TRACKERS (Trackers, Book 1) (audiobook) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

 

Published in 2017 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Read by Bronson Pinchot

Duration: 8 hours, 28 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis:

A Colorado police chief named Colton has organized a search for a young girl he suspects has been abducted. He reaches out to the best tracker he knows, Sam "Raven" Spears, for help. Raven is part Sioux and part Cherokee - an important fact because he soon suspects that the abductor is acting out a Cherokee legend featuring cannibals. 

While Colton and Raven are on the hunt, there is a North Korean EMP attack on the United States. For those not aware, EMP stands for Electromagnetic Pulse. Nuclear weapons emit a pulse that absolutely fries most electronics. If you bomb a city normally, the pulse is limited by hills, buildings, and lots of other things.

But, if you blow a nuclear bomb up high up in the air, the bomb doesn't do a lot of damage but the EMP kills all exposed modern cars (older cars have no computer systems, electrical systems, power plants, airplanes, ships, radios, phones, etc. 

The idea behind the North Korean attack is that a few nuclear bombs can expose most of the United States to multiple EMPs and cause our entire society to collapse. EMPs also generate radiation so there will be a weaponized radiation in the form of radioactive rain.

Colton and Raven continue their hunt while also dealing with the collapse of modern American society...

My Review: 

I've read a small handful of novels that feature EMP attacks and more than my share of creepy serial killer books. You'd think that mixing them together would be extra interesting and exciting. But, this was not a good mix. This should have been separated into two books so that the creepy serial killer had more development and had more exploration into the Cherokee mythological story that inspired his craziness.

It sounds like the aftermath of the EMP attack is explored in the next three books in this series but I will not be continuing on.

Why not?

Despite some good moments, so much of this book felt clunky and tired in this book. Surprisingly, even top-notch audiobook reader Bronson Pinchot sounded like he was just mailing it in.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TRACKERS (Trackers, Book 1) (audiobook) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

WOW! An anti-Communist Manifesto

Published by Drawn and Quarterly in 2005

Right off the bat, Delisle shows where he is heading in this anti-communist manifesto when he tells how he snuck a copy of George Orwell's "1984" into North Korea (a banned book) - any moderately well-read person can identify the constant presence of the photos of "The Great Leader" and "The Dear Leader" with Orwell's omnipresent "Big Brother". It is intended to be a bit of foreshadowing to tell the reader where he is going with the book - and he hits a home run with it!

This is an anti-communist triumph from beginning to end - not with the soaring rhetoric of a Kennedy or a Reagan, but rather with its gentle story-telling style and its simple emphasis on communism's absurdities - from the lack of information, to the lack of food, electricity and choices of what to watch on TV and listen to on the radio. The constant barrage of revolutionary songs and the presence of "volunteers" who sweep an empty 4 lane highway to nowhere with straw brooms are perfect illustrations of the bizarre nature of both communism and North Korea.

I first heard about this book from an interview on NPR. Unfortunately, the NPR reviewer hadn't done much reading of the graphic novel and hadn't really figured out what the book was all about. So, I was not expecting much more than a lightweight travelogue in graphic novel form about a controversial country. Instead, I was pleased to see that it was that and so much more. This is one not to miss.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle.

Reviewed on October 29, 2006.

Exogene (The Subterrene War, Book 2) by T.C. McCarthy

Published by Orbit in March of 2012

I approach this review with some trepidation. This is a hell of a science fiction novel but to call it a sci-fi novel is to undersell it. It is a hell of a war novel, but to call it a war novel is also underselling it. It really is the story of a woman finding out what it is to love, to be loved and to know where one stands with God - in short, to be human, but that seriously undersells this book and makes a violent tale of war, genetic mutation and out-of-controls science sound like some piece of warm and fuzzy chick lit. Exogene is certainly not that.

So, what is Exogene?

First things first - Exogene is the second book in a series by T.C. McCarthy. Read the first book, Germline, for the background necessary for this book. Germline (see my review by clicking here) explores a future war for trace metals in Kazakhstan between the Russians and the Americans. In Germline a group of cloned teenaged female warriors are introduced to the front line (males are not used because they lost control and became too violent). Exogene is the story of one of those warriors.

The clones are supposed to fight for two years and then they begin to break down mentally and physically and are rounded up to be killed. While they are maturing, they are indoctrinated into a culture of violence and death. Their universe is ruled by a god that rewards killing, rewards dying in battle and despises fear and mercy. In short, these teenaged girls are bred and trained to be pitiless fighting machines.

T.C. McCarthy

Except, they are not machines.

Deep down, they are people...and Exogene is the story of Catherine, a clone soldier that decides she does not want to die when her two years have expired. She questions everything - her religion, the orders she receives and especially the expectation that she is to give up and die because her two years are up.

Exogene takes the reader far from the battlefields of Kazakhstan into Russia, into North and South Korea and beyond. The world of Exogene is seriously screwed up - damaged by nuclear war, cloning soldiers, experimenting with human/robot hybrids and through it all Catherine pushes along: experiencing, thinking and learning what it is to be human.

A remarkable novel. I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Exogene (The Subterrene War)

Reviewed on June 1, 2012.