Shattered Hourglass

Day by Day Armageddon, Book 3

By: J. L. Bourne

Narrated by: Jay Snyder

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

In a desperate bid to take back the continental United States - where hordes of undead now dominate the ravaged human population - a Navy commander leads a global mission to the heart of the pandemic. Task Force Hourglass is humanity’s final hope, and his team’s agonizing decisions could mean living one day more - or surrendering to the eternal hell that exists between life and death.

Shattered Hourglasss is the terrifying new novel in the acclaimed zombie apocalypse series.

©2012 J.L. Bourne (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Good

You definitely get a great perspective of what's happening when it's not just Kil's journals.

Very entertaining

This series is exciting and fast paced . You’ll not want to stop listening and it’s nice that the story continues.

Aw shucks

First impression is that what I had feared has happened, the journal style of the story was completely removed. The main character that has remained nameless through 2 books now has a name, Killjoy. The entire feeling of the series has changed and I am not sure if I like it or not. Yea okay I was totally disappointed with this book. However it was a solid story by itself, not compared to the rest of the story. If you are in need of a one off zombie story fix Shattered Hourglass: Day by Day Armageddon, Book 3 would be perfect for you. If you are looking to be engrossed in a somewhat vague journal entries of an unnamed military man trying to eek out his existence, I think you will be disappointed.

Listening to Jay Snyder is like being serenaded by an old friend that has a way will telling stories. It’s kind of funny because every time I listen to an Audible Frontiers book, Snyder often does the intro regardless of who the actual narrator is, I get giddy inside and think to myself “Did I misread who the narrator was?”, then the real narrator takes over and I breath a sigh of disappointment. Not today folks! Snyder has a a very dynamic range of voices, useful for whatever type of character might cross his lips, combined with his foresight to create tension and suspense by choosing great places for pauses, rhythm changes, and emotional outbursts. If you can’t I am a fan of Snyder’s work and will continue to look for his narrations.

Honest review.

First, the protagonist's handle is not Killjoy, it's Killroy - And yes, that's a name that originated in WWII. Along with this, there is a lot of military jargon - Both old and new. If you know the jargon, it will add to the experience of the book. If you don't, as some of the other reviewers have mentioned, it will probably leave you a bit bewildered. COB for Captain of the Boat, COG for Continuity of Government, BUD/S for Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL, as examples, and of course there's a lot of ballistic and firearm jargon as well.

Second, the book has a disjointed timeline. At the beginning, I had assumed that things were happing chronologically or even concurrently. They're not, no warning is given, and it makes the book a bit hard to follow. It would have probably been a little easier if dates and times were given at the beginning of each chapter.

It's a much different book than the previous two, and a lot of detail was left out. China and Deep 6 could have been elaborated on quite a bit more. The overall listening time on this was 9 hours. It probably "should" have been around 14-15, to make it as good as the previous two. It's very fast paced, and many important plot details were just omitted. I'm going to listen to it a second time, because I just could not take in information as quickly as it was being delivered. It was absolutely not the reader's fault, either. That man is a genius with reading. The book read more like a debriefing with just main details listed with minimal environment details, character building, and in some places it would just jump from problem description to resolution, with no story telling. Not what I'm accustomed to from Bourne. I feel like I listened to an abridged version of the book instead of the original.


Overall, still a great book. Still a fan of Bourne. Think he needs to slow it back down and not write books like he has to write his own mission reports.

wow... and not the good kind of wow...

Would you try another book from J. L. Bourne and/or Jay Snyder?

Yes, but I was highly disappointed with this one. I know Bourne was deployed when he wrote some of this, and having been deployed myself I understand why he might have rushed the end. I would have rather waited a few more weeks or months even for a better story.

What could J. L. Bourne have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Not changed his mode of story telling.

Have you listened to any of Jay Snyder’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Snyder does an awesome job. Haven't listed to a book narrated by him that has been a bad performance yet.

Any additional comments?

It felt like there were way too many new characters introduced this book. I actually liked the journal style story telling of the last book, so I'm going to have to listen to this one again. I was waiting so long for this one I might have set myself up for disappointment. Although reading some of the other reviews, I do not think I am alone with feeling this was not as good as the other two.

Not Bad, Not Great

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would definitely recommend the series. You won't 'get it' if you start with this one. In fact, though I've read the entire series so far, for me this was oddly hard to follow. It seemed a bit rushed and confusing. Still, if you are a fan of the series it does advance the plot.

What did you like best about this story?

The scenes aboard the sub.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Very satisfying overall, quality material.

The story was better than many reviewers will have you believe. I honestly believe it was a solid 4.0 story with a 3.0 ending. Again, there was nothing wrong with the story. The ending was not bad at all, it just could have been expanded on. Sort of like a cliffs notes ending.

The different style was no big deal because there was quality material.

I recommend this to readers of the first two books in the series. Even without the first two books I think this would be a good listen.

Ehhh

Not really big on the ending of the book. I love the first two in the series last one left me confused

Disappointing change in style

I was delightfully entertained by the first two books in the series (despite some nagging vocabulary and pronunciation errors) and was eagerly awaiting the third. The author decided to completely change his style from journal to omniscient 3rd person. The story now does not follow any one person, but jumps from character to character. The former, journal style made this series stand out from the rest. Now it reads like a mediocre, overly macho, try-hard action comic. The story was once very promisimg. This 3rd installment is a dud.

Better than I expected

I listened to the first two books in thus series years ago, but skipped this one due to the format change (no more first person journal entry style story telling) and boy was I an idiot for that. Shattered Hourglass had me holding my breath and talking to myself many times. I've been so invested in all these characters from the first two books and got just as invested in all the new characters for book three. The story is so gripping and pulls you in like every thing else JL Bourne has written. I'm pressing play on Ghost Run right now!