FUBAR: Blackout

By: Harry Carpenter

Narrated by: Michael Penate

Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

From the preface:

"As I mounted the m249 machine gun against my shoulder, I felt the weight of the entire weapon. I had never really had the opportunity to fire one of these bad boys before, but by god, there was a first for everything. I flipped the safety selector switch, removing the weapon from safe. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, knowing time was of the essence. I reopened them, steadied my breathing as I squeezed softly on the trigger. I fired small round bursts into the crowd of these things. I barely knew how to work one of these because my military career thus far has been magazine-fed weapons. I prayed to whoever was listening for the belt to remain free with no snag. I continued to three to five-round burst my way to the base exchange. The good news: these things were going down with regular ammo. The bad news: I don’t know if I have enough ammo for all of them."

Imagine waking up to your entire world being FUBAR....

Iraq, 2010. Army Specialist Jason Chantry was at his wit's end with a complacent, dull deployment. That all changed for him on a fateful night. Blood, bodies, and destruction as far as the eye could see. Chantry and his fellow squad members were admin, not door-kicking infantrymen! Together, they'll scream, shoot, and, did we mention scream? They'll get their way to wherever they can figure is safe by any means necessary.

Part one of an epic four-book series, Blackout is only the start of what's to come.

As a former soldier in the United States Army, Harry always found discrepancies with non-military or non-law enforcement writers trying to write their assessment on what it feels like to be in the middle of turmoil. Harry worked hard to ensure accuracy with every aspect of the military, only having to worry about injecting monsters into the story. Every detail was considered. The camaraderie. The smell of the country. The feel of the recoil of a weapon. The taste of fear.

As heard about on Others May Fall podcast!

©2020 Harry Carpenter (P)2020 Harry Carpenter

A Fast-Paced Sci-Fi Military Story

The beginning of this story reads like another military story. But once the inciting incident reveals itself, the reader is off to quite a ride from the point of view of the protagonist, Army Specialist Jason Chantry. Chantry is a run-of-the-mill nothing special sort of character who complains too much and sees the world through a very witty, sarcastic lens. He hates his job and he hates being here, but suddenly he's placed on the path to lead his squad in a shooting frenzy battle against monsters.

Harry Carpenter's cast of characters range from nerdy video game players to gritty, battle tested special ops types, with a strong female lead to boot. With the number of characters involved, it would truly be a challenge to bring these to life for an audiobook. Michael Penate, in his debut reading, does a marvelous job of bringing each of these characters to life.

All in all, I was truly entertained by this little story, and truly look forward to listening to the next book in the series. Fans of 90s action flicks, third person shooter video games, and B-movie science fiction films will love Harry Carpenter's wit and writing style in this little romp through the wilds of Iraq infested with the remnants of a science experience gone terribly wrong.

Military Sci-Fi

This book had some great perspectives, not what I thought it was going to be.
I'm looking forward to additional installments of the story.

I received a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an unbiased review.

It’s not a video game!

We find our intrepid soldiers on tour in Iran. The soldier on point sees something move but it is definitely not normal. WTF! Are our boys in a video game or is this shit for real? Monsters? We didn’t sign up for this shit. Had an experiment gone wrong? Where did these things come from? Stay tuned as we follow our boys through hell. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

A pretty good sci-fi horror story

You have here all the ingredients of a classic grade b horror sci-fi story/movie. We’ve got the troops, we’ve got the remote inhospitable location, we’ve got the skitter critters, we have all the action, battles, blood and gore and conspiracy theories one could want in a story. So why not five stars all around? I enjoyed it, I’d recommend it, I just had a harder time than normal connecting to the characters which is the reason I had to knock a star off. The monsters are great and have some cool variants. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

Good!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
This was a pretty good story, very much a military style sci fi story. It feels a bit like the Resident Evil books. Lots of action, blood and gore. The narrator was pretty good and nailed it on the characters.