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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
Absolutely mediocre in every aspect. Not a bad book, not really a good book either, which is why it took me forever to finish it. I might reccomend the book if it were shorter, but given it's 900 page length it's not worth the time commitment for bland and predictable story. There is, I feel, only one developed character and it isn't the hero or the villain. As far as post apocolyptic stories go, this one did a fair job of witnessing the events as they unfold for each survivor, and how the quick disintegration of society. However, everything was so cut and dried: THIS is evil, THIS is good, people behave this way just because they are crazy...it lacked the depth it needed to foster my suspension of disbelief. Maybe skip it.
Meh.
Because I was relatively engaged by the plot, I rounded up to 3 stars. But, like several other reviewers have pointed out already, there was a lot of cheese and clichéd writing in this book. Colonel Macklin was terrifying until he named his soldiers the "Army of Excellence". Eye roll forever.
Because I was relatively engaged by the plot, I rounded up to 3 stars. But, like several other reviewers have pointed out already, there was a lot of cheese and clichéd writing in this book. Colonel Macklin was terrifying until he named his soldiers the "Army of Excellence". Eye roll forever.
adventurous
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i've heard that this is the book i thought the stand was going to be, and that's extremely accurate. a goddamn incredible book.
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Good story , but runs a little to long.
The end of the story is wrapped up quite quickly, compared to the whole lenght of the book, some idears are introduced but never followed up.
The end of the story is wrapped up quite quickly, compared to the whole lenght of the book, some idears are introduced but never followed up.
Despite some (IMHO) overly gruesome descriptions, and also despite its obvious ripping off of Stephen King's The Stand in many ways, I ended up enjoying this more than I had expected.
One terribly picky detail - in a late part of the book, there's a bit about a horse affectionately biting a person's hand. AFAIK, that's totally wrong. The mechanics of a horse's jaw makes it so that once they have something in their mouth, they have to bite down until their mouth is almost closed before it will re-open. So they might "nibble" at clothing, or even skin, with the teeth just a tiny way apart, but if they open their mouth widely enough to take in a finger and then close down on it, that's going to HURT (and possibly result in amputation of the finger.) Plus, there seems to be remarkably little difficulty in feeding said horse, despite there being no grass for the critter to forage and one would assume little or no hay remaining 10 yrs after the holocaust. McCammon just doesn't deal with these issues -- I suspect the horse was a convenient fix for the transportation problem and he didn't think enough people would object to those pesky details to waste time figuring out a work-around.
One terribly picky detail - in a late part of the book, there's a bit about a horse affectionately biting a person's hand. AFAIK, that's totally wrong. The mechanics of a horse's jaw makes it so that once they have something in their mouth, they have to bite down until their mouth is almost closed before it will re-open. So they might "nibble" at clothing, or even skin, with the teeth just a tiny way apart, but if they open their mouth widely enough to take in a finger and then close down on it, that's going to HURT (and possibly result in amputation of the finger.) Plus, there seems to be remarkably little difficulty in feeding said horse, despite there being no grass for the critter to forage and one would assume little or no hay remaining 10 yrs after the holocaust. McCammon just doesn't deal with these issues -- I suspect the horse was a convenient fix for the transportation problem and he didn't think enough people would object to those pesky details to waste time figuring out a work-around.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF after the utterly unnecessary rape 300 pages in that took the book from entertainingly incompetent to creepy and gross. This is a terrible book.
I understand why this book is considered as a pillar of the post apocalypse/horror genre. It definitely is. Absolutely terrifying. Some characters own my heart (Josh and Swan, Artie and Sister), some are awful but very real to what would happen in this situation unfortunately...