Bernard Jan's Blog - Posts Tagged "dystopian"

One of the best trilogies I've ever read. Scary, gripping, moving. Highly impressing.

Unlike some novels I have been reading with a serious effort like I was plowing through a field devastated by drought, The Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howey is exactly the opposite. A perfectly balanced deep fall through a silo, which forces the reader to keep falling and falling, unable to stop himself and put the the books down until he hits the end.

Science fiction? Maybe. But only for the reason of being set in a Dystopian future.

The scariest thing was looking at a daringly realistic portrait of our society today. What happened to humanity?!? Plausibly unintentionally (or maybe intentionally after all), upsetting parallels of the real world are screaming into our faces like a wake-up call. If we do not do something to light up the flames of humanity and share with our loved ones and the stranger on the street, we will all end up in our present-day versions of silos eventually to be suffocated and poisoned, reduced to mere things, numbers.

Howey gave us a masterpiece. But he has also shown us the safe path to our future. This is the gift we should cherish, even if we chose not to believe that silos could actually happen.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

The Grid 1: Fall of Justice by Paul Teague

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Grid by Paul Teague is a good example why dystopian literature is at the moment my favorite genre! The Grid 1: Fall of Justice is the first book in The Grid Trilogy and it instantly captured my attention as it was the case with its predecessors: the unforgettable Silo (Wool-Shift-Dust) series, Station Eleven, The Hunger Games trilogy, The Maze Runner series or the Divergent trilogy.

They say it is impossible to survive The Grid. It is the one, only and ultimate way to get justice once you end up among thousands of lawbreakers and detainees confined in the cages of The Soak, a vast and nightmarish underground prison located under a river.

A massive concrete wall separates hundreds of thousands of the privileged ones on Silk Road from almost four million poor residents of The Climbs, who live there in miserable and inhumane conditions with no elevators and with crumbling stairs, after the plague devastated their world many years ago, leaving billions of people dead in its wake.

Their city is the only refuge. But the refuge is where minority flourishes at the expense of many many others, where justice systems is corrupted and full of deceptions and lies, and where the will of the authorities is more important than practically non-existent human rights.

In this world Joe Parsons is trying to find the truth about the death of his suddenly disappeared father. He breaks into the Fortrillium network but before he gets the chance to avenge him, he and a few of his friends find themselves thrown into the The Grid. They are all facing a series of terrified justice challenges in the Gridder Games and only one person has ever survived so far.

The Grid 1: Fall of Justice is a post plague dystopian story. It excellently stages the faith of our society already plagued by the symptoms of greed, inhumanity and fabricated truth, which might lead to life of a few (un)lucky surviving hundreds of thousands, or even millions, in The City of our future while the rest of us will be gone.

Can't wait to read Quest For Vengeance and Catharsis, Part 2 and Part 3 of this very promising trilogy!

BJ
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The Grid 1: Fall of Justice
Paul Teague
Bernard Jan

The Kill Order by James Dashner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The best books are not those with happy endings but the ones that make your blood boil and make you silently scream from joy or despair. You sympathize with their characters and relate to them; you cheer for them and want to help them through their trials and hopeless situations because they are real to you; they are your new best friends and you don't want to see them harmed or dead. But not all good stories have a happy ending. Just like in real life, our favorites and darlings are robbed of their choices, and instead of laughing and celebrating their victories with them, we end up with tight throats, moist eyes and swallowing tears.

The Kill Order by James Dashner is a high-paced octane-fueled dystopian science fiction thriller. In the story of survival of the human race on the Earth devastated by solar flares, chances are so slim that they almost equal to zero. Those (not necessarily the lucky ones) who managed to survive the scorching effect of the Sun that melted the glaciers and flooded the East Coast of the United States with a tsunami of boiling waters are yet to face the real trials.

In order to save the humankind, that is, a selected few, a deadly virus—known as the Flare—is released with the purpose of controlling the remaining population. The infection, though, very quickly escalates and is out of control, and the real battle for their lives starts for Mark, Trina, Alec, Lana, Deedee and their friends against the infected.

The Kill Order is the first prequel book of the equally successful three novels in The Maze Runner series: The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure, and the fourth of five installments overall.

Without pretended modesty, I cannot wait to read the last installment, The Fever Code. I look forward to the new opportunity and satisfaction to remind myself of the Glade and the Gladers, the Maze, the Grievers, WICKED, the Flare, the Cranks, the Right Arm, the Immunes, the Bergs, the Post-Flares Coalition, Thomas, Theresa and all their dead and alive friends. For, each of these books in their own way shook me to the core, and this is what a good book should do to its readers.

BJ
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Doba čuda by Karen Thompson Walker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I never thought I would see the beauty in the dying of our planet, a slow extinguishing of life on it. First the birds, then the whole flocks of birds, then the grass, plants, trees, whales, other animals.

As days and nights become longer due to the slower rotation of the earth and 24-hour days are more a habit of living than a natural exchange of day and night, people become divided: the great majority returns to the old measuring of time, others opt to follow the extending course of nature and group themselves into new communities.

Gravity and magnetic fields are affected, solar super storms arise, the radiation showers through the damaged ozone layer. Daylight becomes too dangerous, forcing everyone to seek escape and life at nighttime.

People suffer from symptoms, plants can grow only in protected greenhouses, the polar light is painting the Californian sky followed by the first snow. The Sun brings death instead of life, fires are lightening up the horizon, people are moving from their homes or locking themselves in their houses and underground shelters. And the days are still getting longer and the planet is spinning slower and slower.

As the world as we know it is approaching to its catastrophe, there is an unnatural and quiet beauty in the irrevocable changes that are happening all over the planet, witnessed through the—a little too matured—eyes of an 11-year-old girl. Yet, some things don't change despite the omnipresent devastation—the expectations and pain of first love, losing friends, the test of her parents' marriage, all the little aspects of coming of age—as life is slowly extinguished day by day. People seem to be the only living creatures who adjusted and survived on the scorched earth and in an environment-turning-hostile. No one knows for how long though.

Destruction of our planet has never been so gentle, charming, calming and poetic as in The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.

BJ
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Bernard Jan

Memories From The Darkness: A Control Freakz Novella Collection by Michael Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Forever Gone (Control Freakz #0.5)

In Forever Gone, the first novella in the Memories From The Darkness collection set before the first book in the Control Freakz series, a young author Michael Evans describes with maturity of an experienced writer the heartbreak, doom and fall of one marriage and lost love. Determined to escape a controlled life from the hands of her husband Wilburn Ash, the President of the United States, the First Lady Danielle finds her freedom in a divorce and plotting a secret plan to stop the fanatic rule of the most powerful man in the world who can end her life at any moment or sign of rebellion before he destroys everything else.

Shattered Pasts (Control Freakz Series #1.5)

A great dark novella about a young girl Dulce, a sole survivor of the Camp Camel bombing, who struggles to reconcile with her past in which she lost everyone she loved. Even when she is welcomed in the rebel organization of the White Knights which is trying to save both the people and the country from the merciless hands of the American government, she knows that won’t be easy. Apocalyptic scenes of destruction and the atmosphere of dystopian world sunk in fear, in Shattered Pasts, the second novella in Memories From The Darkness: A Control Freakz Novella Collection, are fantastic.

Dream On (Control Freakz Series #2.5)

Things get better, more exciting and unreal as we travel through Memories From The Darkness: A Control Freakz Novella Collection! In Dream On, Justin, who gave his life to the secret organization Syndicate of Truth, wants it back. Sacrificing thirty years of his life meant nothing, because when he betrayed the most powerful of the powerful ones, he started to pay the ultra-high price. There is only one way to his freedom and liberation from the days filled with regrets, guilt, nightmares and one beautiful but haunting dream of being reunited with his lover Rose Parker, imprisoned in Area 51. But to make this dream become a reality, he will have to give up everything else.

In The Shadows (Control Freakz Series #3.5)

From Forever Gone to In The Shadows, the circle is closed. In this emotional finale, one more and for the last time Jacob meets his old ally. This is his desperate attempt to ask for help to see his real family, or what is left of it, before the world is destroyed. And the world will cease to exist because the monster Jacob has created has started its countdown. It seems there is no one who will stop the President Wilburn Ash in killing everyone. But will the remaining time be enough for Jacob to get so much needed help and with it one last chance to see his family so he can tell them how much he loves them? A great last novella of this exciting, intriguing and dark post-apocalyptic thriller series.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

Check out my review of Control Freakz.

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Bernard Jan



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Delusional by Michael Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I abandoned the idea of writing this review by retelling what happened to Natalie and Ethan after escaping death from the hands of merciless President Ash in the bowels of Area 51 because the ending of Delusional, book 2 in Control Freakz Series, surprised me so much that I still try to process what on earth happened and why the author did it!

I want to hang on to this feeling, without spoiling much the reading to those of you who will grab this futuristic, dystopian, action-packed thriller, eager to see what has Natalie gone through before completing a full circle from escaping to returning to the hateful Area 51 facility where she left behind not only the ones she loved most, but also the vital part of herself—her memories.

After posting this review, I’m moving on to the last book in the Control Freakz Series box set, where I also read this book. The suspense and adrenaline in me are still high and waiting won’t help. Thirteen months after reading the first book in the series, Michael Evans hooked me again with this story and I am determined to plunge without delay into another set of action scenes, mind and political games and fights for the world domination, manipulations, dark thoughts and personal crisis, not delusional but aware that I should expect the unexpected.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

My review of Control Freakz.

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Bernard Jan



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