Daimones

Review of Daimones by Massimo Marino


Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: Could Dan Amenta be the last man alive on the planet? Death has swept away the lives of billions of people, but Dan and his family were spared. By whom, and why?
Surviving, to give meaning to their lives, and looking for other survivors lead Dan to discover the truth about the extermination of the human race.

The encounter with Laura, a young and sexy girl of Italian origin, raises ethical and moral questions that had never touched the Amentas family before.
Other survivors force Dan to confront his past to find answers to the many questions.
The past and the present come together and upset the fragile balance, physical and mental, which allowed the Amentas to find a new meaning to their existence.

Dan discovers his final role in a plan with million years roots. Planet Earth is in the hands of an ancient power, and the survivors have to choose a future that has no past, or remain in a past with no future.

My Review:

The world ends not with a bang but with a whimper, or has it? Our main character Dan and his family wake up to find that everyone around them has inexplicably died. After driving back home, he must go in to survival mode and figure out the best way to take care of his family.

Miraculously, the Internet and other forms of technology still seem to be working so he attempts a Facebook ad campaign to see if any other survivors are around. He also conducts sweeps of the area while out looking for supplies to sustain his wife, himself and his daughter.

When he finds that there are in fact a few other survivors is he ready to deal with the consequences of an encounter with any of them? And what about the strange beings seen walking around the areas that seem to take an unnatural interest in the dead bodies?

The story is a first book in a trilogy and though I think I enjoyed this one, I really can’t see myself reading the whole series. I was somewhat disappointed in the ending to this one. I didn’t understand a lot of the scientific thought process that went behind it.

On the other hand, there was at least more closure in this story than you might find in my other novels in a series. I guess I just didn’t really get it. I won’t say more than that because I don’t want to give the ending away.

Unlike other reviewers I didn’t find the fact that the characters were scared of encountering other survivors when they hadn’t actually encountered any to be unbelievable. With all the looting and fear that would have accompanied these mass deaths I don’t think it would be unreasonable for the main characters to think someone might want to take the things that they had stored up in an effort to make sure that they too survive.

If you like science fiction or dystopian this book just might be for you. However if you are put off by sexuality or bad language you might want to give it a pass. I’d appreciate any comments you might have, particularly after you’ve read it.

Wasteland

Review of Wasteland by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan

Overview from www.bn.com: Fans of the Divergent and Hunger Games series will love Wasteland, the first installment of the Wasteland trilogy, by five-time Emmy Award–nominated writer Susan Kim and Edgar Award–winning Laurence Klavan. With heart-pounding thrills, this harrowing survival story is alive with action and intrigue. Welcome to the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic U.S. where no one lives past the age of 19. But an early death isn’t the only doom waiting around the corner: Everyone is forced to live under the looming threat of rampant disease and brutal attacks by the variants—hermaphroditic outcasts that live on the outskirts of Prin.
Esther doesn’t care that her best friend, a variant, is considered “the enemy.” She doesn’t care that Levi, who controls the Source, is the real enemy and might send his Taser boys after her if she makes one wrong move. Then she meets Caleb, and just possibly, she might have a chance at salvation.

My Review:

This week we are heading into a future where no one has ever been known to live past the age of 19. In the dystopian era of the novel Wasteland, everyone dies early from a sort of unknown plague. Despite the fact that anyone with symptoms of this plague is banished from the city of Prin, where our heroin Esther lives, it continues unabated.

Because of humanity’s relatively short life spans, “partnering” and childbirth occur earlier than in our own time and children are somewhat rare to find. As a consequence Esther’s older sister Sara is considered an old maid at eighteen and Esther will be one soon herself if she doesn’t find someone. Not that she’s in a hurry or anything.

She is still a child at heart and loves nothing more than playing an elaborate version of hide and seek with her “variant” friend Skar. Variants are a group of people who are basically born as hermaphrodites, due to what is thought to be a genetic mutation of their race, and are allowed to choose which sex they identify as. Skar identifies herself as a female which thrills Esther as it gives them something in common.

However, not everyone is thrilled with the existence of the variants, let alone the fact that Esther chooses to be friends with one. Their friendship eventually becomes downright dangerous for both of them when the variants start attacking the “norms” for no apparent reason.

And this is where I almost quit reading. At this point in the story we had already established the long and close friendship between Skar and Esther, so I kept wondering why, after the first attack, Esther didn’t go to her friend and try to find out the cause. I mean if their friendship is that important wouldn’t Esther want to get to the bottom of this so that it could be resolved as soon as possible?

Yet she doesn’t even attempt to figure it out until much later in the story. I really didn’t understand this. And as I said I almost quit reading at this point but then I decided to give the story another chance.

I am glad I did. It got much better from there on out, almost as if the authors realized their mistake and were trying to make up for it. There were a lot of surprises along the way. Things happened that I didn’t expect. Mysteries were explained in such a way that I didn’t see them coming. It was a really great ride. I am glad I gave this one a chance.

So the review overall, it turned out was mostly positive. I liked it. However I won’t go so far as to say I loved it. Still I didn’t find it as bad as some other reviewers did. I am not sure what they expected. I wasn’t expecting a great work of literature but an entertaining read. I got what I wanted.

Contains: some sexuality and violence