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.

Such a great series

I read the paper back first and I enjoyed these books so much that I bought them on Audible as well just to re-live the stories again.

Not like the others...

I LOVED the first two, but this one was different.

Instead of being written in first person diary form, it was in several third person view points (with the occasional first person narration).

I had to force myself through it at first

This book isn’t a journal kept by our hero “Kilroy”. I won’t ruin the plot, but it’s told from multiple perspectives.
The jokes from the spec ops teams threw me at first. It seemed unrealistic. But then I met a group of unassuming (slightly nerdy) infantry grunts who had read this series and they confirmed (to some degree) that operators behave like this. Getting past that hurdle was the hardest part for me. When I was in the military I was more like Kilroy. No time for nonsense. I suppose letting go of the familiar tone of voice was the hardest part.
That being said, the operators MORE than redeem themselves with their commitment to cause.
The only reason I’m giving 4 stars is for the abrupt change in storytelling.

This book is the lowest yet

This book is not horrible, but didn’t like the change of the different characters and a 3rd person view. Overall enjoyed the book, but could of been better

Different from first two

The first two books were done in a journal format documenting the collapse. The author does a 180° in the third book and does multiple stories with lots of characters and the main character kind of takes the back burner. This is definitely my least favorite of the series.
Why would he change the recipe when he did the first two books so well?….

Breath Taking

I love zombie books and this was awesome. I could not put it down and stayed up all night listening to the audible.

Solid but the ending seems a bit rushed

The final (?) book in the Day by Day series. It’s much like the first two with a mix of zombie action (although it seems a bit slower than the others) and insight from the survivors. It gives some more background on remote 6 and wraps things up rather nicely but leaves the door ajar for a possible follow on. The format is slightly different than in the first two books. The vast majority of the first two books was based on the journal of the main character. While there are some journal entries included in this book since the main characters are spread out in the world, it takes on a more third person view. If you liked the first two books you will like this one.

Good but rushed. I wanted more out of it.

Would you listen to Shattered Hourglass again? Why?

Nah. I've listened to it once and it was good but not worth a re-listen. I really like the first 2 books and would listen to them again in a heart-beat.

What other book might you compare Shattered Hourglass to and why?

DBDA 1 & 2, The Zombie Fallout series (although they are much more funny) and maybe even the Reign of the Dead series.

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

No

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Welcome to Hotel 23

Any additional comments?

This story felt rushed. The action was there but not like in the other 2 books. I really like this series and if it all ends with this book, I'm going to be a bit disappointed. There's just so much more that can be done with this world that J.L. Bourne has created. I'd love to read more about it.

Best of the series so far

I loved the first 2 books and was a bit worried when I learned this book would depart from the "journal entry" format. Rather than limiting the story, this change has enabled Bourne to flex his writing muscle. He does a fantastic job of painting a visual picture and the action scenes which are difficult to write are done magnificently. I was so engrossed by the story that I found myself dreaming of facing the zombie hordes. My only complaint is the extensive dialog on the technical side of communications. Frequencies and radios do not make for interesting writing but I understand how necessary they were for the story. The narration was very good with my only complaint being the reading of every letter and number in a coded message. 30 seconds of "ZZZ34rts - djsssiiiOP998ZZZ" and I was reaching for the fast-forward button. There could have been a better way to handle that. In summary, if you loved the first 2 books you'll love this one and if you didn't, well you just might enjoy the changes here.

Change in narrative style, abrupt ending

Would you consider the audio edition of Shattered Hourglass to be better than the print version?

The same narrator for the last 2 books, and he definitely adds something to it beyond a print version

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

It was great to continue the story line from the last 2 books, but some clichéd additions pertaining to the power behind the scenes was a little weak.

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

Definitely would have wanted to do this in 1 sessions, but it's better spread out

Any additional comments?

PLEASE write another book, back to diary style!