Review: 6 Down, 5 to Go!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 7, 2014
I already readYesterday's Gone: Season Oneby Sean Platt and David Wright, and love all the options available in this book! I just picked up a copy and am looking forward to working through all the other books included.Here's my review ofSand: Part 1 - The Belt of the Buried Gods:Sand is an awesome start to a new series. I was already a fan of Hugh Howey'sWoolseries and was looking forward to checking out his new book.  This story got me interested in learning more about the world of Sand; how did the world get buried? Why do the prevailing winds never change direction? How long has the world been buried? The cliffhanger (almost) at the end leaves me wondering what will happen to the main character (though I wasn't too surprised by what happened to his friend...) I'll definitely be picking up the omnibus of this series when it's available. Update: I already picked up and read theSand Omnibusand it was awesome!Here's my review fromYesterday's Gone:Yesterday's Gone is a great long-running serial with a large cast of characters. The first season is a little bit rough around the edges, but they work in great cliffhangers that keep you reading from episode to episode and each season gets better as the authors improve in their collaborations. The underlying story is complex enough to enjoy and to support the large cast of characters, but not so complex that the reader is left completely behind.Here's my review fromApocalypse Drift:This was the fifth story in the collection that I read, and I think it's my second favorite so far after Sand.  The story paints a picture of an economic war on the United States by China, and I especially enjoyed the sub-story about Marinaville and Crusoe.  Some of the other story threads didn't hold my interest quite as well (and often read a bit too dry) but following the mariners attempts to survive kept me completely sucked in. I enjoyed Wallace Reed's attempts to help govern the country, although his search for his father's murderer wasn't quite as interesting to me.  The second to last scene with Rose was pretty powerful and left me depressed for the rest of the day.Here's my review fromContamination: Zero:The beginning of this story left a bit to be desired; I couldn't relate or like any of the characters as they were often referred to as "the man" or "the officer" and I had to actively think about which one was being referred to as there was usually at least 2 people in the scene that fit that description. The second part of the book, things got a bit more cohesive, and I finally started to care about the characters in the third part of the book. The story does an okay job getting me interested in the actual series, and sincethe boxed set(at the time I write this) is on sale for 99 cents and includes the next 3 books it did a good enough job for me to pick up a copy and continue the series at some point in the not too distant future. Hopefully the series itself will deliver and I'll be interested in finishing it.Here's my review fromArtificial Evil:This book was okay - it's a cyberpunk thriller that's a bit over the top with a lot of stereotyped characters.  The main problem I had was that there were only momentary suspensions of disbelief. The story itself was relatively complex and moved at a good pace, but there were a lot of points in the book where I considered just putting it down and not finishing it. It did keep me reading to the end, where there were a few good places that the book could have concluded.  The cliff hanger at the end sets up the second book pretty well, but I don't see myself continuing in the series. A lot of that could just be that I really didn't like the main character. If the future books were told from a different point of view, I might be interested in looking at them, but definitely don't see continuing on with Gerry as the main character.  From a technical standpoint, I was often confused and drawn out of the narrative by random emphasis...literally half of a word would be in italics, sometimes the second half of one word and the first half of the next, which seemed like it might be important the first time or two it happened but eventually just became an annoyance that pulled me out of the story and probably led to my inability to get lost in it.  This was the fourth story in the book that I read and thankfully the other 3 so far were more than worth the price of admission.Here's my review fromThe Tube Riders:1984 meets The Island of Dr. Moreau meets Escape from New York - this book describes a dystopian Great Britain run by a despot (who isn't but might as well be a vampire) that engages in genetic experiments after having segregated every class of citizen that he could into separate urban and rural areas with no travel or communication allowed. A group of kids stuck living in London get their kicks by jumping onto and hanging off the sides of the trains, but one day find themselves witnessing an assassination, thus beginning their attempts to escape from not just the city but the entire country, all while being pursued by a rival gang, the governments secret police, and a mutated human/dog hybrid that the government puts on their tail.  The story was pretty good; it did sag a bit in the middle and I wasn't sure if I'd finish it, but it picked back up and the last third of the book especially kept me pretty captivated. There *is* a lot of violence in the book so it may not be appropriate for a younger audience or for anybody that gets a bit squeemish from descriptions of blood and gore. Some of the more fantastic elements relating to the genetic mutations and experiments had me rolling my eyes a bit, but they didn't detract too much from the story. I felt that the ending of the book was very satisfactory in closing out the story, while providing a small and very minor cliffhanger to set up the sequel.