The Last Survivors

A Dystopian Society in a Post Apocalyptic World

By: Bobby Adair, T.W. Piperbrook

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Survival in Man’s Second Dark Age

Three hundred years after the fall of society, the last fragments of civilization are clinging to life, living in the ruins of the ancient cities in nearly-medieval conditions. Technology has been reduced to legend, monsters roam the forests, and fear reigns supreme. But that is just the beginning...

The wind-borne spores are spreading, disfiguring men and twisting their minds, turning them into creatures that threaten to destroy the townships. Among the townsfolk, political and the religious, dissension is spreading.

Through it all, a mother must protect her son...

©2014 Bobby Adair & T.W. Piperbrook (P)2014 Bobby Adair & T.W. Piperbrook

Since this was a collaboration, I worried

I couldn’t wait to get started on The Last Survivors when I found out who the authors were. T.W. Piperbrook and Bobby Adair couldn’t write a bad book if they tried and together, I thought they would be unstoppable. Post-apocalyptic stories are by far my favorite and when you throw zombies into the mix, well, let’s just say I was kind of excited.

I went into this book with absolutely no knowledge of what it was about, other than the book description. 300 years after the end of the world, the few people left on Earth are struggling to survive. People are being turned into monsters and nobody is happy. As I listened to the book, I expected to hear a little more about the spores but I was disappointed. It took awhile for the action to build and I felt the story lacked some much-needed character development. However, Adair and Piperbrook left the ending wide open for the next book in the series and although I wasn’t as blown away by this story as I hoped to be, it has a lot of potential and I am looking forward to the next part.

Since this was a collaboration, I worried that each author’s part would be easy to pick out and I’m happy to say I was wrong. It was hard to determine which author wrote which part and it flowed seamlessly.

The audio quality of The Last Survivors was excellent. The narrator, Sean Runette, speaks clearly and adds the right amount of tension to every scene. I’m sorry to say I had never heard of this narrator before being given the opportunity to review this book, but he impressed me so much, I will definitely be seeking out more of his work.

Overall, The Last Survivors didn’t go where I expected it to go. It was a little slow in spots but was good enough to leave me curious about the next part of the story. If post-apocalyptic stories are your thing, I urge you to give The Last Survivors a try.

Audiobook purchased for review by the ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

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Another superb book from two talented authors.

This could have been just another zombie apocalypse book but as always these two authors have created something unique. It's very reminiscent of the computer game called the Last of Us in some ways and yet thankfully so much more. I can't wait to listen to the sequel when they release it.

Intriuiguing

I bought the series largely because I enjoyed Piperbrook's other books. I'd never read Adair before. The puritanical characterization of society in a post-apocalyptic world is absolutely fascinating. It also properly reflects the human tendency to return to the morally-questionable familiar (much like we did in this year's election). Strong female characters always appeal to me and serves the story well. The narration is so-so. Mr. Runnette tends to simply read the story with minimal inflection or emotion. It can be droning, so I've switched between reading (on Kindle) and listening. Still, I'm excited to see what the next chapter brings!

Awesome post apocalyptic saga

loved the narrative, I could feel the emotions: anxiety, fright, helplessness, anger from main character Ella

I feel like this is the first part of one book.

I love the narrator. I am unhappy with the authors spitting this book up. it feels like a cheap soap opera ending. Leaving me feeling unsatisfied.

Fresh look at a post apocalyptic world

I really enjoyed this book. It had good pacing and the narration was excellent. it is shorter than other books I am used to but the story continues over for other books. it ends on a cliffhanger, but at the moment, Amazon has a great deal to buy the rest of the kindle books in a bundle with audio narrations for a great price.
It sort of reminds me of The Passage By David Croning, but mercifully, it stay in one time period and with far less characters to keep track of.

One story

I have listened to the first two books of this series and I enjoy them. Except I feel they are telling one story over a number of books. They have a cliffhanger at the end of both books which helps the listener get into the next book but I expect some part of the story to resolve at the end of each book as well. It feels like the authors decided they have written enough for a book, found an exciting spot and sent it in to the publisher.

terrible lisp

I hate to sound like a jerk, but the narrators wood teeth lisp really killed this for me.

Narrator Saved It!

I doubt I would have finished this book if anyone other than Sean Runnette were narrating it. The book is well written. It's hard, for me, to listen to a book where women are held in so little regard and religious men so highly. I am glad I stuck it out to the end.

Cordycept Apocalypses

This first book was alright. Nothing surprising. As usual in most stories like this the people are worse than the monsters. I will try the second book but I may stop there. I just don't think there had been much development for the characters for me to care about them.