I am going to review the entire series as a whole because it is hard to separate the volumes and remember which events happened in each one.
The Good:
The story automatically gets three stars up front since it kept me interested enough to get through all five volumes within a week or so. Obviously I had to like the book enough to keep listening and downloading the continuing story. It is a good dystopian/apocalypse tale if that is the genre you are looking for.
I loved the descriptions of the scenery, the landmarks along the journey and the use of the Appalachian Trail. Though the geography seemed a bit off at times during the trip (yes I am a geek and looked at a map), I was able to follow most of it to see where everyone was going. There were enough events to keep things interesting although the “bad guys trying to steal my stuff” theme did get a bit repetitive.
I also really appreciated that, for the most part, the characters were written racially blind without a lot of physical description, so you could picture them however your mind chose to. For example, Randy and Lloyd in my mind were black though I am not sure if that what was intended. Maybe I just assumed with the racial makeup of Virginia that there would be a mix of races so that is where my imagination went.
I also liked the pace, there was plenty of action and not a lot of down time in between scenes, or too much self reflection or background other than what was helpful to the story. The fact that there is always some occasional humor running throughout the series (ex. “I dis-armed him”) without it seeming inappropriate given the current dire circumstances, takes some talent, which is much appreciated. Without it the story would probably get too depressing and dark, even for a dystopian theme.
The Bad:
The stereotyping was just way over the top. There are categorically negative stereotypes of poor people, rich people, hispanic people, mentally ill, drug addicts (none are recovered or recovering, of course), hippies, and even vegetarians. The author did no research into these groups of people, for example assuming poor people won’t work to find food, or that vegetarians would be unable to find protein because “there would be no falafel stands”. Clueless. If you live in a trailer park or a housing project you are assumed to be a thief or drug addict, or both. Everybody who doesn’t like guns is a liberal, which brings up another flaw in the book….
There was way too much description on the types and calibers of each and every firearm. I started to feel like I was reading a Browning or Smith and Wesson catalog. It added nothing to the story and just felt like filler. Guns were described more than some people were.
The bad guys were all flat, evil comic book type villains with no depth or personality whatsoever. It almost felt like the author periodically thought “time for a new threat”, so he would create the same type repeated evil character in each volume. Even if the occasional bad guy had a background story to “explain” why he was that way, it added nothing to his character. Each of the villains are interchangeable, and each character’s neighborhood had the pretty much the same evil ne’er-do-wells living next door.
The Ugly:
The detailed physical descriptions of gunshot wounds, decomposing flesh, vomiting, flies and maggots on bodies, are fine for a horror movie but really did noting to enhance the story. I don’t need to know the difference between a one-day corpse versus a three-day corpse. The obsession some characters have with revenge is disturbing, way beyond the need for personal justice, but I can’t really describe too much without spoilers so I will leave it at that.
Performance
The narrator did fine, only lost one star because of occasional mumbling and the end of sentences to the point where I couldn’t understand a word or two. Other than that he voiced the characters well and, you could pretty much tell who was was talking, whether male or female. That is hard to do with a lot of characters as this story had.
All in all it was worth the credits and I don’t regret the time I spent listening. I would recommend it to any dystopia fan.