Review: Juvenile & painfully, ploddingly slow
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 8, 2013
I should have known better. I recently read the 1st book in this "saga" and was disappointed, but the lure of a free read and a possible glimpse into the origins of an apocalypse were simply too strong temptations for me to resist. Meh, I've learned my lesson. No more of this author for me.This time, blessedly, the spelling errors are gone (mostly); but that's not to say the editing was any better. The writing was inconsistent: sentences were either choppy or ran on way too long. And there were still way, way too many cliches. The very first sentence, for example, is trite with hyperbole: "I'm a dead man walking...". The fact that Lukan is a life insurance salesman doling out death warrants also feels more convenient than ironic, especially since Forsyth tells us it's ironic rather than letting us figure it out for ourselves.The first paragraph quickly devolves into a rambling self-argument explaining in painful detail why the story was written (who cares, just get on with it) and an acknowledgement that no one will probably ever read it (except aliens; yes, that's right, he said aliens) because everyone will likely be dead. Narcissistic much? It even manages to mention dinosaurs. In the first. Paragraph. (Yes, that's how. The story. Is written.) Egads, man! Just tell it already!For those following along, what we have is an unreliable narrator. Unfortunately, the author seems completely unaware of this, leaving the reader nothing but skeptical. I think I rolled my eyes a dozen times just in the first 10% of the book. If he was aware and this was an intentional ploy, then it was, at best, a ham-fisted attempt.The cause of the apocalypse stems from the narrator's fatal illness (a brain cancer which, he argues, had nothing to do with his psychopathology; uh huh, right). Anyway, so we're supposed to sympathise with a guy who's bent on destroying the world because of all its terrible sins, yet he enjoys ogling curvy women and indulging in all the creature comforts and riches humanity and civilisation have to offer. I swear, it started to feel like I was watching someone self-pleasure himself. Which was actually exactly how I felt about the first book.Best part? The story ends abruptly at 64% on my ereader (by the way, it's ereader, not eReader, just like it's ebook, not eBook), which means I got a full 36% reprieve I wasn't expecting. Yay! The remainder is an excerpt from the 1st book of the series, which I already read, so won't have to slog through again. This same text also happens to be available in the "Introductory first look." And in the first book. And the bundle. Oy, maybe it would've been better if humanity really had gone extinct. Reading this made me feel like I died twice.