Yesterday's Gone: Episode 1

Yesterday's Gone #1

by Sean Platt

* THE FULL SEASON (Episodes 1-6) are now available
amazon.com/Yesterdays-Gone-Season-One... get Seasons One AND Two  in one book amazon.com/dp/B00A73I1GA/

The post-apocalyptic serial thriller series with more than 500 5-Star Reviews!

READER

"Stephen King Meets Lost"

"I'm hooked!"

"It is hard to get a confession from a Viet Nam Marine Grunt, but I now confess; Sean and Dave, you have me hooked!"

"If you love the mile a minute action and adventure of Doctor Who, the suspense and shock of The Walking Dead, the 'oh Hell' and 'you've got to be kidding' of Lost, AND the 'What the Hell was that?!' of Fringe, then this is the book for you!!"



The post-apocalyptic series with more than 400 5 Star Reviews,  Yesterday's Gone  is serialized fiction at its most thrilling, most cliffhanger-y, and most WTF?! 

A journalist wanders the horrible reality of an empty New York in search of his wife and son.

A serial killer must hunt in a land where prey is now an endangered species.

A mother shields her young daughter from danger, though every breath fills her with terror.

A bullied teen is thrilled to find everyone gone. Until the knock at the door.

A fugitive survives a fiery plane crash. Will he be redeemed, or return to what he's best the kill?

An eight year old boy sets out on a journey to find his missing family. What he finds will change him forever.

And there's a few people who aren't surprised that this happened at all. In fact, they've been dreaming about this day for years.

These survivors aren't really alone...

Someone or something is watching them.

And waiting...

Strangers unite.

Sides are chosen.

Will humanity survive what it never saw coming?

The only certainty is that Yesterday's Gone.

You've never read anything like Yesterday's Gone - the epic, groundbreaking, thrilling new series.


Season Three (Episodes 13-18) amazon.com/dp/B008R0IZH0

This is a post-apocalyptic horror book where bad people do evil things, and as such, this series features disturbing scenes and foul language. While it is all within the context of the story, some readers may find this content offensive.

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Fiction, Apocalyptic, Ebooks, Dystopia

116 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 31, 2011

About the author

Sean loves writing books, even more than reading them. He is co-founder of Collective Inkwell and Realm & Sands imprints, writes for children under the name Guy Incognito, and has more than his share of nose.

Together with co-authors David Wright and Johnny B. Truant, Sean has written the series Yesterdays Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Dark Crossings, Unicorn Western, The Beam, Namaste, Robot Proletariat, Cursed, Greens, Space Shuttle, and Everyone Gets Divorced. He also co-wrote the how-to indie book, Write. Publish. Repeat.

With Collective Inkwell
Yesterday's Gone: Post Apocalyptic - LOST by way of The Stand
WhiteSpace: Paranoid thriller on fictitious Hamilton Island
ForNevermore: YA horror that reads nothing like YA Horror
Available Darkness: A new breed of vampire thriller
Dark Crossings: Short stories, killer endings

With 47North
Z 2134: The Walking Dead meets The Hunger Games
Monstrous: Beauty and the Beast meets The Punisher

With Realm & Sands
Unicorn Western: The best story to ever come from a stupid idea
The Beam: Smart sci-fi to make you wonder exactly who we are
Namaste: A revenge thriller like nothing you've ever read
Robot Proletariat: The revolution starts here
Cursed: The old werewolf legend turned upside down
Greens: Retail noir comedy
Space Shuttle: Over the top comedy with all your favorite sci-fi characters
Everyone Gets Divorced: Like "Always Sunny" and "How I Met Your Mother" had a baby on your Kindle

Sean lives in Austin, TX with his wife, daughter, and son.
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanplatt
 (say hi so he can follow you back!)

Reviews

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woo hoo!
I'm the first person to review this on Goodreads *little victory dance*

To make this book please follow this recipe:

Take one Stephen King - break his ankles if he won't come willingly.
One Dean R Koontz - preferably from his Strangers period, but any period Koontz will do if this is not possible.
Half of Shaun Hudson - I will leave it to your discretion to decide which half is preferable. He is, by all accounts, a loquacious chap so you might want to opt for the bottom half (the bit without a mouth).

Place these in a large blender. Set to high and blend. Ignore screams. And don't forget to put the lid on because author is notoriously hard to wash out of cotton.

Remove the thick pulp from the blender and then place on a tray. Taking a spatula carefully divide the mixture into two equal portions. Use the spatula to mould one of the portions into Sean Platt and the other into David Wright. Leave them to rest together.

Then add a mom and her daughter, a serial killer, a couple of kids, an escaped prisoner, a teenage boy and his idiot stepfather plus a few others to complete a wide cross section of the public demographic. Smear with the end of the world to bind together.

Bake together for three weeks and then serve as one portion. Repeat the process to get a further one portion every three weeks over an 18 week period.

[Tracy P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Season one's first episode of the 'Yesterday's Gone' series introduces us to a dynamic post-apocalyptic, serial fiction with a wide range of charismatic characters. Authors Sean Platt and David W. Wright seamlessly end every chapter with a hair-raiser that kept me anxiously waiting with bated breath to find out what happens next.
The audio is performed by a multi-cast of incredibly talented narrators - all of whom bring the storyline to life in living color for the listener.

[Timothy Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, but am so often disappointed with survival scenarios that involve characters I could care less about. I love that Platt and Wright cast a wide net of characters that are so engaging, with killer cliffhangers to the end of their chapters, that you go ravenous to read (or in my case listen) to as many chapters as you can. The audiobook is the way to go. Every narrator is top notch. Make this part of your commute and you'll wish you had to drive across the country to get there. I'm dying trying to wait for books three and beyond to make it to audiobook. I switched over to the Breakers series for now so I can engulf these in quick succession. I also liked how the source of the apocalypse is different (though I'm sacrificing detail in my review to allow you to discover the mystery).

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Más ganchos.-

Género. Relato.

Lo que nos cuenta. A las 2:15 del 15 de octubre de 2011 la mayoría de los habitantes de la Tierra desaparecieron. Conoceremos a algunas de las personas que siguen en el mundo deshabitado, un periodista, un asesino en serie, una madre divorciada y su hija, un adolescente con problemas, un preso en traslado y un niño de ocho años, entre otros personajes, y algunos no están sorprendidos por el evento. Primer capítulo de la serie Yesterday´s Gone.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up Yesterday's Gone after reading and enjoying the authors' WhiteSpace: Episode 1. I was surprised that I didn't like this better, because I typically love the apocalypse genre. The book focuses on a handful of characters, with the points of view switching among them with each chapter. They've awakened to a new world, with nearly all of its inhabitants suddenly vanished. Was it an alien attack? The Rapture? (Probably not the Rapture since at least one of the characters seems less than worthy of that honor.) We don't get the answers in this episode, of course, but we do get the survivors beginning to find one another, some of whom already seem to have at least a few answers.

I thought the suspense began to diminish about 3/4 of the way through - right about the time it should have been building to a big cliffhanger. With a fairly large cast of characters in a short book, we can't feel connected to them all, but none of them were drawn with enough depth for me to really care for them. This was not the case for Whitespace, which introduced and developed a similar amount of main characters. The purpose of publishing a book in this episodic form should be to hook readers at the end. While I didn't feel that with this book, I am still going to give episode 2 a chance.

[Mia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can suspend my disbelief for many things. Almost everyone in the world disappearing at the same time? Sure. Weird alien creatures? Okay. Bodies piled up in rivers? Fine. People dreaming about the apocalypse years before it happens and preparing for it? Absolutely. But I cannot suspend my disbelief when it's all these things, with freaking talking animals that turn into Native American's in dreams. I'm sorry, it's too much. Can't do it.

The switching narrative aspect also got on my nerves. I love a narrative switch as much as the next person, but they're supposed to feel like different perspectives, but Benicio and Luca are the only character's that sounded different, but not in a good way. And the only way it seemed that way was Benicio's overuse of the phrase 'beer-battered fucking shit'. I swear, it's so shockingly overused in such a short book (where he only really had two chapters) that I could feel the anger burning inside me every time I saw it coming on the page. And Luca sounded like an idiot. I get that it was supposed to be a child's perspective, but kids are way more intuitive than writers seem to give them credit for. If he can speak in a normal way in dialogue, why do his thoughts sound so ridiculous?

Also, as someone who is fascinated by the mind of a serial killer, I found Benicio's part of the story the most irritating. A bit more research into the mind of a serial killer would tell you that the ones that get away with their crimes are intelligent. To the point of arrogance. They're sophisticated. They're intuitive. They hide in plain sight, and they're very rarely someone like Benicio who would obviously be a prime suspect considering his lack of all these traits and thinks it's a good idea to kill in his own neighbourhood. Serial killers don't shit where they eat guys. And that 'ritual' that he keeps abandoning? That's the reason they kill. THey do it for the ritual, to recreate the first kill. If he's not doing his ritual, he's not getting anything out of it and he's not a convincing serial killer.

I'm reluctantly going to carry on with this series because I'm morbidly fascinated with how this is all going to turn out. A bit like reading that train wreck The Maze Runner.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

In short, Yesterday's Gone is a work of apocalyptic, serial fiction. For those who do not know what this means, serial fiction is when something that would normally be a novel of several hundred pages is broken up and released in smaller parts. A TV equivalent would be a series like Lost with seasons and episodes within that season. This is the same, just in book format.

Episode 1 is broken up into sections told from different points of view. Other books are told this way, such as A Song of Ice & Fire series, probably better known as Game of Thrones. I know some readers are not fond of books that change point of view with each chapter, but it works. Think of it as a TV series. TV shows do the same thing and most people are not bothered. Why should books be any different?

The entire episode is about people waking up to discover that 99.9% of the population has vanished, some physical constructs are missing and strange things are happening, such as plants and animals seem to be speaking, sort of. Everyone pretty much feels they cannot remain where they are and are compelled to go... well somewhere. Even they are not quite sure where they are going.

And that's about it. You may be thinking this sounds too much like Stephen King's The Stand or indeed the TV series Lost. You may be right. I wouldn't know because I just got started. All I know is that right now, I'm hooked. And keep in mind this is only 100 pages long. There are five more episodes in this series and the entire first season is estimated to be 469 pages long.

If you have read any of my other reviews, you will know that freaky apocalyptic is one of my things. So I thought this was great! 100 pages is nothing to me and unless the story is boring, I read 100 pages at one sitting. And that is exactly what I did with Episode 1 of Yesterday's Gone.

One warning: I don't know how it is classified, but in my opinion, this book is not for young adults. There are mature subjects that begin right away, having to do with both sex and violence.

With that said, I absolutely recommend Yesterday's Gone and will eventually move on to the rest of the episodes.

Note: You can purchase the first episode for 99¢ to try it out, but if you decide to continue with the series, I recommend purchasing whole seasons at once. You can even purchase the first two seasons together for less than each season separately. You'll save money this way. Unfortunately, at this time, Yesterday's Gone looks to be available only on Amazon. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download the app for the computer.

[Gef · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serial fiction comes from a bygone era, when stories were published a piece at a time in newspapers and periodicals. There's not much of it these days, at least in print, but there's more and more of it online. I think it was Japan and the serial romances that folks read on the tiny screens of their cellphones a decade or so ago, that you saw the resurgence of it. Yesterday's Gone ain't romance, though.

Featuring a cast of several characters, each highlighted in alternating chapters, each character wakes up one day and finds themselves utterly alone. Everyone they know and love is gone without any clue as to where they've gone. Terrorist attack, the Rapture, alien abductions, insane government conspiracy? Without any real clues to go on, each character's imagination runs wild on what has happened, and each reacts in a very different way.

A husband and father goes in search of his wife and son only to discover he's not alone in New York City, unsure if the man he sees walking the streets is friend or foe. A bullied teen is relieved that all his tormentors are gone--until he suspects there might be one left. A young boy hears voices guiding him on a journey across the California landscape to what he doesn't know. And a serial killer wakes up a world that has become his own playground, picking off one survivor at a time.

They and others comprise a cast that harkens back to Stephen King's The Stand in its scope, and J.J. Abram's Lost in each episodic approach and appeal.

Episode One is less a story on its own than the pilot episode to a series that will play out through six episodes in all to make up the first season. There's enough there to establish the characters and what they're about, get a fair idea of the immediate stakes, and a couple teasers as to what to expect in later episodes. In one storyline, a few survivors who have banded together claim to have prior knowledge that the event was going to occur, and their evidence once revealed sends the story way off into left field. And the ending to the first episode has a genuine hook to entice you to read the second. I'll be checking it out, that's for sure.

[Tom Loock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another 'bought for nought'-book – should this become a category now that so many eBooks are offered for free?
I was certainly lured into 'buying' this for £0.00 knowing full well that I'd buy the remaining episodes (which I just did) if it would be any good and it is. So why only three stars instead of four?

Yesterday's Gone: Episode 1 is written in cliffhanger-fashion like a TV-series. The authors Sean Platt and David Wright admit so in the preface to this novella, calling it 'serialized fiction'. They cite Stephen King's The Green Mile and could have added Charles Dickens who published several of his novels in installments to great success.

This novella is just that: part of a novel and as such it is difficult to assign stars to. It was certainly good enough (three stars) to make me buy the rest and hope the overall work warrants four. The story - no spoilers beyond what Amazon has, promise! - delivers exactly what the authors hint at: a mix of The Stand, the marvelous The Passage by Justin Cronin with a dose of TV-shows like Lost and the X-Files told through a number of very different characters. Other than that? It is set in a dystopian USA in the year 2011. And it is a quick read.

I will write a review about the complete season one once I've finished it.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not too long ago, I rudely criticized a kindle novella for being patterned after the format of a TV series. So along comes Yesterday's Gone a serialized novel that is blatantly patterned along a similar style. So why was unnamed novel so terrible and Yesterday's Gone pretty damn good.

The first obvious reason is that this serialized novel is well written while Novella X was not. But more importantly, despite the authors' use of "episode this" and "season that", Yesterday's Gone is patterned more in the tradition of a literary serial than TV. In the foreword, Mr. Platt acknowledges his love for serialized movies and TV shows but also states his main inspiration was Stephen King's The Green Mile. Yet King 's inspiration was not TV but the literary tradition of serialized novels championed by Dickens, Collins and others and it shows in King's great novel and in this more humble but still exiting endeavor.

So let's get down to business. Yesterday's Gone is about a group of survivors the morning after almost everyone has disappeared from earth. As expected, "Episode One" takes a lot of time introducing the characters but it doesn't ignore plot. Creepy things are happening ever so subtly which hooked me in to the story. There's a nice buildup of tension that leads to a cliffhanger moment at the end. Yesterday's Gone will remind readers of King, especially The Stand yet the authors appear to be leading us to something more original and hopefully will not let us down.

Episode One is free for the Kindle at Amazon and so is Episode Two. If Episode Two is as good as the first, I'll be investing in the entire "season".

[Soo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yesterday's Gone perked my interest because it's a serial story made to be told out loud. It didn't hurt that it's free to get the first episode and try it out. I recognized most of the narrators and that cinched the deal for me. Well, it worked. I ended up listening to this episode a few times because I had to go back to re-hear the story in parts. There's a lot going on and important details are inserted in common points. I finished the first episode and I am definitely buying the first season to see where the story goes.

It was just another day but it isn't. Most of the world's population is gone, there's an odd vibe in the air and unsettling changes to the neighborhood that creeps unease down your spine but gives no answers. Various characters try to establish a new routine in this eerie ghost-land. It all looks the same. It's just missing life. The rush of thousands of people going about their lives. Even the animals don't seem to be the same.

3.5 Stars for Storyline
The overall story in the first episode gets 3 stars from me. It's like a mix of short stories that will come together later on. Some parts are really well done and others are lacking. Oddly enough, the killer, Boricio Wolfe, is the most interesting character of all. The most colorful. Next, would be Desmond. I only got a very small look at him before the first episode ended. I want more descriptions for the setting. I'm hoping that will come to pass down the line.

3.5-4 Stars for Narration
I had a similar response to the narration. I'm always up for trying a story that has multiple readers. I prefer recordings where all of the readers have certain characters and read for that part over the more common narration of each person voicing multiple parts per chapter/section. This serial is the more common type but it does it fairly well. The most annoying and ill-fit voice acting was done for the young boy, Luca.

I wonder if every episode will be a cliff hanger? One that tempts you just enough to pull you into the next one? It worked on me. I'm in.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read these authors before but really like the style that they write in. The characters are believable and sympathetic or evil depending on who they are. The story so far has been very plausible in how each of the survivors would react based on the personality traits assigned to them. The story moves forward smoothly and at the perfect pace to keep your attention and interest. There is a full cast to bring the characters to life and they all do a fantastic job of drawing you into the world they are weaving.

We start with the collapse of everything they know. On October 15th at 2:15am everyone on Earth vanished, or almost everyone. A few people scattered around the country and likely the world woke to an empty world in many cases, though some found themselves at least left with some family. This new normal has no other rule than to survive at any cost. The surviviors are not alone though, someone or something is watching and waiting.

Strangers will come together and choose sides. But can humanity survive what it did not see coming?

The cast has all the basic archetypes which we always see in this type of story. We have the journalist looking for his family, a mother protecting her child, a bullied teen happy until his tormentor shows up, a fugitive who survives a plane crash, an 8 year old searching for his missing family, and a seriel killer looking for prey in a dead world. There are of course others but these are our main characters.

I am really looking forward to continuing this because it has not told me what is happening yet and I am more than interested in finding out what is going on here.

[Charlton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books I didn't know I'd like so much.I mean I'd read the blurb and thought this sounds interesting.But within the first 10 pages it pretty much had me.

Basically it deals with the U.S.,it doesn't mention any other countries.One evening all the humans disappear.With the exception of a scattered few,NY,MO.,LA.,FL.,CA..With only a smattering of people in each state.And the type of people really varies,from a psycho killer to a man just looking for his wife and son.And all these people are subconsciously going to the same area.

I wouldn't say this is YA apocalyptic because of the graphic violence.There are creatures that have to be killed,or do the killing and it can be messy sometimes.

I would definitely recommend it.

[Bar Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

On to the next!

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Source: Downloaded for free from Amazon.co.uk.)
The world has ended, and the only people left are going to have to work out what is going on.
Where has everyone gone? What happened to cause this? And who will survive?


This was basically the start of a story, where we’re introduced to several people who have survived the ‘collapse’. We went through a chapter with each of them more or less, and the flitting from one character to another got pretty annoying, especially as the characters were pretty separate and disjointed, so it was like reading the start to several different books one chapter at a time, back to back.
I can’t say that I really connected with any of the characters all that much, there just wasn’t enough time to really get a feel for any of them, although I felt sorry for Luca the most, being young (around 10-years-old?) and alone, and I think possibly autistic (he talked about following rainbows).

There was quite a lot of stuff in this book to try and make it gritty and unsuitable for younger readers. We had Charlie the teen jacking off in his crush’s bed, Boricio the guy who killed his girlfriend killing some poor unsuspecting bloke called Jim, Charlie’s stepfather attacking a young girl with a crowbar, and some pretty unpleasant thoughts flitting about too. If these were the people spared by God in this apocalypse, then God sucks, because most of these people were the dregs of society in my opinion.

We did learn at the end of this episode that somebody called Stan and some friends of his knew that the ‘collapse’ was coming, and we also got a pretty vivid and sickening scene of where these missing people had disappeared to. I can’t say that I was all that interested in continuing the story from here though, as I think it’s probably going to be a bit too grisly for me.

I must also point out though, that no matter who thinks they know better, and whether the apocalypse has occurred or not - NOBODY DRIVES WELL DRUNK!

Overall; a pretty gritty start to a post-apocalyptic story.
5 out of 10.

[Lesa Divine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hooked from the first chapter. I didn't mind the crazyness in this book that's what keeps the excitement. It makes me wonder what's go happen next and then I'll get the understanding of why that happened before. People wake to find their family, friends and neighbors completely gone. With a man in New York looking for his wife and son. A woman wakes to just her teenager daughter and a few men neighbors around. To a teenage boy with his sexually hormones, a serial killer out on the hunt when he can't find hunt. A man that survived a plane crash while being arrested to be transport to Washington. Lets not forget the little eight year old boy that just so happen to see things that I feel just can't be real. But whose to say it isn't. So I purchased the other seasons so I can continue this weird and crazy story. Enjoyable read...finished in a hour....

[Gillian Murrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt like the first few chapters of a book. It was basically the introduction to a few of the charters who were still on earth after what ever happened happened. I can't imagine how desolate it much have felt to wake up and find everyone you knew and loved vanished without a trace. Looks like if you want to read the story its going to take a lot of books at this rate.

[Darnell J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I made a mistake I only had the first book in the series. However, I just finished book one and the concept still seems promising. In addition, I'm looking forward to seeing the psychological affects this situation places on the groups and particularly certain individuals."(less) [edit]

[Emilija · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! The characters were interesting and while the plot seems slightly stale, it felt new and energised. It left just enough questions (like why were some people left behind?) to want to read Episode 2.

[Kevin Potter]

I'm really struggling to rate this.

So let me go around that and talk about what this is first.

First and foremost, this is NOT a novel. Despite its length, I can't even call this a novella. What this really is, is a single volume that flips back and forth between five short stories that take place in the same world, around the same event, happen simultaneously (or near enough), and all have cliffhanger endings.

My personal feeling on this is the story is just too big, with too many main characters, for such a short piece.

With that in mind, there are a couple of interesting characters here, there just isn't enough depth to any of them to actually connect with.

The plot (such as it is), is also too expansive to get any kind of handle on what's going on.

You may consider this a spoiler (though I don't), and if so I apologize.

There are a number of mysteries presented here, each leading to greater questions, but no answers actually come in this volume. I mean, the final scene does answer a question, but that answer only brings more questions.

As it stands, I've decided I can't in good conscience rate this book. Without reading a complete story, I don't know the strength of the story, and based on what I've read so far I don't see myself continuing this series.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy post-apocolyptic stories, and this one didn't disappoint. This book is told from the perspectives of the few survivors that remain behind after everyone else suddenly and mysteriously vanishes. Episode 1's ending guarantees I'll read Episode 2!

[Rebecca Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I don’t usually read much in the post-apocalyptic vein (I find it even grimmer than crime!), so this whole experience was going to be new to me and I didn’t know what to expect.

The way it’s set out is in the conventional way of a book – with chapters. And, in this case, each chapter was from the point of view of a new character as they woke or realised they were alone in the world.

Initially, I found it slow to get into. I don’t know whether that was my mindset about the book, genre, serialisation aspect, format of knowing I had to work my way through a cast of characters and not knowing if I would remember them all, but as I continued to read, I found myself wanting to read on, wanting to know what came next, or what or why it had happened. Maybe the next paragraph would be able to explain a little more, or have a little tidbit in it.

As we came around to meeting the characters again, I suddenly found I was engrossed. I was watching the percentage meter on my Kindle telling me I didn’t have a huge amount left to read and yet I wanted more. Where had everyone gone? What was this creepy thing that was happening? Come-on authors you can’t leave me hanging like this! Yep. That’s right. I am hooked.

Serialised fiction, if done well, can really work. Apparently this had about 100 pages in it, so you’re not being held hostage over a few pages, it’s a third the size of a lot of novels.

I only intended to read this first one for this review, but I think I might find myself going back for the series one box-set. If you buy on Amazon, the first book is free and the first box-set (season one) is free. It’s a marketing tool to hook you in, the authors aren’t shy about admitting that. But that’s the whole point of serialisation, to make you want the next one.

[Steven Aitchison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been listening to Sean, David and Johnny on their podcast 'The Self Publishing Podcast' and find them entertaining, knowledgeable and very funny. So I decided to try one of their books and this one appealed to me the most.

It had me hooked from the opening chapter and the whole premise seems to stem from a Stephen King 'what if.....' thought. In this case, what if 99.9% of the population just vanished overnight.

The opening episode follows a group of people at the moment they realise the population has vanished and how some of them come together to try and figure out what the hell is going on. Although this book is mainly about the characters, it's an important introduction to the series, so can't figure why the negs are so down on it.

The characters are what drive this opening book, and you'll find you hate some characters and like others, but that's life. Didn't like one in particular and thought he was just too far right of edgy to enjoy reading about. Having said that this book made me want to purchase the series to find out what's next, so the authors have done their job and done it well.

[JenBsBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how anyone would read a "serial" released week to week, the only reason I'm even starting this is that it is completed before I begin. That said, I'm still not positive I'm ready to commit to this series, as while each installment is only 100 pages, there are 18 chapters. I got the first two as freebie promotions, and I can read 7-18 free from the Kindle library. So do I pay $6 for episodes 3-6? I guess these first two episodes will determine that.

As with any series, there is the introduction of characters and the setting of the scene. There are so many introductions right off that it was a little hard for me to try and keep track of everyone (I felt a little like I should be taking notes). I'm sure this would get better as the series moves forward. I think I would follow better "watching" this, having a face/visual, as I'm not good with names. If this was on tv ... it would have to be on cable, due to the content (language, violence, sex - and I've only read the first 100 pages, I assume it will only increase in future episodes).

So not absolutely sold yet ...

[Abi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this one at all.
In such a short story, they're way too many point of views.
I couldn't connect with any of the characters, as there just wasn't enough pages for each character to be properly shown.

One of the characters really annoyed me, half of his story was just about how much of a crush he had on his ex best friend. The worlds just ended, and you're fantasizing about your crush. I think you need to get your priorities right.

Nothing really happened. They spent most of their time wondering where everyone was. It is a given that you would want to know where everyone went, but with six characters all saying the same thing, it was very repetitive, so it got very boring very quick.

The ending did make me interested, but not interested enough to read the others.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
It's the end of the world. A handful of survivors band together. One or two of them seem to have some sort of special abilities. There are also monsters, growing in numbers lurking everywhere.
Most of the characters are OK. With the exception of Charlie. Too much time at the end of the world is concentrating on girls past and current crushes. It was nice when he got a back bone.
I was somewhat devastated at Dog Vaders and Jim's end.
I wish we could get some insight into whether Luca had some sort of illness or disability before "The End".
Maybe we will in Season 2.
I surprisingly enjoyed this book. Free E-books are hit or miss. But this one kept me interested and provided a little bit of everything.

[Karline05 Un brin de lecture · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.unbrindelecture.com/2016/0...
Un premier opus en demi-teinte pour cette saison 1. En effet, la profusion de personnage et l'ambiance mystérieuse pour le moins brouillone déstabilise plus le lecteur qu'elle ne l'arrime à l'intrigue. On sort assez perplexe de cette lecture . J'espère que la suite remettra cette intrigue dans le bon sens et que la magie sera enfin libre d'opérer et de me rendre addict à cette saga.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got more than half way through but couldn't finish. It's derivative, disjointed and written by people who are clearly not readers. Like another commenter said, the misuse of words keeps jerking you out of the story. If they had a decent editor or chose a different medium they might go far but I'd give this particular work a skip. I'll give them two stars for potential.

[Deirdre Metcalf · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK but there were too many characters. It bounced from story to story and I had to keep trying to remember who this person was and what had last happened to them. I've decided not to read more in the series because I wanted to become interested in a smaller group of characters, not so many that I couldn't really become invested in any of them.

[Joselyn Moreno · Rating 4 out of 5]

well that ending wasn't what I expected, I began to think the story was weird since everyone just dissapeared and I didn't knew what to think, they werent zombies and neither have gone to heaven for what it seemed and then they appeared in the place i would less expected really.

what is more creppy they appeared at some point and that made the story terrifying, a worth terror tale.