The End

A Post Apocalyptic Novel

By: G. Michael Hopf

Narrated by: Joseph Morton

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

For Gordon Van Zandt, life was one of duty and loyalty to his country, so when 9/11 happened he dropped out of college and joined the Marine Corps. This youthful idealism soon vanished, one fateful day in a war torn city in Iraq. Ten years later, he is still struggling with the ghosts of his past, but must now face a new reality thrust upon him and his family.

North America, Europe, and the Far East have all suffered a devastating Super-EMP attack that has caused catastrophic damage to the power grids and all electrical devices. With nothing working, from cars to phones, and the total collapse of the economic infrastructure, Gordon must fight for limited and fast dwindling resources. He knows survival requires action and cooperation with his neighbors, but as daily life continues to break down so does all sense of civility within his community. With each passing day, Gordon makes choices that would seem extreme in today's world, but necessary in this new world.

©2013 G. Michael Hopf (P)2013 G. Michael Hopf

Engaging Story - Needs a good editor.

First, Hopf is a talented storyteller, and having read some of his later work, I can tell you that he’s improved on a the issues you’ll find in this book. The two main drawbacks come down to lack of a solid editor and less than great narration in the Audible version.

Poor word choice, repetitive phrasing, etc., all things any author deals with. It’s the editor’s job to fix these issues. However things like editing and narration cost money, and one must make due with what they can afford. As is the case with most self published authors, that means seeking out bargain pricing. You get what you pay for.

All that said, this is one of the most engaging series in this genre and I highly recommend it, although if dry, mundane, often monotone narration, rife with easily correctable mispronunciations bothers you, I would probably suggest purchasing the kindle version.

Must Read For the Genre

Negative reviews tend to give more info than positive reviews so I bought this with some reservation due to some of the seemingly reasonable negative reviews.

However, they were completely and totally wrong. It's a really cool book. Period.

Some of the scenarios may seem far fetched, but in context to the genre itself, they're not far fetched at all. (Read some ancient history for a fuller context.)

Great Start

Wish this character was my neighbor in times of trouble. Head of apartment owners group is truly evil. Great start to series.

Great book with a ton of action but horrible narrator

I loved the action and story line of this EMP first book in a series of seven and can’t wait to hear all of them. The only downfall, and it’s a big one, is the horrible narration. Can you say “run on sentence”? It’s hard to tell when one speaker stops and another starts or when one scene stops and another starts. And the poor inflection!! Don’t get me started! There is no feeling anywhere in this narrators voice. It’s all monotone even when someone is supposedly crying or screaming.

Love the story, hate the narrator.

Greatat book

Great book from start to finish. Downloading second book now and I'm sure I will read the next series once I finish this one

Excellent book

I was drawn into this story from the beginning. It’s a long book, that I finished listening to within two days (although I didn’t want to stop to go to sleep the first day). I feel like I know the main characters, and I’m ready to find out what happens next.

The narrator Joseph Morton does an excellent job. He just has a natural flow and rate of speech and his inflections are spot on.

A Prepper "Reality Check"

In the first 20 minutes, I figured this was going to be a pretty generic story, but I was pleasantly (albeit disturbingly) surprised. I've read a number of books like this one and none of them addressed the issues of a post-apocalyptic America like this story did. Very graphic, very real, and I fear very accurate.

It wasn’t horrible

I felt the writing was subpar, verbiage was very generic and not creative. I was always right on the edge of being fully engaged but never there.

Interesting story

If you could sum up The End in three words, what would they be?

I enjoy this genre and found the book to be a very good listen. I am looking forward to the next one in the series which I am starting today!

loved every second of it

very informative story great way to make me think about what could happen we must all be ready and prepared