Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Post-Apocalyptic SciFi

COMMUNITY 215 by Dr. M.K. Black – Sci-fi, Dystopian, Romance

Dr. M.K. Black’s Community 215 is a fast-paced, sci-fi/dystopian novel about a world that was torn apart, and the people struggling to survive it together.

Black gives us two teen protagonists, Rhea and Brooks, whom we grow to love. She creates a world both believable and terrifying. As our heroes collide with life inside and outside of the community, their world leaves readers wondering who the two can possibly trust.

Rhea once tried to climb the wall to get out of their community when she was a little girl. But her father, the leader of the community, caught her and has since that day drilled obedience to the rules into her head. However, she takes the risk of disobedience again at eleven years old, when she catches someone climbing the wall into the community. He begs for her help. She’s caught again and disciplined for trying to protect Brooks, a boy who seeks refuge from the Outcasts who live outside the wall.

Black masterfully develops Rhea’s community, and the people within it.

Though Rhea’s is only one such community of hundreds, Brooks is a reject of them all. Having lived outside of any community, he is considered a dangerous Outcast. He tries to convince Rhea that another world exists beyond the walls, a world where people are free and make their own decisions. But Rhea’s education, and the painful brand she received for saving Brooks, have taught her that only obedience and total honesty to her community will keep her alive.

Over several years, Brooks and Rhea grow close. The testing time is upon them, ready to determine the paths of their lives. Rhea hopes that, like her father, she will become the next leader. And, though she has never heard the word ‘love’, she wants the tests to show that her mate will be Brooks.

Brooks, however, knew that it was love “at first sight” when he laid eyes on Rhea, as children. He could have opened the gates and let in the leader of his Outcast tribe of warriors right then, but he waited, taking the time to train Rhea in hand-to-hand combat, preparing her to survive the attack.

Brooks thinks only of Rhea and her well-being, and of their future together outside of the walls of the community.

Will Rhea believe him when he finally tells her that the communities are actually prisons to keep people docile at the mercy of the leaders? Their survival in this dangerous world is threatened by Rhea’s struggle to discover what is true. Whom should she believe, Brooks, or her father, the only leader she’s ever known?

Black’s enthralling plot will keep readers turning page after page. The ending of this story seems a bit abrupt, but Black could very well be setting us up for a follow-up book in what would be a dynamite series.

July 19, 2023
PAST THIS POINT by Nicole Marby – Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Nicole Mabry draws from her own life, the impact of a deadly snowstorm, and the subsequent shutting down of the subways to create Past This Point, an action-packed dystopian novel featuring a strong woman who seeks a way out of a world gone mad.

Karis Hylen is working in New York City a massive snowstorm shuts down the city. A total quarantine of the city becomes quarantine for half of the nation.

In the introductory chapters of this daily progression, the reader will quickly realize that Karis, with her Latino family heritage, is nobody’s fool. Karis has a strong will. Her seemingly only chance to beat quarantine’s eerie hold and join her unaffected family in California is thwarted when she isn’t allowed to take her beloved dog Zeke on the flight. She switches into survivalist mode, searching empty apartments around her for food. Along the way, she befriends a mother with two little girls still living there. They all help and bolster one another for a while – until Karis’s luck turns and she becomes even more determined to get out of the horror-infused city.

After battling several ill-intentioned men, she finds one man of character, an Englishman named Ollie, who shares her vision of escape.

Karis has always been unlucky in her relationships with men, but they both know that to remain in New York City will be their death. Luckily Zeke, who has almost developed the ability to speak in human language, approves of Ollie, who supports Zeke when the dog adopts a starving kitten they find.

Frequent phone calls with Karis’s family sustain the couple’s hopes as they face minute-by-minute struggles to get out of the now sealed-off eastern half of the US and through the medical and military checkpoints on the border. These official strictures prove almost as life-threatening as the mysterious virus itself.

Mabry is new to the world of wordsmithing but proves herself up to the challenge.

Her profession in photography has garnered awards and attention, and her prose may draw similar kudos. Like Karis, she has lived in California and New York City and has a canine companion who accompanies her on photographic forays. Readers will yearn for more of her dynamic stories – and perhaps a sequel to the questions raised in this intriguing debut offering.

Past This Point by Nicole Marby won First Place in the 2019 CIBA Global Book Awards for High Stakes Thrillers.

August 23, 2022
The SIGHTLESS CITY by Noah Lemelson – Gaslamp Fantasy, Steampunk Fiction, Post-Apocaliptic Sci-fi

The city of Huile burns with trouble in Noah Lemelson’s dieselpunk novel The Sightless City.

Four years ago, the United Confederacy of the Citizens Resurgence defeated the Principate in a devastating war. Marcel Talwar lost his leg to that conflict but became a national hero for saving Huile. Now he’s settled down to work as a private detective. However, the schematics to a strange device throw his temporary calm into disarray.

Marcel relentlessly investigates the true nature of the documents and the death of their owner. His investigation robs him of all certainty, forcing him to question what he once thought he knew about his world, his role in the revolution. Especially troubling is his friendship with Lazarus Roache, a fellow hero and now the richest, most powerful man in town.

As a dieselpunk novel, The Sightless City embraces a more 20^th Century feel of industrialization than Victorian steampunk.

Darkness saturates the world with unimaginable cruelties of forced labor camps and grim images of factories pumping out clouds of dark smoke – and people too terrified to ask what goes on within those walls. Magic joins this industrial world, where cities once floated above the earth, where “Engineers” have the “Knack” to refashion metal and other dense materials with their minds, and a mysterious red substance pumped out of the earth, called sangleum, serves as the city’s lifeblood and its source of wealth. Other darker powers include a drug derivative that can turn people into drones, subject to the commands of a single man.

Amongst this dense and complex world, Marcel’s investigation keeps the story centered, as he discovers the secrets of the documents while navigating industry and magic.

In the search for truth, Marcel meets Sylvaine, an Engineer who discovers that her Knack allows her to repair machines and build bombs with her mind. Many more characters boast strange tools and powers. The monk Kayip has long been at war with Roache, wielding a bracelet that can, by his thoughts, transforms into a broadsword or collapse back around his wrist. Meanwhile, the evil Verus keeps a patch over one eye, concealing not an eye socket but a window into an unimaginable dark universe.

Lemelson’s world-building hits the mark for an intricate and complex storyline.

Beginning a revolution will change everyone’s life. The battle sprawls, thanks in no small part to Marcel, Sylvaine, and Kayip, who form a partnership to bring down the malignant forces that enslave the city’s factory workers. Marcel’s investigation leads to a detailed, engaging dystopian novel.

Those who love their dieselpunk with a dark and gritty edge will find immersion in a world very different and yet just a few steps away from our own in The Sightless City. This title won 1st Place in the CIBA 2019 OZMA Book Awards for Fantasy Fiction.

October 4, 2021
STRAIN of RESISTANCE, Book 1 in the Bixby Series by Michelle Bryan – Alien Invasion, Dark Fantasy/Horror, Parasitology

The apocalypse comes to the world one cloudy day in the form of a mist. But it’s no ordinary mist. There are tiny crystals in it, sentient crystals that once inside a victim, practically turn them inside out to birth a large worm which then takes control of the victim like a jockey riding a zombie.

On that day, twelve-year-old Emma Bixby is in the park taking refuge from the toxic home environment created by her alcoholic father. For some reason, the crystals, after entering Emma’s lungs and dropping her to her knees, reject her as a host. After surviving the initial attack, Emma rushes home to find her parents dead. And her world, imperfect as it was, gone.

Eight years later, Bix (Emma) is a hunter for a colony of fellow survivors holed up in a dilapidated hotel, The Grand. The world order has come down to three castes: colonists who live in fortified buildings behind barbed wire, guards who send out hunters to forage for food and supplies, and the ravagers. The last are roving gangs who survive through cannibalism and leeches, and in fact, are the alien invaders who ride their human hosts seeking out survivors to feast upon.

Eight years after the apocalypse, Bix is capable and strong, unwilling to back down from a fight, and fiercely loyal. But she is also impulsive, defensive, a loose cannon almost as dangerous to her friends as she is to her enemies. And though her heart is in the right place, her reactions and brash decisions frequently put her life and the lives of those around her at risk.

While resting up after a hunt, word comes down that the colony nearest them squatting in St. Joseph’s hospital has gone radio silent after what sounded like an attack of some sort. At the same time, one of The Grand’s hunting parties hasn’t returned. Bix and her group are sent out to discover what’s happened. The action is compelling and nonstop. Readers will find it difficult to put the book down.

Bryan defines and fleshes out her characters reasonably well. The opening sequence is one of the best we’ve ever read in a dystopian novel, which we’re betting will hook readers immediately. We like Emma right away, feel her pain and worry for her. Eight years later, we find a flawed and almost-impossible-to-recognize-as-the-same-girl Emma, now Bix. Here’s a character that is, at times, hard to sympathize with. Readers will find themselves rooting for her one minute and flummoxed by her brash behavior the next. The juxtaposition is that jarring.

The writing is crisp and compelling and contains elements of horror, action, as well as science fiction, skillfully mixed together reminiscent of the film, Aliens. Though present, the violence and gore of the horror elements are not over the top. And to add a bit of distraction, there are some steamy romantic scenes contained within. The pacing is fast, at times a little too fast. All in all, Michelle Bryan delivers on a first-in-series romp through a dystopian world with plenty of action and a lot of material for the following novels.

Strain of Resistance won First Place in the 2017 CIBAs, the Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction.

March 7, 2019