Toxicity

By: Aiden James, Fiona Fraser

Narrated by: Timothy McKean

In the tradition of The Stand, The Man in the High Castle, and The Road comes an epic story of struggle against tyranny in a future America....

The year is 2141. Islam controls most of the civilized world, including all that exists of the former United States. Climate change has made fresh drinking water a scarce and valuable commodity. Islamic states that once controlled oil now control the largest fresh water deposit in the world, the American Great Lakes.

Washington, D.C., and New York City are mere memories of the old world as a new regime of Caliphs has ruled the eastern half of the country for the past century. The barren no-man's-land east of the Mississippi River is but an encroaching desert, and the realm of the Great Lakes - known as Al-hayat Miyaah - dictates life for the rest of the realm.

Jihadic allegiance and the Lakes' bounty decide a person's worth, where clean, drinkable water is far more precious than gold... and more valuable than the lives of infidels.

In this hostile environment, Joaquin Martinez and six others risk certain death as fugitives crossing state lines to reclaim loved ones stolen from Hernando, Mississippi, and sold into slavery in Detroit. Meanwhile, survivalist Malcolm Foster and his daughter Renee begin a journey to Kentucky with other survivalists hoping to strike a blow to the Muslim empire. Lastly, in the heart of Al-hayat Miyaah, the youngest son of the Caliph, Abdul-Bari, sets out on a quest to determine the truth about infidels... their worthiness of scorn and indiscriminate death.

Much is at stake for them all, as a crossing of paths determines who inevitably is destined to win... and who must lose everything.

©2016 Aiden James (P)2017 Timothy McKean/Aiden James

Scary!

Originally selected this book due to Narration by Timothy McKean (love his work!) and glad I did! Great story and more than just a little scary. Well written and action packed from start to finish. Definite page turner. Makes me wonder if this could someday be in our future. Those that control the water control the people. Gone are regular politics. I highly recommend!

Too long and slow.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

From the synopsis, I was afraid that this is going to be a "Muslim bad, christian good" book. Thankfully it isn't. There are good people and there are bad people on both sides. There is a good plot and well built characters. But there are a few issues with this book -

1) It is waaay too long. The author did need to spend some time in world building since an explanation is needed on how the world became this way. But beyond that too, way too much time is dedicated in world/character building and fillers that didn't quite need to be there. Listening to it became a chore and I was extremely bored for a large part.

2) The narration was monotonous. No voice acting.

3) Story commits the crime of "rescue conveniently appears" trope.

4) There are no central character to follow or root for. All the different story-line being followed got difficult to keep track of.

A better editing of the book to make it more compact and fast paced would've helped it tremendously.

How could the performance have been better?

This is a long book and listening to this narration was unpleasant. As another reviewer mentioned, the narrator read the book, didn't perform it. There were no voice affliction or acting. It was very monotonous.

Any additional comments?

I received this audiobook for free from the author / narrator / publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

Frighteningly Real But Not Perfect

The year is 2141. Islam controls most of the civilized world, including all that exists of the former United States. Climate change has made fresh drinking water a scarce, and valuable, commodity. Islamic states that once controlled the oil now control the largest fresh water deposit in the world, the American Great Lakes.

I always worry about starting a book that is this long. The print version comes in at a whopping 548 pages. A lot of times books that are this long would benefit from a few things - and editor that isn't scared to tell the author to delete things, turning it into a "series" (splitting it up), or cutting out some of the unnecessary "building" pieces. I know that comparing a book to Stephen King is a compliment, but in my eyes, it isn't always. King will write 5 pages on what the inside of a diner looks like when all we need is 1-2 paragraphs. This book fell into the last category for sure and probably could have been cut into at least 2 stories. Ironically in the description, it compares itself to a Stephen King novel -- so maybe I'm crazy for thinking that it's a bad thing.

The biggest thing that I got out of this book was that it was very realistic and because of that, it was incredibly frightening. I like when a story can feel original and unique like this. I just wish that it had been a little shorter or less wordy.

The narration itself took away from this book too. I don't like to talk badly about narrator since I know that the craft is incredibly difficult and this is just my opinion, but it was a little too monotone for me. There wasn't a lot of "storytelling" inflection and voice changes (in a story that needed it).

Overall, a book that I liked and disliked all the same. I think if you are a Stephen King fan you would enjoy this. If you don't like the way that King writes you might want to avoid it.

I was voluntarily provided with a copy of this book. It has not affected my review in any way.

Toxicity

I loved the way this story began to relay a frightening future for the world. I got angry at the right places and I was very interested to see how it would play out. I had some ideas, but not one of them was correct. That was nice. I kind of felt for the protagonists as they came and went. I wanted justice as they did. I wanted vindication as they did. And then I got to a point where it became moot for me. I could have gone either way. That was bad.

It is hard for me to explain, but when listening to the audio book it felt lackluster and contrived. The characters were not great, the dialog predictable. The result of the various ill-advised confrontations and voyages was ridiculous most of the time. I don't know, overall it was just not my cup of tea. I may go back and read it again myself sometime to see if my impression is different instead of listening to the audio book version.

This book was given to me for free at my request for my voluntary and unbiased review.

What might happen?

The world continues on its present course for 120 years. What might happen? Toxicity gives us one answer. If you disturbed by religious or political strife, put off by talk of climate change and what it could mean, then don’t read this book. An imaginative prophesy of things to come is presented in an interesting story filled with realistic characters, logical and mostly believable action, and creative setting. The language is harsh and realistic. Timothy McKean gives a clear and careful performance that kept me coming back for more.

I was given this free review copy audiobook and have voluntarily left this review.