What do you think?
Rate this book
Chrysalis #2
Post-Apocalyptic
A former PI turned postman. A missing child. Can he deliver her home before it’s too late?
Trent Macadamia just wants to forget. Following last year’s revelation, Mac finds himself lost in drink and abandoned by those he fought alongside. But when a mysterious woman comes to him with a new case, he must decide what’s more important, staying safe or staying sane.
Returning to London and seeking out old friends, Mac discovers a living underbelly to the city stranger than he ever thought could exist. Can he unite new allies with a secret underground army run by old friends? Or will the ruthless dictators of humanity bury the truth along with him?
Post-Apocalyptic is the second story in C J Powell's humour packed sci-fi / fantasy Chrysalis series. A fast paced adventure through the over and underground of England filled with hilarious moments, conspiracy theory satire, and Everyman heroes standing up for what's right.
Trent Macadamia just wants to forget. Following last year’s revelation, Mac finds himself lost in drink and abandoned by those he fought alongside. But when a mysterious woman comes to him with a new case, he must decide what’s more important, staying safe or staying sane.
Returning to London and seeking out old friends, Mac discovers a living underbelly to the city stranger than he ever thought could exist. Can he unite new allies with a secret underground army run by old friends? Or will the ruthless dictators of humanity bury the truth along with him?
Post-Apocalyptic is the second story in C J Powell's humour packed sci-fi / fantasy Chrysalis series. A fast paced adventure through the over and underground of England filled with hilarious moments, conspiracy theory satire, and Everyman heroes standing up for what's right.
Unknown Binding
10 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
C.J. Powell
6 books70 followersHi, I'm Chris. I write fun science fiction mysteries and thrillers set in the real world with lots of humour.
Sign up to my mailing list to find out about offers and deals and occasionally receive a free novel!
Find more at my website - https://www.cjpowellauthor.com
You can follow me on social media...
Tik Tok / Instagram / facebook -@cjpowellauthor
A little about me...
I enjoy authors such as Jeff Vandermeer, Blake Crouch, and P G Wodehouse.
My favourite films are Alien and The Fifth Element.
I live with my wife and daughter and enjoy retro computer games, pretty much all science fiction movies, and if I ever get the opportunity I love to rock climb. I also play bass most weeks in a rocking wedding band.
Sign up to my mailing list to find out about offers and deals and occasionally receive a free novel!
Find more at my website - https://www.cjpowellauthor.com
You can follow me on social media...
Tik Tok / Instagram / facebook -@cjpowellauthor
A little about me...
I enjoy authors such as Jeff Vandermeer, Blake Crouch, and P G Wodehouse.
My favourite films are Alien and The Fifth Element.
I live with my wife and daughter and enjoy retro computer games, pretty much all science fiction movies, and if I ever get the opportunity I love to rock climb. I also play bass most weeks in a rocking wedding band.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 10, 2022
You would think that saving London and possibly the world would be noteworthy at the very least, but with shadowy forces, misinformation, clickbait and a general sense of apathy one man's heroic moment are soon lost and consigned to the conspiracy theory groups. A fact that weighs on the cricket bat-wielding once private eye/bounty hunter Trent Macadamia more than he likes to admit. One part was annoyed at not being fêted a hero another part wished to stay as far away from the 'Guardians' as possible. Working as a postman by day, living at home with his mum and drinking himself into a stupor every night to avoid the nightmares. His time in London and its madcap adventures seem so far away. That is until an attractive young woman shows up wanting to hire him as a PI. Reluctantly Trent agrees and is soon disappearing down the rabbit hole again.
This is the sequel to the wonderful debut novel A More Perfect Human and part of The Chrysalis series and it more than lives up to its forerunner.... fast-paced and full to the brim with both humour and action this book rockets along, set once again in a London of the near future this book has a wider expansive feel and it is great to not only meet new characters but see them interact with the old gang.... my favourite still being Spooney Phil. You Would need to read the first book in the series and I highly recommend you do so as both books are so good and so fun, another 5-star read.
This is the sequel to the wonderful debut novel A More Perfect Human and part of The Chrysalis series and it more than lives up to its forerunner.... fast-paced and full to the brim with both humour and action this book rockets along, set once again in a London of the near future this book has a wider expansive feel and it is great to not only meet new characters but see them interact with the old gang.... my favourite still being Spooney Phil. You Would need to read the first book in the series and I highly recommend you do so as both books are so good and so fun, another 5-star read.
October 25, 2023
I am seriously loving this series. I don’t know if it’s possible not to. It’s the perfect blend of humour, action, sci-if and some really out there imaginative fantasy. What’s NOT to love. CJ Powell makes it easy to dislike those you shouldn’t like, and feel good about those you should. I am enjoying his writing style immensely. Sad thing now is I don’t have a book 3 to start tomorrow. Excuse me whilst I get a tissue.
July 15, 2025
An excellent sequel! Exciting, tense, funny - some genuinely laugh out loud moments. I really did not want to put this one down. I hope book three in the series is available soon. I need to know what happens to Mac, Terra, and the gang 😊
January 19, 2025
This is a terrific read. I loved the development of the story from the first book, especially when world shaking events are discounted, you have to go on as best you can. For our hero it's going home to his mum in Ripley, Surrey and becoming the village postman and drowning his memories at the local pub every night. But Trent is made of better stuff, he's a hero, and when approached by the girl of his dreams to find her brother he gives it his all. This is a really good sci-fi read. It's well written, well plotted, and truly excellent fun. I laughed out loud quite a few times and chuckled to myself often. My one criticism is that it rambled a bit in the middle, a bit too much about training the Angel army in the hotel, descriptions of derelict buildings etc, I'm just saying it could have been tighter. I loved Lily's story and the fish fingers! Keep up the good work, and I am looking forward to reading the next installment as great things are required of young Trent Macadamia
January 20, 2025
This is a terrific read. I loved the development of the story from the first book especially when world shaking events are discounted, you have to go on as best you can. For our hero it's going home to his mum in Ripley, Surrey and becoming the village postman and drowning his memories at the local pub every night. But Trent is made of better stuff, he's a hero, and when approached by the girl of his dreams to find her brother he gives it his all. This is a really good sci-fi read. It's well written, well plotted and truly excellent fun. I laughed out loud quite a few times and chuckled to myself often. My one criticism is that it rambled a bit in the middle, a bit too much about training the Angel army in the hotel, descriptions of derelict buildings etc, I'm just saying it could have been tighter. I loved Lily's story and the fish fingers! Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to reading the next installment as great things are required of young Trent Macadamia
November 2, 2023
Post-Apocalyptic
C J Powell has really expanded on the 1st Chrysalis book. Once again Mac finds himself fighting against The Guardians alongside former allies. Mac has returned to his childhood home when he is approached by a mysterious (aren’t they always) young woman who wants his help to find her lost brother who has been believed to be dead for some twenty years. What follows is a rolllicking adventure that tests Mac to his limits and beyond.
We need more people like Mac, Everyman heroes who despite their misgivings step up when they have to.
What we also want are more stories in C J’s Chrysalis series.
C J Powell has really expanded on the 1st Chrysalis book. Once again Mac finds himself fighting against The Guardians alongside former allies. Mac has returned to his childhood home when he is approached by a mysterious (aren’t they always) young woman who wants his help to find her lost brother who has been believed to be dead for some twenty years. What follows is a rolllicking adventure that tests Mac to his limits and beyond.
We need more people like Mac, Everyman heroes who despite their misgivings step up when they have to.
What we also want are more stories in C J’s Chrysalis series.
February 26, 2023
Dark beginnings make sick and twisted endings…
As we start off our latest adventure, Powell's perfect prose (always avoid alliteration) just makes his story flow like finely microwaved margarine. Even the depressingly and dreadfully morose and exceedingly British opening is absolutely divinely formulated. And Trent Macadamia - former PI, current small town postie when our story opens - is the perfect foil for the near-future kingdom wallowing in self-pity and self-wrought decline and debauchery. Twenty-six years of physical age, his inner voice sounds more like the grumbling mutterings of someone a half-century older (at least)! I just wish we had a pub within 20 miles of my home so I could go have a really good wallow, a decent pint of lager and a quiet corner in which to commiserate with our dear protagonist!
This is just a blip in the great tale of Trent Macadamia.
But things aren't all doom and gloom. There's also a mystery to solve! Which of course only causes, well, more doom and gloom! Naturally a degree of weirdness begins to creep in - or swoop in more aptly said - and so we're off again. It was about this stage that I noticed two things: first, I really wish I had re-read Book 1 prior to continuing on with this one. There are just some situations - and especially main players - that I couldn't recall as well as needed. And, secondly, for some odd reason, Powell's previously mentioned flowing prose seems to take a bit of a break once we reach London. Things get a little choppy which just, again, struck me as a tad off. But it does return, thank goodness, even triumphantly as it were. Hm, thinking about it now - and how it goes back and forth again a few times - maybe it was all just meant to increase the tension, especially, you know, when things happen. But what do I know, I'm just a reviewer, right?
He reaches for his wits, to gather them safely around him, but they fucked off ages ago.
Anyway, did I mention things get weird? Yeah, I think that's a given for this series (is it?). Maybe it's just what's going to follow Mac around wherever he goes or does or who he meets and so on. It's just one minute HE seems so normal and the next, well, the world around him is anything but. Kind of like the weather in late February (he joked, nodding towards the read date below and also that it's sunny today but we keep having snow flurries). It's not cyberpunk (thank the gods) or really any kind of scifi that I can put my finger on (or in, who knows how it'll work in the near future?), but it is defo bizarro!
Her brief smile is like quality dish soap cutting through the burnt-on cheese of his depression.
I did enjoy that this story has a decidedly different feel to it to the first one. Don't get me wrong: the first book was awesome, but I also like when writers keep you on your toes! In this case, there's not as much… grittiness? but there is an awesome degree of magic, wonder, shock and danger, just to name a few. Maybe the original story was more scifi and this is more fantasy? I'm not sure. Like Mac said at one point, “I think I’ve been pushed a little over my limit today." What it clearly is, however, is fascinating, even if there are some VERY DARK messages hidden within, especially from things happening to our CURRENT day world! Up for a "no cuts to the NHS!" protest anyone?
Why risk helping someone you don’t know, someone you’ve been taught to blame for your society’s ills? It’s mainly the old, the disabled who are affected.
But now that I'm truly at the end of not only this book but my overall review-ready reflection (hee hee) on same, I think I do want to change one of my comments. I don't so much wish I had read the first book prior to starting this one, but I definitely am curious to read the first book again to see how my thoughts and feelings would now be influenced. There's a lot to cogitate on from what happens in this story and it does make me wonder how I'd - oh what's a good word? - approach (meh, it'll have to do) Mac and his friends and especially then his enemies with this new knowledge. Dammit, another book that leaves me thinking long after I'm done with it! Oh well, guess I'll just have to be haunted until the next chapter comes out…
All any of us wants is good cheer, good friends, and love. And that connects us more than any difference. Shouldn’t matter that we don’t look the same.
As we start off our latest adventure, Powell's perfect prose (always avoid alliteration) just makes his story flow like finely microwaved margarine. Even the depressingly and dreadfully morose and exceedingly British opening is absolutely divinely formulated. And Trent Macadamia - former PI, current small town postie when our story opens - is the perfect foil for the near-future kingdom wallowing in self-pity and self-wrought decline and debauchery. Twenty-six years of physical age, his inner voice sounds more like the grumbling mutterings of someone a half-century older (at least)! I just wish we had a pub within 20 miles of my home so I could go have a really good wallow, a decent pint of lager and a quiet corner in which to commiserate with our dear protagonist!
This is just a blip in the great tale of Trent Macadamia.
But things aren't all doom and gloom. There's also a mystery to solve! Which of course only causes, well, more doom and gloom! Naturally a degree of weirdness begins to creep in - or swoop in more aptly said - and so we're off again. It was about this stage that I noticed two things: first, I really wish I had re-read Book 1 prior to continuing on with this one. There are just some situations - and especially main players - that I couldn't recall as well as needed. And, secondly, for some odd reason, Powell's previously mentioned flowing prose seems to take a bit of a break once we reach London. Things get a little choppy which just, again, struck me as a tad off. But it does return, thank goodness, even triumphantly as it were. Hm, thinking about it now - and how it goes back and forth again a few times - maybe it was all just meant to increase the tension, especially, you know, when things happen. But what do I know, I'm just a reviewer, right?
He reaches for his wits, to gather them safely around him, but they fucked off ages ago.
Anyway, did I mention things get weird? Yeah, I think that's a given for this series (is it?). Maybe it's just what's going to follow Mac around wherever he goes or does or who he meets and so on. It's just one minute HE seems so normal and the next, well, the world around him is anything but. Kind of like the weather in late February (he joked, nodding towards the read date below and also that it's sunny today but we keep having snow flurries). It's not cyberpunk (thank the gods) or really any kind of scifi that I can put my finger on (or in, who knows how it'll work in the near future?), but it is defo bizarro!
Her brief smile is like quality dish soap cutting through the burnt-on cheese of his depression.
I did enjoy that this story has a decidedly different feel to it to the first one. Don't get me wrong: the first book was awesome, but I also like when writers keep you on your toes! In this case, there's not as much… grittiness? but there is an awesome degree of magic, wonder, shock and danger, just to name a few. Maybe the original story was more scifi and this is more fantasy? I'm not sure. Like Mac said at one point, “I think I’ve been pushed a little over my limit today." What it clearly is, however, is fascinating, even if there are some VERY DARK messages hidden within, especially from things happening to our CURRENT day world! Up for a "no cuts to the NHS!" protest anyone?
Why risk helping someone you don’t know, someone you’ve been taught to blame for your society’s ills? It’s mainly the old, the disabled who are affected.
But now that I'm truly at the end of not only this book but my overall review-ready reflection (hee hee) on same, I think I do want to change one of my comments. I don't so much wish I had read the first book prior to starting this one, but I definitely am curious to read the first book again to see how my thoughts and feelings would now be influenced. There's a lot to cogitate on from what happens in this story and it does make me wonder how I'd - oh what's a good word? - approach (meh, it'll have to do) Mac and his friends and especially then his enemies with this new knowledge. Dammit, another book that leaves me thinking long after I'm done with it! Oh well, guess I'll just have to be haunted until the next chapter comes out…
All any of us wants is good cheer, good friends, and love. And that connects us more than any difference. Shouldn’t matter that we don’t look the same.
May 6, 2024
Interesting second part
Interesting second part. I really enjoyed the introduction of the underground race, the explanation and mirroring of the society and how it had capitulated to the guardians. I don't think enough explanation was given though to the interaction with the human world.
I also kept finding myself confusing Terry/enki and Nige as the story skipped around a bit more than was sometimes necessary.
I also thought it unesscessary that Max was rejected when he had so much else beating him down to then show the possibility of hope again maybe at the end.
Interesting second part. I really enjoyed the introduction of the underground race, the explanation and mirroring of the society and how it had capitulated to the guardians. I don't think enough explanation was given though to the interaction with the human world.
I also kept finding myself confusing Terry/enki and Nige as the story skipped around a bit more than was sometimes necessary.
I also thought it unesscessary that Max was rejected when he had so much else beating him down to then show the possibility of hope again maybe at the end.
May 6, 2024
Interesting second part. I really enjoyed the introduction of the underground race, the explanation and mirroring of the society and how it had capitulated to the guardians. I don't think enough explanation was given though to the interaction with the human world.
I also kept finding myself confusing Terry/enki and Nige as the story skipped around a bit more than was sometimes necessary.
I also thought it unesscessary that Max was rejected when he had so much else beating him down to then show the possibility of hope again maybe at the end.
I also kept finding myself confusing Terry/enki and Nige as the story skipped around a bit more than was sometimes necessary.
I also thought it unesscessary that Max was rejected when he had so much else beating him down to then show the possibility of hope again maybe at the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews