Friday, 25 December 2020
Saturday, 5 December 2020
YEAR ONE
Book 1 of the Chronicles of The One
Read by Julia Whelan
Genre: dystopian urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook
About Year One:
It began on New Year's Eve.Source: Info in the About Year One was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34311452-year-one on 14/11/2018.
The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed — and more than half of the world's population was decimated.
Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river — or in the ones you know and love the most.
As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.
In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a saviour, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.
The end has come. The beginning comes next.
Buy Link(s):
Year One being the fist book in the series, is typically a coming of age book. It introduces the reader to a dystopian world which just started to become dystopian and the memories of a normal modern life is still fresh in peoples' minds. The world of Year One reminds me greatly of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, a world shifting from tech to magic. And this kind of shift is not the first time and wouldn't be the last, and that this shift happens every so very, very many years. Sort of cyclic. That right now we are living in the tech cycle, so much so that magic is all but disappeared in our world. And in Year One, the magic cycle has begun.
This is my first Julia Whelan audiobook listen. I like the way she reads and her voice is not aggravating to the ears. Kudos to the narration!!
This is the first Nora Roberts book I've read that uses the "multiple thread" kind of format in telling a story. Where every other chapter follows a different thread of the story. I hate this format in a book!! I guess in this one it fits because the story tells of the different stories of the different characters. It is still annoying though...
Now, the plot.... what plot?! *sigh* ...yeah, there isn't much of one. The ending is not exactly a cliffhanger, but it is the prelude to subsequent books.
In the end, I did enjoy this book, but not as much as I expected to with Nora Roberts' name on it.
Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 3
Writing Style = 3.5
Ending = 3.5
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = (12 hrs and 20 mins)
Plot = 2
Narration = 5
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries
Books In The Chronicles of The One Series:
FTC Disclosure:
The different formats of this book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.
The different formats of this book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.
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