Book Review Round Up II: A Review

A review of the reviews to date: updated with the last eleven reviews added to the first Review Round up in August. The next section is scattered throughout, and the last two are posted as partial reviews very early on. Linked are the novel (usually at amazon), its author (sometimes), and a link to my review. The first reading is realism (Grittiness), the second is readability.

I did not have enough room to go back over the cozy question again. The post originated with an Excel file, so I may go over a deeper categorization later.

Realism had to exclude the cause of disaster, because some books that are very real and very gritty had fairly unlikely or nearly impossible disasters. Only when the very nature of the disaster caused unique problems within the book did I deduct for that. Speculative science fiction tends to be more interested in ideas than realism, so they are often relatively unrealistic. Beyond that, many of these books had a sense of whimsy or adventure, that may make for a good story, but tend make the reality of the situation fuzzy. For instance, Nova's Gardener Summer combined very well thought out economic collapse with an odd cowboy western mystique. If the novel has many little interesting vignettes as the hero wanders through a strangely altered landscape, you may have something of an interesting hero quest, but you don't have realty.

 

Note that the readability issue should not be taken to much to heart. Some types of books are easier to bring an excitement and energy level to than others. Flue pandemics make for a pretty fast paced immediacy. Slow collapse novels, or novels that go deeply into character preparations tend to be a little more difficult to keep moving. The "L" for literary in the type is to let you know that the book is well written, but not necessarily an easy read. There will not be a ton of action, and it likely will be very brooding.  Many of these novels are intended for a different audience than your typical action-based novel.

I did the numbering quickly to avoid too much circular cross-comparison. It is very possible I may have made a mistake somewhere. There have been no complaints to date, which I suspect implies more mystification than concurrence. 

Review Roundup			Type	Disaster	Real	Read
Survivors	John Wesley Rawles	ReviewSv	AP	EC	4	4
REAMDE	Neal Stephenson	ReviewRMDE	NoA	-	5	5
Salvation City	Sigrid Nunez	ReviewSC	AP, L	D	3	4
Salvage	Robert Edric	ReviewSl	AP, L	GW,EC	6	3
Apocalypse Law	John Grit	ReviewAL	AP	D	7	7
Oil Dusk	John Cape, Laura Buckner	ReviewOD	AP	PO, EC	6	6
Afterlight	Alex Scarrow	ReviewAL	PA	PO, NP	7	7
End of The Age	Ervin Sim	ReviewEOA	PO, SF	G	3	3
Yellowcake Spring	Guy Salvidge	ReviewYC	AP	GW, EC	6	6
I Sniper	Stephen Hunter	ReviewIS	NoA	-	6	7
Soft Apocalypse	Will McIntosh	ReviewSA	AP, SF	B, PO, EC, GW	5	6
Prelude	Kurt Cobb	ReviewP	NoA	-	5	5
The World Ends at Hickory Hollow	Ardath Mayhar	ReviewWEHH	AP	N	5	5
Ship Breaker	Paolo Bacigalupi	ReviewSB	C, SF, YA	PO, GW, B	4	6
Red Queen	Honey Brown	ReviewRQ	AP	D	7	7
Things We Didn't See Coming	Steven Amsterdam	ReviewTWDSC	AP, L	EC, D	6	7
The Windup Girl	Paolo Bacigalupi	ReviewWUG	C, SF	PO, GW, B	4	7
Kingdom of Four Rivers	Guy Salvidges'	ReviewKFR	C, SF	GW, PO, NP	4	6
Far North	Marcel Theroux	ReviewFN	PA	GW	5	6
The Road	Cormac McCarthy	ReviewTR	PA	PD	6	6
Post-Apocalypse Dead Letter Office	Nathan Poell	ReviewPADLO	AP, PA	W	5	5
The Profession	Stephen Pressfield	ReviewTP	NoA	-	7	6
Operation Serf	Chris Sullins	ReviewOS	AP, M	EC, NP	7	4
Into The Forest	Jean Hegland	ReviewITF	AP, L	EC	7	5
Witch of Hebron	James Howard Kunstler	ReviewTWOH	AP	PO, GW	5	4
Random Acts of Senseless Violence	Jack Womack	ReviewRQ	AP, L	EC	5	4
Crossing the Blue	Holly Jean Buck	ReviewCTB	AP	GW	5	5
The Fall of Eden	Richard Michaels	ReviewFOE	AP	N	7	2
Last Light	Alex Scarrow	ReviewLL	AP	PO, NP	7	7
The Unit	Terry DeHart	ReviewTU	AP	N,E	6	4
The Things That Keep Us Here	Carla Buckley	ReviewTTTKUH	AP	D	7	6
The Burning Hills	Louis L’Amour	ReviewRQ	NoA	-	6	5
Emergency	Neil Strauss	ReviewE	NoA	-	-	6
Patriots	John Wesley Rawles	ReviewP	AP, M	EC	7	4
This World We Live In	Susan Pfeffer	ReviewTWWLI	AP, YA	M, V	6	5
The Dead and Gone	Susan Pfeffer	ReviewTDAG	AP, YA	M, V	7	6
Life As We Knew It	Susan Pfeffer	ReviewLAWKI	AP, YA	M, V	7	6
Long Voyage Back	Luke Rhinehart	ReviewTLVB	AP	N	7	5
Three Mokes East East	Philip Revene	ReviewTME	C	EC	5	5
Greybeard	Brian Aldiss	ReviewGB	PA, SF	W	4	3
No Blade of Grass	John Christopher	ReviewNBOG	AP	PD	5	5
Reviewed Earlier
A Distant Crossing	Thomas Park	ReviewADC	AP	EC, NP	5	4
New Coastal Times	Donna Callea	ReviewNCT	AP	GW	5	5
Raggedy Edge	Michael S. Turnlund	ReviewRE	AP	EC, NP	5	3
Gardener Summer	Nova	ReviewGS	AP	EC	6	5
Good News	Edward Abbey	ReviewGN	PA	GW	3	4
The Jakarta Pandemic.	Steven Konkoly	ReviewTJP	AP	D	7	6
The Noah Countdown	B.T. (Brooks) Post	ReviewTNCD	AP	EC, GW, NP	6	5
But Not for Long	Michelle Widgen	ReviewBNFL	AP, L	PO, GW	7	7
Partial Reviews
Memoirs of a Survivor	Doris Lessing	ReviewTMOAS	AP, L	EC	5	4
One Second After	William R. Forstchen.	ReviewOSA	AP	E	6	4

Type:	AP = Apocalypse in Progress
	PO = Post Apocalypse
	C = Collapsed- The agency of collapse is mostly past
	M= Militia Element
	SF= Elements advanced enough to be unfamiliar to us today
	L= Literary (think low on action, lots of talking)
	YA= Young Adult NoA= Not Apocalyptic
Disaster	N= Nuclear
	E= EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse)
	D= Pandemic Disease
	PD= Plant Disease
	B= Biotechnology
	PO= Peak Oil
	NP= Nefarious plotters trying to bring the world down
	EC= Economic Collapse (other than peak oil)
	NN= Nanotechnology
	V= Volcano
	M= Meteor or Comet strike
	GW= Global Warming
	W= Weird Science G= God or supernatural forces
Real	Realistic in tone - is it trying to portray an expected future.
	7 = yes this will happen 4= barely possible1 = strong elements of fantasy
	In most cases, where the effect is not ongoing, I am not factoring in unlikely disaster types.
Read	Readability = is it a fun or at least easy book to read.
	7 = classic4= somewhat enjoyable 1= challenging; literary works often tend toward the challenging.
	Note that you will enjoy a "4" if it is your type of book, but probably hate it if not.