Afterlife

By: Marcus Sakey

Narrated by: Finty Williams

Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

Soon to be a major motion picture from Imagine Entertainment and producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.

Between life and death lies an epic war, a relentless manhunt through two worlds...and an unforgettable love story.

The last thing FBI agent Will Brody remembers is the explosion - a thousand shards of glass surfing a lethal shock wave.

He wakes without a scratch.

The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He's relieved to spot other people - until he sees they're carrying machetes.

Welcome to the afterlife.

Claire McCoy stands over the body of Will Brody. As head of an FBI task force, she hasn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. A terrorist has claimed eighteen lives and thrown the nation into panic.

Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love...with Will Brody.

But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect - and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.

From the author of the million-copy bestselling Brilliance Trilogy comes a mind-bending thriller that explores our most haunting and fundamental question: What if death is just the beginning?

©2017 Marcus Sakey. (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Creative but too complex

I have liked other Sakey novels more than this one.

Though the story theme is very creative, I thought the various elements of the story were a little drawn out and difficult to follow. In addition, I thought a few the subplots were a bit overdone. I had a hard time deciding if the general feel of the novel was sci-fi suspense or romance.

Finally, I think Ms. Williams is an excellent performer with a lot of age, gender and situational range. However, I thought casting a colonial English - accented performer to represent primarily 2 American FBI characters may not of been the best fit.

Nonetheless, I'm glad I listened to the book and will listen to Sakey and/or Finty Williams again.

26 of 28 people found this review helpful

The Cullens Meet Gozer the Gozerian, Then...

*It's a love story...it's an epic war in an alternate world...*

Amazon's *Best of the Month* books are killing me this month. I've had three *Definitely Not's* and here is an *At Your Own Risk.*
There are 3 reviews here while I write my own and I agree with all 3 of them: too complex, should've been edited way down, and the narration is middle ground at best.

But before I whittled away the stars, Afterlife started out strong and Sakey's writing had me thrilled with the choice. The beginning is an example of fantastic writing as Sakey sets up an ancient history of a mysterious being and the eventual corruption of his soul. Interesting premise, strong narrative with good forward projection and great pacing, characters I liked and wanted to stay with for the coming 12 hours. At least for the first 3-4 of those hours, I was thinking Amazon got it right with this one. I detected a faint David Mitchell vibe with the focus on an event that takes place in multi-dimensional planes. As the summary reveals, the protagonist (FBI Agent Will Brody) is killed in an explosion. It takes him a while to come to grips with that fact as he wanders through an alternate world inhabiting a spectral plane of the exact world he just exited. I started to think of the movie Ghost...Patrick Swayze saving his earthbound love, hearing Unchained Melody in my head.

Then, the *Eaters* swoop in; there were good Pro-After-Life Eaters and the Soul-Sucking bad Eaters which set up a fun dynamic on this increasingly weird astral plane. Sakey's writing stayed strong, maybe a little too much going on in Will's head, but the story still intriguing and inventive and the author seemed to have control over the chaos. But then, the bad Eaters go after the good Eaters and I started to think of Twilight -- the good Cullen vampires vs. the evil Volturi...which sent a little bit of a warning blare to my head, but not enough to discourage me continuing with the story. It was about this point where I had to wonder if the author still had control of the chaos.

Then, all Hell breaks loose -- at least I think it was Hell -- but in Sakey's construct of afterlife, I'm not so sure if it was Hell or Beetlejuice's world outside of the Maitland's house. The writing I'd thought was so good in the beginning now felt like the editor had given up. Characters became exponentially more surreal, and the tidy lines between worlds blurred into obscurity. Creatures materialize out of the ether I started to think of Gozer the Gozarian before she does a backflip off the Chrysler building and morphs into Mr. Stay Puft.

It's a fun tug that pulls you in and holds you in this author's crazy world until it becomes a riptide and complete overload. As the story heated up on the *meta* level, the writing seemed to loosen and the author lost control of the chaos. It gets crazy, weird, outrageous...and then Sakey wraps it all up in an uncreative sappy finish that had me thinking, *Maybe not such a good book, but this would make a terrific movie!*

Then, I read: *Soon to be a major motion picture from Imagine Entertainment and producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.* As far as recommending...I don't know. You're on your own with this one, but Ron Howard and Brian Grazer have a pretty good record. Maybe they're better predictors of a hit than this Audible customer.

48 of 53 people found this review helpful

50 shades of wish it was more interesting

The idea was great. The execution was not. The rules of the afterlife were neat at first but it really dragged. The villans of the story too cartoony. The worst part was all the cheesy love and sex scenes that were mixed in and felt completely out of place and pervy. Those parts were completely awful and cheesy. Very disappointed. Brilliance this was not.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Wrong Category

This probably should be in the romance section. Seems like sex is the primary theme.

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

Dark

I didn't personally care for the story. there was a lot of wondering around on other planes of existence. I had a hard time picturing them.

I think that it should have had an American narator. As an American, the accent wasn't quite right and many times disappeared. the characters are all from the US, so why would you use a narrator with a British accent?

18 of 22 people found this review helpful

droned on and on

way too long of a story with no real basis or point. couldn't wait for it to be over but didn't want to waste the money I threw away on it

9 of 11 people found this review helpful

Weird Sci Fi

Would you try another book from Marcus Sakey and/or Finty Williams?

If you like weird, strange Sci-Fi you might like this book. I could only get half way through it.

What was most disappointing about Marcus Sakey’s story?

In the Afterlife there was still good and bad but also the weird.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointed

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Hated the book

Would you try another book from Marcus Sakey and/or Finty Williams?

Not after this one

What was most disappointing about Marcus Sakey’s story?

Really liked previous books and looked forward to this one (bought on the release date). Story was inconsistent and disbelief unsuspendable.

How could the performance have been better?

Use a narrator whose native language was not UK English. Sometimes the non characterized voicing was difficult to understand.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No.

Any additional comments?

Could have eliminated the explicit sex.

11 of 14 people found this review helpful

Mixed feelings about story and narrator

Initially I struggled to get into the story, but after awhile it kind of grabbed me and I had to finish it. part of my struggle had to do with the fact that the narrator is British and the story takes place in Chicago an area with a very distinctive accent, which is far from the British accent displayed by the narrator. I struggled a bit wondering were there no Chicago actors or actresses that could have narrated the story? as I continue listening however, I did become accustomed to her voice and it no longer was a distraction. The narrator did a very good job telling the story

I struggled with the story itself, as well. I wasn't prepared for the nihilistic, dystopian portrayal of the afterlife and what I would call the life between the lives. however I'm beginning to realize that the story is similar to Harry Potter and his sons regarding the battle between good and evil. I think I may have enjoyed it more had I approached it from that perspective, rather than what I had anticipated to be a story about reincarnation. Once I was able to get myself in the mode of reading horror or fantasy, along the lines of Stephen King, or Harry Potter, shen I began to really enjoy the story. it's sort of a detective novel meets Stephen King and Harry Potter to solve a mystery and a crime, with a bit of fantasy mixed in.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Just get it!

I could think of nothing but finishing this book. Now that it's over, I am going to have to do laundry which sucks, but I think it's important that I acknowledge that even if it was something I really wanted to do, I probably would listen to this book instead. It's original, addictive, and so worth it... even if I have to wear bikini bottoms.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful