If only there weren’t so many holes.

I love series collections and this genre. I read some of the reviews and though some were off-putting, I went ahead and got the boxed set.

First off, there’s LOTS of details. Like minutiae-level detail in places it doesn’t belong. An editor should have redlined those instances, and there are quite a few of them.

The general concept is average for post-apo stories. The main characters are human, certainly, with frailties and shortcomings and that’s good to fill out their personalities. And the action scenes are interesting, minus the sometimes-excruciating detail, especially on the locations, where the average listener has no idea about the little roads running parallel to the branch of the local river and then where it turns north to the orange groves, behind the neighborhood….. that kind of thing.It doesn’t add to the story and the listeners becomes impatient waiting for the ever-lovin’ words to just STOP.

Some major holes in the fabric of events. Not to give anything away, but the author arranges situations to get the main characters what they need (like major survival stuff from the parents), and then just abandons that storyline altogether. Its way too convenient.

The female characters are willful and whiny, and its rather unbelievable that in the middle of a battle, the characters would stop to have a conversation about what one of the females want, and then whine and pout about why their feelings aren’t taken into consideration. And then they do what they want anyway, without consequences. Speaking of consequences, in this sort of setting, the first time someone on a critical mission went completely against orders and The Plan, they would be D.O.N.E. But a character goes off the reservation after promising he wouldn’t, and gets some characters killed, and puts the whole community at risk, and he is allowed to go brood for a few chapters and then insist he be taken along on another critical mission. Its just soooo frustrating to listen to.

I didn’t mind the biblical references and inferences, though God is used pretty conveniently at times, and morals are rather flexible. Mr. Goodwin, make up your mind: either your characters have human failings or they don’t.