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Desolation #1
Vidu
A sprawling metropolis to rival even the most capitalist of cities. Streets jammed with cars, store fronts open wide to commerce; vice abounds. Welcome to Vidu, Population: 1.
It's the hangover that makes him forget, and that's usually the good part. A lifetime of memories he tries to escape nightly, and typically--at least on those nights when he finds the bottom of enough drinks--it works. Except last night. Last night was different. He can't tell from the memories that aren't there, but it's made clear by the blood on his clothes. And the way he can barely function. And the gun in his hand.
Vidu wasn't empty when he tipped that first bottle the previous day. His world was simple; uncomplicated. Now there's a dying voice on his phone and a trail of clues leading him through a city he's never really known. A city whose shadows barely touch the darkness he's realizing in himself.
It's the hangover that makes him forget, and that's usually the good part. A lifetime of memories he tries to escape nightly, and typically--at least on those nights when he finds the bottom of enough drinks--it works. Except last night. Last night was different. He can't tell from the memories that aren't there, but it's made clear by the blood on his clothes. And the way he can barely function. And the gun in his hand.
Vidu wasn't empty when he tipped that first bottle the previous day. His world was simple; uncomplicated. Now there's a dying voice on his phone and a trail of clues leading him through a city he's never really known. A city whose shadows barely touch the darkness he's realizing in himself.
267 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 2012
19 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 27, 2013
3 Stars and a “Don’t Read after Dark” Shout Out!
This is clearly a book NOT designed for the squeamish but instead for the readers who love their daily dose of graphic, disturbing, sadistic adult horror, blood and murder, mixed up with a potent syringe of hard drugs and alcohol – handed to them on a tray full of human skulls and gunpowder.
In this gritty dark tale, the main character awakes with a huge hangover, soaked in blood, and holding a gun he doesn’t recognise. We are then taken on a journey of self discovery as, via phone calls, dead bodies and bizarre rendezvous with a stranger, he pieces together a past that he has been trying so hard to suppress.
Indeed, it reminded me of an old James Herbert novel mixed with a bit of early Stephen King. My disappointment was that this plot has been done so many times before and this version didn’t offer anything new to keep me turning the pages. Despite being well written, it suffers from far too many annoying references to hangovers, blood and darkness as if I, the reader was some sort of horror virgin. Perhaps to improve the readers experience, the writer could employ a wider variety of descriptions to avoid tempting the reader to become annoyed with the repetition.
Again, definitely not for the faint of heart, young and squeamish but, if this is your type of book , I personally recommend that instead of purchasing this, you go up into the dark attic with your fading torchlight, walk across those creaky floorboards and get all those old Stephen King novels out you haven’t read for a few decades.
3 Stars out of 5
~~~~~~~Review written by Roger Gerald Scott, best-selling novelist, author of 5 short stories, voted “Most Promising New Author 2012″ at EKAP and recently received “Clean Slate’s Most Promising Breakthrough Short Story 2013″ for “The Strange Case of Will Newman”. You can view his blog at http://rogerrgeraldscott.blogspot.no/ Also a team member of theprobookeditor.com, offering formatting and book cover design services for indie eBook publishers and a professional editor.
This is clearly a book NOT designed for the squeamish but instead for the readers who love their daily dose of graphic, disturbing, sadistic adult horror, blood and murder, mixed up with a potent syringe of hard drugs and alcohol – handed to them on a tray full of human skulls and gunpowder.
In this gritty dark tale, the main character awakes with a huge hangover, soaked in blood, and holding a gun he doesn’t recognise. We are then taken on a journey of self discovery as, via phone calls, dead bodies and bizarre rendezvous with a stranger, he pieces together a past that he has been trying so hard to suppress.
Indeed, it reminded me of an old James Herbert novel mixed with a bit of early Stephen King. My disappointment was that this plot has been done so many times before and this version didn’t offer anything new to keep me turning the pages. Despite being well written, it suffers from far too many annoying references to hangovers, blood and darkness as if I, the reader was some sort of horror virgin. Perhaps to improve the readers experience, the writer could employ a wider variety of descriptions to avoid tempting the reader to become annoyed with the repetition.
Again, definitely not for the faint of heart, young and squeamish but, if this is your type of book , I personally recommend that instead of purchasing this, you go up into the dark attic with your fading torchlight, walk across those creaky floorboards and get all those old Stephen King novels out you haven’t read for a few decades.
3 Stars out of 5
~~~~~~~Review written by Roger Gerald Scott, best-selling novelist, author of 5 short stories, voted “Most Promising New Author 2012″ at EKAP and recently received “Clean Slate’s Most Promising Breakthrough Short Story 2013″ for “The Strange Case of Will Newman”. You can view his blog at http://rogerrgeraldscott.blogspot.no/ Also a team member of theprobookeditor.com, offering formatting and book cover design services for indie eBook publishers and a professional editor.
August 29, 2013
Mr. Anderson's debut novel is quite a mind bending walk to get to the final point where we can decide exactly what sort of world his well structured characters inhabit.
The first impression is one of a place known only to binge drinking college sophomores who may have also had their minds slightly altered by a bit of drug use. It leaves you wondering who is going to clean up the mess? Will his mother come to the rescue?
The next turn takes you to a point where you know you're in one of those last-man-alive-on-Earth stories that creep into all science fiction anthologies. It doesn't quite fit. The scene is set just a little off kilter for that.
When our hero escapes the city and finds someone moving and carrying a mangled corpse, you can again get it figured out, and be sure of it because of the way the creature moves: it's a zombie book. For sure.
Of course he finds and connects with a woman. An interesting relationship develops and along the way we learn about his life before he woke up with the hangover to end all hangovers, joy and tragedy, just a normal fellow.
At this point Mr. Anderson opens the story and the characters up and we discover that nothing we'd believed so far was correct, the world isn't made along any of those lines. Subtle plot twists lead us to a conclusion that will have you reflecting on the nature of reality.
The first impression is one of a place known only to binge drinking college sophomores who may have also had their minds slightly altered by a bit of drug use. It leaves you wondering who is going to clean up the mess? Will his mother come to the rescue?
The next turn takes you to a point where you know you're in one of those last-man-alive-on-Earth stories that creep into all science fiction anthologies. It doesn't quite fit. The scene is set just a little off kilter for that.
When our hero escapes the city and finds someone moving and carrying a mangled corpse, you can again get it figured out, and be sure of it because of the way the creature moves: it's a zombie book. For sure.
Of course he finds and connects with a woman. An interesting relationship develops and along the way we learn about his life before he woke up with the hangover to end all hangovers, joy and tragedy, just a normal fellow.
At this point Mr. Anderson opens the story and the characters up and we discover that nothing we'd believed so far was correct, the world isn't made along any of those lines. Subtle plot twists lead us to a conclusion that will have you reflecting on the nature of reality.
February 2, 2021
Found this very hard work. I struggled through about half of it, all of the time hoping it would get better whilst at the same time thinking 'why am I reading this'. It kept throwing out titbits that made me think it's about to start now, only for nothing to happen and be left with a feeling of being let down. The two main threads, of the story centre around what has happened to the world as there are only a few people alive in Vidu and the second being what was going on with all the surveillance footage described early in the book.
Having got half way through there is no hint at resolution of either of these threads and in fact when Mark meets the Ashlynn all reference to the surveillance seems to have been forgotten. I think there was a good story in here somewhere but I have too many other books to read to struggle on when I am not enjoying it.
Having got half way through there is no hint at resolution of either of these threads and in fact when Mark meets the Ashlynn all reference to the surveillance seems to have been forgotten. I think there was a good story in here somewhere but I have too many other books to read to struggle on when I am not enjoying it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews