Boring, not joined up, plot holes

I really wanted to enjoy this book as the premise sounded so good. However, after forcing myself to listen to hours of this I don't understand what all the good reviews are for.

The good: RC Bray is on his usual high form and I can't fault that. The idea is good, a different take on the post world scenario.

The bad: I wanted to understand about living on the airships. So much potential with the upper and lower decks. This is hardly touched up except for cliched comments.
The hero worship (main character) is dull and predictable with no depth. This is the kind of tough guy I imagine a 15 year old boy would like (like watching an Arnie tough-guy film).
There is one part with a child who goes from hating the main character to loving him in a single paragraph. There should have been so much tension but.. nothing.

The monsters are described well but makes no sense, they just appear. How did they evolve? Why had they not been seen for hundreds of years? Again so much opportunity lost in place of tough guy lead character.

This book could have delivered so much but was flat and boring.

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13 people found this helpful

Awesome

I loved it, can't wait for the next audio book. The character development is great, gripping story and superbly narrated by RC Bray

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2 people found this helpful

A unique take of a post-apocalyptic world...

A very good take on the concept of a post-apocalyptic world and humanity's survival. A couple of centuries after WWIII and the surface is completely ruined with ultra high radiation everywhere whilst less than 1000 survivors, the only humans left, struggle to live on two giant airships that are constantly falling apart and in chronic need of repair. The only way to get the parts that are desperately needed in to scavenge off the planets surface done by a dedicated group of men and women that skydive into the hell that is the earth. The jobs dangerous and most only live for 15 jumps, Commander X has 96 dives under his belt but when the airship gets broken so bad it's going to crash, X and his team of Hell Divers must jump into a cursed place called Hades to find the parts to make her live again

What will his jump 97 bring him? With the ground and skies populated by a new species of monster humanoids to be dealt with, will X return? Will humanity survive?

A good book that I had to finish in one sitting.

PS: There is a lot of despair in this book: things are never good, just various degrees of awful. There are very, very few happy-ish. moments and zero laughs, as in none!! Consider if you can handle a completely depressed story where things never get better.

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1 person found this helpful

I just kinda love it

Reading the description on it when it was on sale I thought 'why not?' but I have since gone on to re-listen to the whole series about three times. I just really really like it! it helps the narrator is just so good at huskily bringing the world alive but generally it's a good premise, good characters and a steady progression of themes and story. Would recommend.

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Great book.

Absolutely Great book. Gripped throughout! Great performance too being very well read. Next book please.!

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More please.

We dive so humanity survives, a brilliant book, brilliant author and a fantastic narrator.

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Hell Divers

It’s a good gung ho book which managed to keep my attention and root for the main characters espically X and I would have loved to have found out more about the monsters - where they came from etc and about life on the Hive within the lower floors although this may happen in book 2.

I could almost be on a dive with the Hell divers as the descriptions of the 'falls' they were taking were so good as were the ones of Planet Earths total destruction by WW3 ...although we don't find out what happened yet either.

On the whole a good start to the series :) R C Bray is as usual excellent .

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Average story

Gravely, reading, weird interpretation. My first audio book. Not a fan as yet I am afraid.

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Something different

A gripping and addictive view of the world after the destruction of a nuclear war. I became hooked on the struggles on board The Hive and Xavier's struggles to keep it in the air with his dives to the surface. Nicholas S Smith has created a masterpiece, a world with ultimate and often fatal consequences for the dwindling human survivors. A great series.

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Very good

Due to mankind’s actions (and wars) the earth is uninhabitable - it could happen and this isn’t necessarily science fiction.
Surviving humans float above the earth in a type of ship and onboard there are upper deckers (who have the best standard of living, food, etc) and lower deckers; this is real life now across the world.
The Hell Divers are like an SAS team doing dangerous things and risking their lives to maintain and save the ship.
I don’t usually listen to this type of thing, set in the future, but I did enjoy this book.
I’ve just discovered this is book number one in a series of ten. Whilst I did enjoy this book and do recommend it I won’t be buying any more in the series.

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