family dog's perspective was an entirely cool idea.  Her writing style tugs at your heart strings while still giving that edge of fear and anticipation whenever Night Runners are around.  Bringing Sam and Andrew back together as the world collapses still makes me misty-eyed.  Oh, and for a dog to name a guy "Cheeseburger" because of how the person smells was really funny.So, I would say go ahead and get this book, skim through the first half and have fun with the second.  I've read the fan-fiction twice.  I will continue to follow the series, but I'm going to be more careful about any other short-story compilations.  It's tough to keep a series going, and growing after so many books, and I salute John O'Brien's efforts.  Perhaps the infusion of the fan-fiction ideas from "The Long Way Home," "In for a Dollar...In for a Dime," and "Civilians" might be way to re-spike the adrenalin for future books.