Sympatico Syndrome

Post-Apocalyptic Survival Trilogy

De: M. P. McDonald

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

When the United States crumbles, and services stop, there's only one thing to do... take your family and run.
What reviewers are saying: "I love a good post apocalyptic book and this was right up there with the best." "The characters are great and come to life... No zombies to worry about just the dying and living." "After reading this book I would not be surprised if apocalypse would happen like this."
Infection (Book One)

The countdown to the end of the world begins silently.

No one realizes there's a deadly illness spreading like wildfire until it's too late. With few symptoms, victims literally drop dead after a brief surge of energy. Within days, it tears through the population of the United States. Now, faced with the very real possibility of extinction of the human race, Cole Evans has only one chance to save his family and survive: a safe haven on an isolated, hard to reach island. Can he convince his brother that the danger is real and that there's enough space for his family as well? But can they all reach the island before the lights go out for them...forever?

Isolation (Book Two)
Cole Evans thought he'd found a safe haven for his family and a growing band of survivors of the most lethal virus the world has ever known. But he finds continued survival is far from guaranteed as they battle hostile encounters with other survivors, nature, and devastating accidents. Are they prepared to survive their first brutal Wisconsin winter after the rest of the world has perished?
Invasion (Book Three)
Plunged into a free for all lifestyle with survival of the fittest the only law, it would be easy for Cole Evans and his family to remain in short-term survival mode, living in the moment. But, Cole refuses to lose his conscience—his humanity—and won't stop fighting for a better future. After surviving a harsh Wisconsin winter only months after a lethal virus wiped out most of the population, strangers arrive from the East. They bring news that pushes them to leave the island and Cole leads his family on a dangerous, but necessary trek across the country to a new home and hopes of a permanent settlement. Their destination: Nevada and the Hoover Dam.

AI is hard to follow no emotions so hard to follow at certain times

the story was very interesting and probable I liked how it went the only thing is with the AI it's hard to follow the storyline when it changes from different characters or if they're happy or excited or sad it's not expressed with the AI so therefore it's hard to get the meaning of which the author was trying to use and I find that I have to rewind to find out if I miss something

Not bad… storyline saved it

I don’t care for virtual voice narration. Lacks emotional emphasis in important areas. The story line was good enough to save it Did get a little close to the mask wearing paranoia from Covid… even t when it wouldn’t have mattered. And surprise…. No bad guys taking over. So that was odd. Great for free credit

Character transfer

Great book but transferring from one caricature to another is a little hard to keep up with. But I think that’s just the AI.

good characters

everything makes sense, the characters are easy to follow, The story is written in a way, that makes it easy to imagine.

I really enjoyed this trilogy

I love books like this. whatever the disastrous events are, it's getting back to basics. I enjoyed this trilogy because sometimes, with this genre, the writers make it too heavy and cumbersome. I mean, a reader can only handle so many catastrophes!!
this author kept a good balance. thank you for that. if its one horrible event after anothe, it's certainly not that enjoyable and relaxing.
I suppose I've gotten used to AI narration. if you speed it up to 1.2 speed, for me anyway, it helps. once I get to the stage where I've e become attached to the characters, my mind doesn't hear automated narration anymore.
what really sucks, is when you've read books by an author in the past, and the human narrator who's narrating the book you're listening to now, is totally not hitting the mark on how you remembered it should go. I hope that came out right and understandable.
this has occurred with several books I've recently purchased, without listening to a sample - thinking that I don't need to listen to a sample because I'd loved a certain book so much in the past. a great example would be a couple of Leon Uris's books I've recently purchased. I can't stand how its being narrated and dramatized and it changes the whole flavor of the book - for me - because I remembered it a different way. sometimes automation is preferable lol.

Better than usual in the genre

It was a good book, storyline which was entertaining and kept me attentive through a road trip and other things. There are a lot of apocalyptic fiction I will start and then delete after a few chapters, but I really enjoyed this series.

The virtual voice still needs work, but I’m sure a lot of books wouldn’t make it to audio book with the expense of a good narrator.

good listen

good listen, good storyline and good performance not a automated voice. This book kept me listening all week at work.

A definite read.

I enjoyed this and the other books in series. You should listen to them in order. The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because of AI performance. The male AI is definitely better than the computer sounding female. A real narrator might cost more money but it’s absolutely worth it. I positively recommend this book.

Surprisingly Great Narration For AI

I've been interested in this book for a long time but was put off by the "narration autogenerated by AI" note in the book details. But when I ran out of other things to listen to recently I finally clicked "play", and found myself quickly hooked on the story. I became invested in the plight of Cole and his son Hunter as they raced to gather as much of the life sustaining necessities as they could before society completely collapsed, all while avoiding the throngs of people infected with a deadly virus that makes them friendly and outgoing instead of obviously ill. They, along with the other characters introduced throughout the series, were well written and easy to like, and the story is itself had the right amount of development, suspense, and occasional humor to keep me hooked all the way through to the end of book 3.

I found the concept of the Simpatico virus to be unique and intriguing. Instead of the usual violent, terrifying zombies I'm used to from the other post apocalyptic stories I've read, this virus turns infected people into friendly, happy-go-lucky revelers that just want to party. It reminds me a lot of those species of fungi that take over the brain and muscle control of their victims, overriding their innate tendencies to remain safely hidden and turning them into efficient little spore factories. It makes me shudder to imagine a virus that was bioengineered to do something similar in humans.

As for the narration, while it was obviously AI generated, it was still some of the most natural sounding AI generated content I've ever heard. Rather than the cold, robotic voice I was expecting, the pacing and inflection sounded surprisingly normal. It certainly can't replace a real human narrator but it wasn't awful either, and didn't detract too much from my overall enjoyment of the story.

it was beleivable.

The writing was good. There was a beginning and end. sit was not over done.