This story draws from a lot of different directions. It is a not so
much a post-apocalyspe story as it is a story of an apocalypse in the
final stages. Virtual Reality, nuclear holocaust, aliens, robots,
limited cybernetics and massive underground bomb shelters all feature in
the story. On first glance, it sounds like a lot to fit into one story
but the author manages to put it together into a rather enjoyable tale.
The surface of the Earth has been obliterated by nuclear
bombardment forcing the inhabitants to take shelter in various shelters
built all over the world from converted mines and other deep caverns.
The majority of the story takes place within one of these shelters, A-3
where things are going terribly wrong. The population has been
dropping off due to what many are starting to suspect that the radiation
scrubbers have failed and everyone is doomed to die. This is the
starting point.
It is soon revealed that the failure of the
radiation scrubbers is due to deliberate sabotage and, after an
encounter with the alien behind the sabotage, a group of four people
take a "journey" into the other major setting of the book: Kyrathaba.
The world of Kyrathaba is a hyper-realistic virtual reality program
meant to be a massive multiplayer online game before the aliens first
attacked. It is a rather typical fantasy setting with magic and
monsters, kings and adventurers.
At this point, the story shifts
back and forth from the shelter to the virtual world with occasional
snippets showing the actions of the lingering alien invaders. We start
seeing the action pick up at this point with the four virtual travelers
training up their game skills while the A-3 community recovers, explores
and prepares for the alien threat.
There is some apparent
inconsistency in character portrayal in the beginning, but it irons
itself out fairly quickly. The story persists in building and being
entertaining from moment to moment to moment. However, it should be
noted that this is a serial story. The book does not end at a
convenient story point. Rather instead it ends as both story lines are
progressing to what seems to be a climax. This is a valid style choice
going back to the Arabian Nights and, more recently, Tolkien. This
method of leaving things off at a cliffhanger is becoming more common
both in mainstream media and independent authors, but this book does
present a rather extreme example of it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E3YJ4HY
A blog by Luke Garrison Green of Thrythlind Books and Games. Here he discusses writing skills, reviews books, discusses roleplaying games and refers to Divine Blood, Bystander and his other books.
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