I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator.
I have to admit, while I did like the anthology (Book 1) a lot and Sidney’s story (After the Roads Book 2), I enjoyed this one the most so far. Maybe because the story stayed focused on Ian or maybe because they were involved more with the part of the narrative involving the people starting the whole thing or what but I did.
We pick up with Ian where the short story in Book 1 ended and while it’s a little slow at first, we’re given a lot of new information too. There’s a bunch of new characters (I love the Toms and the blacksmiths) and you finally get to see the true villains of the overall story. It was also interesting to see that there were still some military people alive and out there fighting, trying to bring some order back to the chaos. Ian is a reluctant hero, he doesn’t really want to go around saving people but he can’t just leave them to fend for themselves either, so he does what he can to help and when he gets unexpected help from the army, it’s that much better.
While we don’t find out everything the villains are up to, we do get to see the scope and depth of their evil. Ian finds out just how many supply depots have been set up, how well they’re stocked and it’s shocking, to say the least. That people, enemies, can do this right under our noses is scary. I did want to smack Ian for being stupid more than once but as he freely admits, he’s not the smartest, which is why he surrounds himself with the best, to make up for his shortcomings. But how he couldn’t see that the talk at the end of the book wasn’t a trap, I have no idea.
Mr. Wehrlen again does a great job at narrating, keeping even the slow spots interesting and ratcheting up the action to the point where you don’t want to stop listening. The characters, for the most part, have their own personality and you either end up loving them (Ian and his group) or hating them (the hippies from the stadium/mall). They mostly have distinct voices so it wasn’t too hard to follow along on who was talking.
Overall, a great sequel to a good book and I can’t wait to see more of Ian’s story but more from the other characters too.