Review: great writing! - hold the philosophy lessons !
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 2, 2013
I am a sometimes writer, and have probably read 40 or so "zombie/apoco" books, most are trash in my view but as a writer (only good enough to know I dare not charge for my services as yet) I think i have a more discerning eye than the people who run around handing out 5 stars to what are little more than preschool essays on "the bad bad world".The notable exceptions in this general arena of post apoco are Hugh Howey (duh), DJ Moles (great!), Stephen Knight, M.S. Fuchs, and I also like the Yesterday's Gone series by Sean Platt and David Wright.I actually did pay for and read the whole book (did not refund it) and to start with, this 748 page book should be paired down to around 400 and sold for less than $5 or $6 (you've got brass one's to charge Hugh Howey $$).  Way too much in what could be generally categorized into philosophical ramblings (however agreeable they may have been, and they honestly were for the most part). It's simply a case of too much salt spoils the broth.  That's my only real complaint about the writing.I don't want to get overly critical here and I give it 3 stars because i think Josh is a damn good writer and I will continue to look for his work. In between the ramblings, which I would usually speed read, the book really was a ton of fun, it was realistic, well written, well thought out, and all the other usual bullet points you want in a little story.  It's not a terribly clever story, it's relatively straightforward.  The competition in this arena is getting pretty fierce so I expect a little more for my penny a page. I am not rich, I spend tons of money per year on ebooks (this was my, i think, 90th book this year) so, you know, I have to mind my pennies.Lastly, I thought there was something of a mistake in the whole story line.  The main character was writing this on line, broadcasting (this book) as a journal across the internet where enemies could read it as well so there was a distinct need for secrecy.  Unfort, that got in the way and ruined the continuity at times and it seems to me the solution was to advise readers that certain paragraphs/chapters were installed later, for security reasons, to complete the story.  They could have been in italics, or in brackets - something.  This made the story clumsy at times and a bit irritating.  I can only imagine Josh had to have spent many hours just backtracking and making sure what he was doing made any sense when there was a pretty simple solution to maintain continuity.  Perhaps it's not so simple, I could be wrong but it seemed that way to me when I read it.