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victoriakc's review
4.0
I was waiting for this to come out on audiobook but as it will not be I decided I had to know what happened to Emily. I read it in a day and thought it was a wonderful conclusion to a series I love so much.
If you have read the other 4 books in the series you do not want to miss this exciting conclusion.
If you have read the other 4 books in the series you do not want to miss this exciting conclusion.
willpollard's review
5.0
Epic ending
An epic ending to a very impressive series of books.
The pace is fairly slow to begin with, a chunk of time being spent in Svalbard (a place that sounds nice, if a little on the chilly side). This isn't a problem for me, as I like a little world building with my action, which is exactly what you get here.
The book the gradually builds to the series finale, and what a finale it is. The action is intense, epic and goes on for ages. The antagonists are particularly sinister and believable and the protagonists are suitably heroic. At times they seem a little too heroic, until you remember that their backs are to the wall and what they're doingg is from necessity, not choice.
This is a series I would recommend to anyone. If you're looking for a slightly different take on the apocalypse, this might be for you.
An epic ending to a very impressive series of books.
The pace is fairly slow to begin with, a chunk of time being spent in Svalbard (a place that sounds nice, if a little on the chilly side). This isn't a problem for me, as I like a little world building with my action, which is exactly what you get here.
The book the gradually builds to the series finale, and what a finale it is. The action is intense, epic and goes on for ages. The antagonists are particularly sinister and believable and the protagonists are suitably heroic. At times they seem a little too heroic, until you remember that their backs are to the wall and what they're doingg is from necessity, not choice.
This is a series I would recommend to anyone. If you're looking for a slightly different take on the apocalypse, this might be for you.
catevari's review
1.0
When I read the first/sample chapter of Extinction Point on my Kindle, I thought that a) here was a book in that narrow crevice of intersecting interests that I and my husband could read together and b) here was a story that had an interesting premise. As far as it goes, both those things were right.
I still maintain that Extinction Point has an interesting premise…but the author does nothing interesting with it. There are many problems here.
And I have to confess, I felt overwhelmed when I sat down to write this because there's so much wrong at pretty much every level; at a certain point, I could only report in aggregate, because to go into sufficient detail would be to write a novel myself.
I've compared Extinction Point to friends as a NaNoWriMo project, I've compared it to a season of Dragonball Z. If neither of those metaphors mean anything to you, let me break it down like this: everything that happens in the book is really only the first few chapters of an actual story; it's just that everything is inflated and bloated and stretched out by page after page of the author describing everything in excruciating and unnecessary (and boring) detail.
The premise behind Extinction Point is that our heroine, Emily Baxter, is a newspaper journalist in New York City and, on the day our story begins, a mysterious red rain falls across the globe, killing pretty much the entire population of the planet (including animal and insect life) except our girl, Emily, who is somehow immune. This set up gives us many questions and a wonderful mystery: What's happening? Who is responsible? Is Emily really the last person on Earth? What now?
Unfortunately, the author—and by extension, Emily—doesn't seem all that interested in what's going on or why. And I can't really talk about that without going into massive spoilers, because the problems permeate EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. So.
It makes sense, in the beginning, for Emily to hole up in her apartment. It's what's been advised by the Powers That Be and, up to the point that (practically) everyone on the planet dies, where else is she going to go? However, once everyone dies—even before they start turning into alien drones—Emily's insistence in clinging to it is both inexplicable, and incredibly stupid/dangerous. As things get progressively worse from there (all the corpses turning into the aforementioned drones, the power going out, a fire, aliens actually burrowing in/through her apartment), her refusal to leave gets increasingly stupid and ridiculous. The fact that the majority of the book is Emily hiding out (in denial) in her apartment (on the seventeenth floor!) and combined with some common sense problems from an author who has clearly never lived in an inner city apartment building (smoke alarms, peepholes, a singular elevator), take the willing suspension of disbelief and created something as alien as his new inhabitants of New York City.
Emily is a dumb protagonist stuck in a frequently dumb story. In one sense, this is okay, because it's the least tense, least dangerous and most forgiving apocalypse ever. Through most of the story, the only real danger comes from Emily herself as she makes one bad decision after another and hurts herself while making them.
I also want to put something in here about Emily's privilege. Emily is, as I said, a dumb protagonist. Some of this is a very realistic (if tedious) dumbness; some of this is a fairly unrealistic dumbness clearly invented by the author for his "plot" needs. And some of it is just Emily being a rather annoyingly privileged middle class white chick. This is most clear for me when she, over and over again, refuses to grasp the reality of her situation. Everyone's dead? Let's take a bath and a sleeping pill! It never occurs to her that the janitorial or maintenance staff of her apartment or the newspaper will have master keys; in fact, the janitorial and/or maintenance staff never come into her mind. She has weird 'moral' angst about scavenging things for her own survival—and frequently she just does not think to scavenge or refuses to scavenge (as when she refuses to sleep in a bed or to get sunglasses that would actually HELP her, or when she grabs a GPS device but not a map) that shows a level of Nice White Lady that, under the circumstances is both tragic and laughable.
Further, though she's a journalist—and the only person "on the ground", because the only other survivors we know of are in Alaska, an area apparently free of the red rain and alien menace—Emily demonstrates virtually NO journalistic curiosity about what's happening, she refuses to give information (possibly VITAL information) to the survivors in Alaska about what she sees/what's happening because she's afraid it sounds too crazy and she chooses the worst, most dangerous and idiotic times to engage with the aliens who otherwise seem content to ignore her (cutting open the pupa at the newspaper office when already on another mission and injured, detouring through the alien forest and dragging her bike behind her (while still injured) instead of taking the smart route and detouring around the lake on her bike).
Half the time, she treats the events of the apocalypse as her personal spa day (taking long baths in her limited water supply and then downing a sleeping pill, luxuriating in the awesomeness of a bike ride on a sunny day through Central Park, etc.) than a disaster of nearly unimaginable proportions. She evinces no concern when she sees the aliens have not only consumed/transformed the animal life on the planet, but are similarly transforming the plant life, as well. As practically the sole survivor of the apocalypse, Emily may be spoiled for choice when it comes to canned goods and bottled water, but as the aliens transform the soil and plant life, I'd think Emily had taken enough first grade biology to worry about what she's going to breathe in the fairly near future.
Emily is not helped by Jones, who undercuts her, and his own story, at every turn. Emily takes supplies (a shotgun, a GPS) only for the author to clearly forget them for long stretches at a time, or, as in the case of the GPS, refuses to use them for the most specious, pasted on reasons. The absurdity of Emily's insistence of going up and down from her 17th floor apartment, even after the power has died; her inability to drive coupled with her refusal to learn or even try, but that's she's going to bike all the way to Alaska; her insistence on packing supplies that she won't need for months, if at all, even though every store, shop, mall, etc. is hers for the scavenging, with NO competition for resources; her apparently magical Backpack of Holding…it's all ridiculous and only gets more so as the book goes on.
Worse, there's no TENSION to any of it. We don't know anyone other than Emily well enough to have any particular feeling about it when they all die…and Emily never seems to suffer from any particular grief about the losses, even her parents or boyfriend. There are no other survivors who might provide a threat. The aliens, for all Emily's (fairly reasonable) terror, are mainly nocturnal and, even when awake/abroad, pretty much ignore her, even when she's directly interacting with them, as when she destroys one of the gestating drones at the newspaper office, or when a drone burrows through the ceiling of her apartment, trying to get outside to join its brethren. There's no drama to any of it and no dramatic arc. Bottom line: this apocalypse is boring.
And when something finally does happen, in the last chapters of the book, it a) comes after so much ongoing ridiculousness and b) it's so obviously contrived (as an unnecessary excuse to bring in Thor the Magical Dog), that it again holds no real tension. Emily is our only protagonist and the story hasn't GONE anywhere yet; of course she's not going to die! (and if she did, would it really be so bad?)
Though I found nearly everything about the book exasperating, I was still considering reading the second book when it came out. Not because I was enjoying it, but because so little had been delivered on the story premise that had so intrigued me in the first place, I still wanted to know where it all went. That resolution lasted only through about two-thirds of the book. But, after wading through that last third and finding out that Jones plans to string this all out through at least another four books (though so far he hasn't given enough plot for ONE)…nope. Apparently my masochism does only extend so far.
I still maintain that Extinction Point has an interesting premise…but the author does nothing interesting with it. There are many problems here.
And I have to confess, I felt overwhelmed when I sat down to write this because there's so much wrong at pretty much every level; at a certain point, I could only report in aggregate, because to go into sufficient detail would be to write a novel myself.
I've compared Extinction Point to friends as a NaNoWriMo project, I've compared it to a season of Dragonball Z. If neither of those metaphors mean anything to you, let me break it down like this: everything that happens in the book is really only the first few chapters of an actual story; it's just that everything is inflated and bloated and stretched out by page after page of the author describing everything in excruciating and unnecessary (and boring) detail.
The premise behind Extinction Point is that our heroine, Emily Baxter, is a newspaper journalist in New York City and, on the day our story begins, a mysterious red rain falls across the globe, killing pretty much the entire population of the planet (including animal and insect life) except our girl, Emily, who is somehow immune. This set up gives us many questions and a wonderful mystery: What's happening? Who is responsible? Is Emily really the last person on Earth? What now?
Unfortunately, the author—and by extension, Emily—doesn't seem all that interested in what's going on or why. And I can't really talk about that without going into massive spoilers, because the problems permeate EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. So.
Emily is a dumb protagonist stuck in a frequently dumb story. In one sense, this is okay, because it's the least tense, least dangerous and most forgiving apocalypse ever. Through most of the story, the only real danger comes from Emily herself as she makes one bad decision after another and hurts herself while making them.
I also want to put something in here about Emily's privilege. Emily is, as I said, a dumb protagonist. Some of this is a very realistic (if tedious) dumbness; some of this is a fairly unrealistic dumbness clearly invented by the author for his "plot" needs. And some of it is just Emily being a rather annoyingly privileged middle class white chick. This is most clear for me when she, over and over again, refuses to grasp the reality of her situation. Everyone's dead? Let's take a bath and a sleeping pill! It never occurs to her that the janitorial or maintenance staff of her apartment or the newspaper will have master keys; in fact, the janitorial and/or maintenance staff never come into her mind. She has weird 'moral' angst about scavenging things for her own survival—and frequently she just does not think to scavenge or refuses to scavenge (as when she refuses to sleep in a bed or to get sunglasses that would actually HELP her, or when she grabs a GPS device but not a map) that shows a level of Nice White Lady that, under the circumstances is both tragic and laughable.
Further, though she's a journalist—and the only person "on the ground", because the only other survivors we know of are in Alaska, an area apparently free of the red rain and alien menace—Emily demonstrates virtually NO journalistic curiosity about what's happening, she refuses to give information (possibly VITAL information) to the survivors in Alaska about what she sees/what's happening because she's afraid it sounds too crazy and she chooses the worst, most dangerous and idiotic times to engage with the aliens who otherwise seem content to ignore her (cutting open the pupa at the newspaper office when already on another mission and injured, detouring through the alien forest and dragging her bike behind her (while still injured) instead of taking the smart route and detouring around the lake on her bike).
Half the time, she treats the events of the apocalypse as her personal spa day (taking long baths in her limited water supply and then downing a sleeping pill, luxuriating in the awesomeness of a bike ride on a sunny day through Central Park, etc.) than a disaster of nearly unimaginable proportions. She evinces no concern when she sees the aliens have not only consumed/transformed the animal life on the planet, but are similarly transforming the plant life, as well. As practically the sole survivor of the apocalypse, Emily may be spoiled for choice when it comes to canned goods and bottled water, but as the aliens transform the soil and plant life, I'd think Emily had taken enough first grade biology to worry about what she's going to breathe in the fairly near future.
Emily is not helped by Jones, who undercuts her, and his own story, at every turn. Emily takes supplies (a shotgun, a GPS) only for the author to clearly forget them for long stretches at a time, or, as in the case of the GPS, refuses to use them for the most specious, pasted on reasons. The absurdity of Emily's insistence of going up and down from her 17th floor apartment, even after the power has died; her inability to drive coupled with her refusal to learn or even try, but that's she's going to bike all the way to Alaska; her insistence on packing supplies that she won't need for months, if at all, even though every store, shop, mall, etc. is hers for the scavenging, with NO competition for resources; her apparently magical Backpack of Holding…it's all ridiculous and only gets more so as the book goes on.
Worse, there's no TENSION to any of it. We don't know anyone other than Emily well enough to have any particular feeling about it when they all die…and Emily never seems to suffer from any particular grief about the losses, even her parents or boyfriend. There are no other survivors who might provide a threat. The aliens, for all Emily's (fairly reasonable) terror, are mainly nocturnal and, even when awake/abroad, pretty much ignore her, even when she's directly interacting with them, as when she destroys one of the gestating drones at the newspaper office, or when a drone burrows through the ceiling of her apartment, trying to get outside to join its brethren. There's no drama to any of it and no dramatic arc. Bottom line: this apocalypse is boring.
And when something finally does happen, in the last chapters of the book, it a) comes after so much ongoing ridiculousness and b) it's so obviously contrived (as an unnecessary excuse to bring in Thor the Magical Dog), that it again holds no real tension. Emily is our only protagonist and the story hasn't GONE anywhere yet; of course she's not going to die! (and if she did, would it really be so bad?)
Though I found nearly everything about the book exasperating, I was still considering reading the second book when it came out. Not because I was enjoying it, but because so little had been delivered on the story premise that had so intrigued me in the first place, I still wanted to know where it all went. That resolution lasted only through about two-thirds of the book. But, after wading through that last third and finding out that Jones plans to string this all out through at least another four books (though so far he hasn't given enough plot for ONE)…nope. Apparently my masochism does only extend so far.
chymerra's review
3.0
What I liked about Extinction Point:
1. I was able to read it in one night. Which meant that I stayed up uber late finishing it.
2. It was creepy. The scene where Emily finds the mashed together family still gives me chills.
3. I liked that the author decided that Alaska and the northern continents were left out. Which means mankind can prevail (sorry, a bit tired….lol)
What I didn’t like about Extinction Point
1. That everything happened within a day. All NYC was wiped out within a day.
2. Emily was the only one left in NYC. Not in the US or the world (sorry, spoiler alert) but in NYC. You would think that at least someone else would have survived.
3. The ending. I don’t like cliffhangers. But in this case, it worked. Now I want to read the 2nd book.
**I voluntarily reviewed this book**
Blog Link: https://readwithme2018.com/2014/01/26/extinction-point-extinction-point-book-1-by-paul-antony-jones/
1. I was able to read it in one night. Which meant that I stayed up uber late finishing it.
2. It was creepy. The scene where Emily finds the mashed together family still gives me chills.
3. I liked that the author decided that Alaska and the northern continents were left out. Which means mankind can prevail (sorry, a bit tired….lol)
What I didn’t like about Extinction Point
1. That everything happened within a day. All NYC was wiped out within a day.
2. Emily was the only one left in NYC. Not in the US or the world (sorry, spoiler alert) but in NYC. You would think that at least someone else would have survived.
3. The ending. I don’t like cliffhangers. But in this case, it worked. Now I want to read the 2nd book.
**I voluntarily reviewed this book**
Blog Link: https://readwithme2018.com/2014/01/26/extinction-point-extinction-point-book-1-by-paul-antony-jones/
papercuts1's review
3.0
The final book in this series had to drag through a boring middle part before letting all hell break loose and racing towards an ending that was satisfying enough. Not unexpected, and not perfect, but with a positive message and a very hopeful outlook - something we don’t get a lot in sci-fi books these days.
Yes, there were odd ideas that didn’t quite work, plot holes and an uneven structure, but the author certainly has come a long way and learned how to pick up the pace and write mesmerizing action sequences and characters to root for. I’m content, and this was entertaining.
Yes, there were odd ideas that didn’t quite work, plot holes and an uneven structure, but the author certainly has come a long way and learned how to pick up the pace and write mesmerizing action sequences and characters to root for. I’m content, and this was entertaining.
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