Things Fall Apart

The Old Man and the End of the World, Book One

By: William Hale Harrison

Narrated by: Antony King

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Mysterious spores spread across the Earth, unseen, undetected. They embed in the sinuses, move to the brain, and colonize the entire nervous system. When the takeover is complete, they kill the host and animate the body, making them truly undead, flesh-devouring zombies.

As the pandemic spreads the world becomes aware of the peril, but there is no cure, and there is no refuge. Society crumbles, governments search in vain for solutions, and individuals around the world struggle to save themselves and the people they love.

Watch as a grizzled old ex-Marine outside Chicago, a Cossack firefighter from the Siberian Arctic, a twelve-year-old sword-wielding Japanese schoolgirl, a policeman from Cairo, a primate researcher in the Congo and many others struggle for survival against the impending apocalypse.

©2019 William Harrison (P)2022 William Harrison

Great book!

I loved the series when I read it and highly recommend it. Antony King did an amazing job varying the tones of his narration for all the characters. I will be watching for more narrations done by him for sure!

The Old Man is a great character. He is truly a flawed human who tries his best. Family is important and the book revolves around them. This book jumps around as the plague takes hold. It was easy to follow. The way you learn about how the world falls apart is almost exactly how I expect it would. The progression of the story moves smoothly. I quickly developed favorite characters. The underlying message of this book is honor. From the sword, Willow the dog, to the dad forced to face abandoning his daughter, honor was apparent. It really worked for me as a reader.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys zompoc and the human story that plays out. There is an excellent balance of both.

excellent

this author and narrator are excellent. both deserve high praise and large checks I say

My Favorite Zombie Story!

Great on the science of the cause of the plague, the cool description of what the zombies are like—unique (except for Crawlerz—another good story) in that the process of the world becoming infected happens slow enough in some areas for some preparation to take place. Very very well written for this genre! And the hero is an old man!

Interesting spin

I really enjoyed this book. The zombie virus is a new spin that is refreshing, and it focuses more on what will happen in the world. It did seem to meander a little in the middle, but overall, I liked it. It was depressing in spots, but that is because it accurately (I think) depicts what would happen in the world if something like this happened.

More!

I need more right now. How long do we have to wait. I hope book 2 comes out soon. Please?!?!

Description and title aren’t accurate.

Less than a third of this book is about the old man and his family. One chapter on the main character then 4 on one-chapter characters in other countries on how the parasite starts there. I just kept skipping the other chapters to try to keep interest, but unfortunately the “old man’ chapters aren’t good enough to really keep you tuned in as it tends to drag. Finished the book, skipping most it. Waste of credit.

Points for showing the beggining of the apocalypse

And points withdrawn for basically everything else. Technological and gun details are throughout the book, needlessly so. There's many odd points where the author lets us know that, for example the screen a few people are looking on is so and so screen with such and such details of such and such brand and that it costs more than most cars. I'm unsure why this is needed, and frankly just seems like the author flexing his knowledge of technological aspects most people couldn't give half a hoot about.

Add in increasing political jabs that the author tries to couch in "well, that's just once character saying this. The other character that heard it isn't exactly political" and an almost laughably inflammatory view on what i suspect is the authors political opposites, a narrator who cant do any accent work and a story that introduces characters just to kill them a few chapters later, you have what is frankly a sub par book.

The book isn't even about the old man, he is very rarely actually in the book and instead most of the time is taken up by those who are introduced to die soon after, technical details, political digs, shoddy accent work, and overall a waste of time and money. Pass, and don't make the same mistake i did.

What did I just listen to?

The story is all over the place to the point that you cannot get attached to the characters. They’re here and then they’re there and it skips from place to place. I won’t be getting the next book because I’m not invested in the characters at all. Very disappointing.

The narration…..it’s flat and completely misplaced. British? Scottish? Welsh? I don’t know, but the mispronunciation of words (and it is mispronounced if the story takes place in the US and characters are supposed to be Americans) is jarring. I know words are pronounced differently in different countries, but the pronunciation should reflect the supposed location and characters. The tone is so flat that my mind wandered often.

Overall, not good. Could it have been better with appropriate narration? Maybe.