Highway robbery: Story chopped to sell next book

I've listened to a lot of audible books, but this is the very first one I've come across where they cut the story abruptly to sell the next book in the series. I'm all for authors getting paid, but this book is sold under false pretenses of being a complete story. What you should expect in a book is a complete story, even if it is part of a series. What you get at with this book is an interruption, followed by an ad saying if you want to hear the rest of it, buy the next book in the series. Poor marketing, and an obvious money-grab.

As for the quality of the story, it appears average. DJ Molles is a good writer, (Johnny, a self-contained book, was almost a masterpiece) but the plot of this is very predictable and droll. There's worse literature out there, but if you can get more out of this sandbag by watching a few episodes of The Walking Dead on Netflix instead, why bother spending money on this, 3 times over? That's closing in on $100 for a B-grade zombie novel.

There is nothing special or unique in this book. No underlying theme, unique concept, or special circumstances that would set it apart from other typical post-apocalyptic zombie adventures. It can't even bother to part company with the blueprint set by "The Walking Dead" enough to be set in some other location of the country. Mundane.

The story is a "realman" survivor meme, where the hero named "Lee", a US Army Colonel that faces a post-apocalyptic nightmare in the deep south. Lee has a mission, a very predictable one. That's pretty much it.

There's a lot of correctly-phrased gun and survival equipment fetishism to make up for the lack of plot. Details of gear is often used as filler when trying to prove the hero is a "realman" in these kinds of books. Real men know their survival gear, are trained killers and live by the credo: "Guns food and water". The rest is all about saving weeping women and children, meeting tough old survivor ex-military mountain men like themselves, shooting the dog.

This is the standard cliche wet dream of every weekend Field & Stream survivalist wannabe seeking male validation in a post-apocalyptic fantasy, wrapped up in an average, predictable linear plot, interrupted by a money-grab shakedown of the reader at the end. Thumbs down.

23 people found this helpful

Die Hard Meets 28 Days Later

This author must have gone to Stephan J. Cannell school. The action is intense, the bad guys are pure evil and protagonist constantly finds himself in situations that go from bad to worse. Unlike Cannell, this is much grittier and apocalyptic in scope.

I gave this series a try since the reviews were so positive, though I don't typically go for zombie type fiction. However, I was very surprised at the quality of writing and narration. I have gone on to listen to several more in this series and they all hold up to the same quality. I wouldn't call this a "zombie" series because the "infected" humans are more capable and enduring than walking corpses. They are relentless though. D.J. Molles does a terrific job of conjuring up a fairly unique story with good character development. The story is action packed and it's hard to pull away from, like getting on a roller coaster!

Be warned that there is a LOT of cursing. As the story advanced it seemed that the author took glee and inserting as many F words as possible. It does add reality to a point but at times it's too gratuitous.

Overall this is a wonderful audiobook to try if you are getting board with your other favorite audiobook series.

80 people found this helpful

Good straight shooting apacolyptic thriller

Thank you Mike Naka for suggesting this. (This guy has the best reviews on Audible, worth checking out).

Nothing new here... just a well written end of the world thriller.

Like Walking Dead, the protagonist enters the zombie apocalypse after the world falls. Here the main character has been in an underground bunker for a month before coming out into the open. & like Walking Dead, the main bad guys are not the Zombies but bands of humans preying on one another.

I liked the take Molles had here where the zombies were almost still humans. They have working minds still and have the ability to think through simple problems. They use tools such as knives and hatchets & can still form intelligible thoughts.

I'm hooked for #2 in this series (cliff hanger ending alert).

7 people found this helpful

Refund

it's a very weak story in the author just constantly repeats himself. I'm getting my credit back

6 people found this helpful

Not impressed

I would not waste any time on this book. The story is mediocre, and not that engaging. I found it depressing and hard to get through. Wish I had not bought it.

5 people found this helpful

top notch! highly recommended!

If you could sum up The Remaining in three words, what would they be?

thrilling, creepy, realistic

Which scene was your favorite?

the infected hoard scene. reminded me of some of the scenes from the movie, world war z, with hard-charging zombies.

Any additional comments?

this is a great book! definitely in my top 5. the author does things right. w/o divulging too much, lee works for the dept. of homeland security. he is one of the 48 coordinators spread across the lower 48 states. his job is to get into a bunker whenever something big happens. sometimes, he's in for a couple of days, and sometimes he's in for a week or two. when the fury virus hits, frank lee's commander orders him into his bunker. as the story opens, lee is going stir crazy b/c this is the longest he's ever gone being cooped up in the bunker, and the news is not good- people are killing each other. it's july 3rd and all of the news web sites are stuck on news from june 28th. lee is eagerly awaiting his regularly scheduled call from frank, hoping frank will give him the low down. lee's only companion is his trained german shepherd, tango.

the author does a great job portraying the emotions lee goes through, from feeling antsy, anxious, and claustrophobic in his bunker to being jumpy and nervous when leaving his bunker for the first time. the range of emotions lee goes through is totally believable and realistic.you can feel what he is going through.

i found the pacing of the story to be perfect. the author doesn't rush the plot, and the plot keeps moving. there are no slow points, and you won't get bored at all. there's plenty of character development mixed in with the action.

while this is not a traditional zombie book, i really dug the spin the author put on it. the infected are alive, aggressive, and fast, reminiscent of 28 days later. just like in that movie, when the infected show up in this story, it is heart pounding!

christian rummel's narration perfectly fits lee. he was a pleasure to listen.

overall, a truly exceptional and realistic apocylaptic story. if you're into end of the world or zombie stories, you'll definitely want to add this to your library. i highly recommend it!

56 people found this helpful

Mitch Rapp meets World War Z, very engaging!

This series has captured my interest, and is very interesting, possible, and timely. Never is the word "zombie" mentioned, but that's what this is. And like World War Z, it is a bacteria that causes the infection. The Main Character, Lee Harden, is not Mitch Rapp, nor is he Brad Pitt, but he is a well-trained soldier with orders to save survivors, and reestablish order.

Many of us love this collapsed-civilization genre, and it is always interesting to see how authors envision people's reactions to it. They seem to be pretty spot on with the cringers, the whiners, the cowards, the bullies, the helpers, the savers, the defenders, the organizers, etc. We are always interested in the science of the contagion, and its mutations. This story is fascinating in all these areas.

What bothered me was the foolish mistakes that our hero made from the very beginning. He disobeyed orders and contacted one of the other 48 prepared soldiers holed up in their bunkers before protocol permitted, and he also left his bunker more than a week earlier than ordered. I don't understand why he and the other 47 soldiers were expected to act on their own, and not to meet up and join forces to do their job. I don't think it would have made much of a difference in the state of the world if he had waited the full ordered time, but he met with disaster after disaster because of it.

Nevertheless, the story has me captivated, and I will read them all. Christian Rummel is always a good narrator, and adds a lot of depth and reality to the story.

4 people found this helpful

Part of a book.

This book just stopped mid story. Like you just finished a chapter. I understand it’s a series but one book SHOULD be able to stand in its own. This one does not. Not too happy.

20 people found this helpful

Good Narrator, Not So Good Story

Christian Rommel did a good job narrating this story. I really enjoyed the story up to the point of Lee leaving his bunker, and I could understand his reasoning for disobeying orders and leaving early. The turning point on this story was the stupid decisions of a trained Special Ops soldier and the improbability of the plot. Even if Lee had separated previously from the military before resuming his commission you don’t just lose the training and skills that are drilled into you as Spec Ops, even when faced with the world going insane. If the government truly thought something like this would occur and had time to build 48 personal bunkers 20 feet underground in an apartment style setting with full electricity and plumbing then they would have planned better. To expect one soldier to rescue an entire U.S. state of non infected people is outlandish - do you realize how big TX is? Let’s not even get into zombies killing with knives and meat cleavers instead of biting and ripping limbs off . . .

3 people found this helpful

Have to commit to more than just this book

When are Zombies not Zombies? In “The Remaining” zombie like people are running amuck through the world and Captain Lee Harden is there to try and help bring civilization back from the brink! The story has a great premise but it lacks direction. The reader gets a pretty good idea of what’s going on, meeting various characters and is entertained with some great action, but the story doesn't go anywhere. The end leaves nothing wrapped up (which is one of my pet peeves) so that you have to read the second book. That being said, I've already picked up the second book and will be starting it soon. It has great writing and big potential; you just have to be prepared to read more than one book to get a complete picture.

Mr. Rummel does a great job in the narration, which really brings the story to life!

26 people found this helpful