Edge of Collapse

By: Alex Gunwick

Narrated by: Kevin Meyer

Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

Luke is four hundred miles away from home when the first bomb drops. In seconds, his routine business trip becomes a nightmarish struggle to survive. After narrowly escaping a nuclear explosion in San Francisco, the Navy SEAL must travel through a world without rule of law. Relying on his skills and the items in his Bug Out Bag, he fights an epic battle as he struggles to get home. Nothing will stop him from getting back to his family. As his resources run out, his resourcefulness kicks in. His family's depending on him and he won't let them down-even if it means leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

Liz can't believe they're under attack. At first, it seems like things won't be too bad. Yet within hours, it seems like the whole world's gone crazy. With communication lines down, she's unable to reach her husband, Luke. Getting her kids to their Bug Out Location won't be easy, but she's determined to make it. It's well stocked and safely tucked away in a canyon. But as people begin to flee the cities, a new darkness spreads across America. Her struggle to survive rips apart her core values and forces her to examine what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a survivor.

American Fallout is a thrilling post-apocalyptic survival prepper EMP fiction series that makes you step back and ask: Could this happen tomorrow? What would happen if the world's nuclear arsenal was unleashed? What would you do if it happened while you were away from home? And how would your family survive?

©2017 Brywood Press (P)2017 Brywood Press

This was an incredibly bad book.

I love apocalyptic genre books and this one had great reviews so I grabbed it. Painful mistake. So bad. Nuke goes of 40 miles away and the characters are talking about how cute Johnny is, what kind of pizza to eat and whether or not the washing machine will still work for a quick load. I'm paraphrasing to convey how really bad the character dialogue is. At least the "acting" of the narrator was equally bad, sort of complimenting the script. I hate leaving a bad review, but this is just not a 4 or 5 star book and you deserve to know that beforehand.

9 people found this helpful

Good premise but poorly executed

About half way through the book but a lot of issues popped up so far. The 13 year old not only acts like a 6 year old but is also treated like a 6 year old. The 18 year old college girl is more like a 16 year old. The writer apparently has been infected with California politic about guns. The Writers depiction of people’s reaction is rather laughable. In one act the lead character is attacked by convicts that escaped a prison. He runs one down while being attacked. Yet he is worried about being arrested for murder. This doesn’t make much sense to me. Anyways story is good but just not very well executed.

7 people found this helpful

bad

The storyline was so bad, the characters were extremely hard to believe, if the main character was a Navy SEAL he was sure a poor one.

5 people found this helpful

Feels like the author missed a lot of research

1. "Your signal is 5 by 9". Maybe it says 5 by 5 in the book, but there is no higher number than 5 on a signal report.
2. "My call sign is W7SHTF". While funny to have a "S*** Hit The Fan" callsign, it isn't valid in the united states for an Amateur Radio License.
3. A Navy Seal, even with years behind him after Retiring or ETS, has lifelong situational awareness. He gets jumped nearly back to back by surprise, really?
4. Again, a Navy Seal, having already told the reader people have lost their minds awefully fast, continues to pack his primary firearm away from reach to be outgunned and/or unprepared for 'the bad guy' more than once?

The mother, daughter, and son seem more realistic in their situations: son being a 'smart but not', daughter trying to be her own person, mother being protective, etc. Those parts are good. If you forget he's Navy Seal and don't know anything about Amateur radio, you'll probably not be bothered by any of my issues.

1 person found this helpful

Loser

Ok this is the first book in 30 years that I have stopped half way through. It is in the genre that I have been immersed in for the last 4 years; post apocalypse fiction. The book starts out with the nuking of Los Angeles and San Francisco. The book does not say who did it and the characters in the book don't care or are not interested. It revolves around a family in which the father is an ardent prepper but his wife and children could care less. In fact, they are so imbecilic and lethargic I start to wish they would get what is usually served up to morons in books like this.

Having been to California many times and having friends over there I naturally have a very low regard for their intelligence. Well, they sure lived up to their stereotypes. The teenagers at college are completely unmoved that major cities close to them had been bombed by countries unknown. They continue to go about their insect life of eating and fornicating. No reason to cancel the nightly dormitory party. No reason to stop raping the clueless girls. Wow if this is how they are then whoever nuked them did us all a favor.

What made me stop in the middle of the book was the choice of villains. Who could the nastiest people in California actually be? Well naturally it was the evil Christians. Well this was the final straw to this idiotic book. Maybe in the future they can make a movie out of it and it could be a sort of Rocky Horror picture show with crowd participation in order to make it funny and interesting which in the present format it is not.

Avoid at all cost!

1 person found this helpful

People are not that stupid.

Survival would put you in a different frame of mind and not behave as the characters in this book. Comments and observations of the characters was not believable.

1 person found this helpful

Great start

Can't wait for the next book. Great characters, good story. Makes you think about what you would do in the same situation.

1 person found this helpful

Narrator Made it Bearable

The narrator made this book bearable.
I really like this genre. This is one of the worst that I've listened to. (1) There is no attempt to educate the reader on disaster preparedness (directly or by example; (2) There is nothing unique about this story - it follows your typical prepper story template; (3) The characters are terrible and poorly developed;
Usually prepper books attempt to educate readers on disaster preparedness. This book does not. In fact, the prepper characters are very poorly prepared. They purchase a cabin, but seem to only have rice and beans stocked. They note that game is plentiful, but no one hunts or fishes. They sit at home for days after the bombs hit until things are so bad that they almost can't get to their cabin.
There is nothing unique about this story. Bomb hits. Father is on a trip and must make the journey home. Mother and kids go to their cabin where, evidently, they only have rice and beans and no one seems to know how to hunt of catch fish, "Evil Preacher" wants what mother and kids have. You can fill in the rest.
Finally, the characters are poorly developed and not at all likable. We know nothing about Luke except what he does. The closest we come to developing this character is when he helps out an older couple on his way home. (By the way - we do know from the opening scene that he's a bit unstable - before the disaster, he attempts to reach for his gun when someone accidentally bumps into him in an airport.) Liz is very uninformed for a supposedly avid prepper's wife and constantly makes poor decisions. (She's also a bit unstable - shooting and killing a man just because he walks up to her door at night. Yes, he ended up being a "bad man", but for all she knew, it could have been a neighbor looking for help). The 18 year old daughter acts like a 13 year old and, like her mother, every decision is a bad one and puts her and her family in danger (seeing a pattern on the women?). The 13 year old son acts like a 5 year old and does nothing but whine, complain, and watch movies. And of course the "evil" guy is a preacher.
Like I said, the narrator is not bad and is the only reason I gave the book 2 stars overall..

The Californians (In the SNL voice)

Half the book sounds like the SNL skit “you take the 405 to the 5 to the 33 to the 8”.
Long story short Los Angeles gets nuked and no one actually gives a crap. I mean seriously I’ve never seen such nonchalant characters in all my life. Our ex Navy SEAL has the situational awareness of a three toed sloth. Even though they try to make the SEAL’s wife a strong woman she comes off as paranoid as a coked out government employee. The daughter is just a waste of valuable oxygen. Then of course there’s the stereo typical religious nut job. I honestly just can’t get behind this book. It’s just my opinion however.

Good story, well read

I liked the characters and their unique situations. While there was some Prepper equipment description it wasn’t over done. I believe the use of a Navy Seal as the principle character is getting overdone, the story moves at a good pace.

☺

I like this audio book i got to give it 5 out of 5 😊