Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

First of all Patriots is one of my favorite books, and I read Rawles blog every day. Having said that...Survivors and Founders have been a real disappointment. The writing in this last book Founders was sub-par and the Narrator made it so much worse. His girl voice is laughable and I don't know how Phil Gigante has a job narrating books. By the way I lissen to about 5 books every month and have been for the last 3 years.....I know good narrators and this one sucks. As of right now I am 3/4 through the book and I will finish it because those credits will not be wasted... but yes this was a waste of a credit! I am so sorry to say this James but Really? who is your editor because they need to be fired.
Ok onto the story or lack thereof.....So many wasted pages of non interesting religious topics and half hearted hollow love stories, has made the book tedious to lissen to...and to rehash old stories from other books and use precious pages of your new book is such a waste. I guess what I was expecting from the title "Founders" was that I wanted a continuation of the first book...or at-least the same story from a different perspective. The book is mainly the boring parts of Patriots rehashed.
I am sorry James but I will have to pass on your next book until it is recommended to me by someone else who wants to risk wasting a credit.

Aloha and Mahalo

I wish they would have told me that this was just a crapy version of cliff notes to the first two books. My guess is Mr. Rawles needed an addition to his bunker so he pasted and clipped his way to this novel. Really you could not have any more detail? Why would you re-hash so much from the first two? Because it was already written and easy to do. Mr. Rawles you are better then that.

For the first time reader I will say buy the first two books they were OK, but then just re-read the first two and you have the third. I feel bad for his publisher he got hosed on the thrid book on the contract.

This was a book that seemingly used more repetitive story lines (line by line and word for word) from Patriots and Survivors than its own new material, The reading performance was okay if you overlook the mispronouncing of the words.
This was in my opinion a terrible job by Mr. Rawles
Even if this is a stand alone book, the author has to realize that it is going to be read (or listened to) by readers (or listeners) of his previous books.

Yes, but I won't after that if it is as poorly done as this book is

I would have stuck with Dick Hill, although his voice is a little annoying, he seems to mispronounce fewer words and I guess I just got used to him on the first three titles I listened to.

I would have removed almost the entire narrative of the Leyton's as they nearly told their entire story during the debriefing at Todd Grey's house in Patriots.
I would lessen the descriptions of items...no one cares about this frequency or that frequency on a radio transmitter or model numbers for certain pieces of gear.
Nor do we need the street directions through TelAviv Israel that takes us to the beach??

I believe this to be an attempt by Mr. Rawles to get out another book out in a hurry, it's sad too, I liked the his first two books on this story line.

I enjoyed the first two books, but this installment was little more then a rehash of the first two. It reminded me of the 'B' Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies from the '80's....it got to the point where directors would just cut in fight scenes from other sci-fi movies they had done in the past.
I find it really irritating when an author builds up your trust on the first two books so that you will buy the third regardless if they put any effort into it or not.
Mr. Rawles, I appreciate everything you have done for the industry up to this point, but Sir, you have done us a disservice with this book.

Buy the first two, don't waste a credit on this one.

Nothing really new here. It just rehashed the first two books. I had really hoped for something new. Loved the first two but this one only developed one new character Ben. I just expected more action like Patriots.

Absolutely miserable.

Between the performance and the story, this is one of the worst books I have ever tried to listen to. Much of it is copied and pasted from the previous books (including the list of prohibited weapons by the Provisional Government -- which was ever so titillating the first time around).

Rawles has focused in on his target audience: fanatical members of the RPC that want to shoot anything that moves (with or without justification). He pushes his personal, religious, beliefs so far down the throats of his readers/listeners that he has probably committed a venial sin.

Do not, under any circumstance purchase this book. It is far worse than you can imagine. Seriously, the Left Behind series (including the bit where Jesus actually returrns to Earth) was better written and less heavy handed than this crap.

Note to Self: First and foremost -- READ the reviews before you spend a credit or hard earned $$. This book is a stinker.

All the words and time spent preaching religion? What's up with that? There is very little story here and what there is is b o r i n g. I'm continuing to listen because - I spent the credit -

Lesson learned - Read the reviews and heed them.

Narration? Terrible - I made better girl voices when I was in High School - Phil, you need to perform on books with NO female voices. I just giggled when I heard your girl voice. Sorry - but you are getting paid to do this - right?

Next read? - Non Fiction or maybe lay back with a little John Sanford and Virgil Flowers.

I was disappointed by Founders. After what I thought was a so-so book in Patriots, I thought the author knocked it out of the park with Survivors. This I feel is a significant step back. The first issue I have is that the main story throughout the book is of the Layton’s journey to their group’s retreat after an economic collapse. I knew this was the case coming in but the details of the journey just weren’t interesting and didn’t add much to the overall story of the three books. If you are reading this first (or second after Survivors which is the order I would suggest) I think it would be better but if you have already read Patriots it doesn’t seem to offer much to the overall story. Second the Author also seems to revert back to his lists to fill the pages. We get it, the government has banned every conceivable weapon you don’t have to make us read the entire list to get the point across. Same thing with the list of what the Layton’s are carrying or have left in their car. It just doesn’t add anything. Not adding to the story brings my to my last gripe. At the beginning of the book there is a ton of talk about religion. I don’t mind it and I’m not going to penalize the author for putting it in, but I will penalize him for putting it in where it doesn’t add anything to the story. He’ll spend tons of time talking about how their lives are guided by religion then skip over a decade of their life in the story. If you’re going to write a book about religion, write a book about religion. If you’re going to write a book about survivors in an economic collapse, write that. If you’re trying to combine the two please make sure that how you incorporate both, please have it add to the story.

No - every man sounded the same, and all the women sounded the same.

Book 1 was great, the next 2 must have been more like after thoughts

No. I like these types of stories. Patriots was a great listen.

The reason I bought this series is because of Phil Gigante work in Second World. He is a master. I look for narrator as well as story line

Book 1 was out standing. The rest must have been a contract obligation

Over did the the religion aspect. He talks about praying just before double tapping targets and letting them bleed out. There is alot of raping and killing but not to many potty mouths. Stay with book 1

Although I'd still read future works from this author, I felt that he copied and pasted much of his story from his first books. I was really put off by this, as well as the narrator's voice. 3 of Rawle's previous books have the same narrator, it's a shame that he switched on the final one.