Review: Post-apocalyptic thrills
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 10, 2014
Exciting post-apocalyptic thriller told in serialised format - the season consists of six novelette-length parts, each comprising a dozen or so chapters from different characters' points of view. It's pretty straightforward to draw a direct line from Stephen King through TV shows like Lost and 24 to Yesterday's Gone (the authors cite all of the above as influences, with King's original serialisation of The Green Mile, which was published in chapbooks back in the day, the most direct inspiration).It's a page-turner. After 99% of the world's human and animal populations just vanish overnight (Rapture? Nah, more interesting than that) various survivors gather their wits and band together to overcome predatory survivalists, secret agents, weird ghost-monsters, psychic children and serial killers. At least a few of those are point of view characters.The characters are well-drawn and compelling, if not always completely sympathetic. (The bloodthirsty psychopath is a barrel of laughs though, and has a surprisingly nuanced grip on his humanity which makes him all the more enjoyable). Information about exactly what's going on is being dispensed slowly as the characters come to grips with their situation - there's obviously a lot to the world that is yet to be revealed in subsequent seasons. Still, what has come out in this series has whet my curiosity.Chapters end on appropriately breathless cliffhangers (the one to finish off the season is a hilarious where-the-hell-is-this-going-now headspin) and the body count is satisfying without being gratuitous. One character death late in Part 6 caught me nicely off-guard, just when I'd convinced myself I knew what would happen next.The serialised ebook series is a model I find fascinating as a reader, hearkening back to the early days of popular fiction. Sean Platt and David Wright may not be this generation's Charles Dickens, but they know how to keep a reader interested. I'll definitely be picking up Season 2.