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The Rift
FRACTURE LINES PERMEATE THE CENTRAL UNITED STATES. Some comprise the New Madrid fault, the most dangerous earthquake zone in the world. Other fracture lines are social—— economic, religious, racial, and ethnic.
What happens when they all crack at once?
Caught in the disaster as cities burn and bridges tumble, young Jason Adams finds himself adrift on the Mississippi with African-American engineer Nick Ruford. A modern-day Huck and Jim, they spin helplessly down the river and into the widening faults in American society, encountering violence and hope, compassion and despair, and the primal wilderness that threatens to engulf not only them, but all they love...
What happens when they all crack at once?
Caught in the disaster as cities burn and bridges tumble, young Jason Adams finds himself adrift on the Mississippi with African-American engineer Nick Ruford. A modern-day Huck and Jim, they spin helplessly down the river and into the widening faults in American society, encountering violence and hope, compassion and despair, and the primal wilderness that threatens to engulf not only them, but all they love...
948 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
624 people are currently reading
2848 people want to read
About the author
Walter Jon Williams
238 books895 followersWalter Jon Williams has published twenty novels and short fiction collections. Most are science fiction or fantasy -Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire to name just a few - a few are historical adventures, and the most recent, The Rift, is a disaster novel in which "I just basically pound a part of the planet down to bedrock." And that's just the opening chapters. Walter holds a fourth-degree black belt in Kenpo Karate, and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Kathy Hedges.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 190 reviews
July 29, 2012
A cookie-cutter racist southern sheriff and a cookie-cutter charismatic preacher mar the book, getting too much screen time. With the earth itself falling apart, we really don't need bad guys, and cliched bad guys at that. I quickly began skipping over all their sections, as I already knew what would happen with them. A cookie-cutter President got more interesting when he wigs out in an unusual way. There's a small romance that feels utterly wrong--two kids meet, have no scenes of talk or emotionally connecting, and, bam, they are a couple in love. Huh? With what he provided for us in the way of their getting to know each other, I'd be surprised if they remembered each other's name, much less fell in love.
One character carries around a telescope with him the whole book (if it's light enough to carry, it's probably no bigger than a six inch. It also miraculously doesn't fall out of a boat that tips several times, but whatever.) It gets set up at night and he sees things you'd struggle to see with a ten-inch scope, three hundred dollar eyepieces, and hundred dollar filters. A stranger is able to find these things on a moving boat without so much as a finder scope and paper star chart.(!) Williams misidentifies the Ring Nebula as a supernova remnant. When you know facts about some topic and the author hasn't bothered to look up those facts (and this book was written in the time of the Internet, so looking this up would have been a snap for him), it calls into question every other fact that you have less knowledge of--you suspect he's been just as lazy in looking up earthquake facts or facts about propane fires or nuclear power plants. So none of the book seems realistic to me because he's screwed up some of the science and I therefore doubt the rest.
It's a shame, too, because at the line level, he's a good writer, and the lines flow past painlessly. The initial descriptions of the quake the teen boy sees are very good. The climax shoot-out is well-written. But errors in science and cliched characters make this a 2.5 star read for me.
One character carries around a telescope with him the whole book (if it's light enough to carry, it's probably no bigger than a six inch. It also miraculously doesn't fall out of a boat that tips several times, but whatever.) It gets set up at night and he sees things you'd struggle to see with a ten-inch scope, three hundred dollar eyepieces, and hundred dollar filters. A stranger is able to find these things on a moving boat without so much as a finder scope and paper star chart.(!) Williams misidentifies the Ring Nebula as a supernova remnant. When you know facts about some topic and the author hasn't bothered to look up those facts (and this book was written in the time of the Internet, so looking this up would have been a snap for him), it calls into question every other fact that you have less knowledge of--you suspect he's been just as lazy in looking up earthquake facts or facts about propane fires or nuclear power plants. So none of the book seems realistic to me because he's screwed up some of the science and I therefore doubt the rest.
It's a shame, too, because at the line level, he's a good writer, and the lines flow past painlessly. The initial descriptions of the quake the teen boy sees are very good. The climax shoot-out is well-written. But errors in science and cliched characters make this a 2.5 star read for me.
June 11, 2009
First published back in 1999, the predominately science fiction author Walter J. Williams released his epic disaster tale entitled ‘The Rift’.
The tale is centres around a handful of characters, namely the rebellious schoolboy Jason Adams and his newly acquainted travelling partner Nick Ruford. When a massive earthquake hits Missouri, Mississippi and Louisiana, the landscape is left in ruins. Chaos ensues as the nation’s infrastructure collapses, leaving the surviving inhabitants refugees within their own land.
Littered with detailed and beautifully involved subplots, each one telling their own individual stories; the storyline marches on at a breathtaking pace. With a carefully laid out plot, Williams draws the individual character’s stories together, delivering a natural yet seamless tale.
Nuclear Power Stations are hit hard by the earthquakes, resulting in a far more deadly turn of events. The Mississippi pours across the landscape flooding the areas with the critically damaged levee system.
Aftershocks pound the now thoroughly devastated landscape on frequent occasions, sending the survivors into repeated states of panic. Where some take to rescuing their fellow man from within the rubble, others see a new and deeply disturbing opportunity from the ensuing pandemonium.
A fanatical preacher who has spent years obsessing over the supposedly foretold apocalypse, sets up a massive camp for his newly acquired followers. With the days going by and sheer survival becoming more and more difficult, so the preacher’s sanity deteriorates until there is nothing left but a madman and his cult.
On the other side of the tale, a newly appointed sheriff who is also an active member of the KKK, begins an unsympathetic program of genocide, killing off men, women and children with his unrelenting extreme prejudice.
With each twist and turn in the tale, and when you think it’s safe to re-build, the world shakes you off your feet once again. Surviving the earthquake is pure luck, surviving the after-effects it soon appears is the real challenge.
With a deliberate play on words for the novel’s title ‘The Rift’, Williams spends a large proportion of his epic novel taking on the challenging and important issues of racial prejudices, whilst incorporating the theoretical idea that the New Madrid quake was the result of a failed rifting of North America. Multiple layers of elaborately constructed storyline produce a powerful novel delivering a novel where ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ meets ‘Ambush In Waco’...with earthquakes!
Williams tackles the issues of race and religion head-on, delivering a powerful message throughout. Williams incorporates actual historical elements into the novel, with clear parallels drawn to the likes of Huey Pierce Long (The Kingfish) as well as important true to life events such as the inspirational uprising in 1943 at the Sobibor concentration camp and the haunting events of the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.
The characterization of each individual, no matter how involved their part is in the developing tale, is truly exceptional. The reader can build up a gradual yet deeply set love for a whole host of the characters, whilst a slow burning rage builds deep within towards the fascist and corrupt characters that become so focal to the storyline.
The tale, although somewhat epic in length, remains fast paced and gripping throughout. Williams takes a while to get the tale in full swing, carefully detailing the characters individual lives before the inevitable earthquake rips their world apart.
The novel wraps up neatly, with a successful and truly satisfying ending. Williams avoids a clichéd over emotional conclusion, instead playing for a blunt yet altogether fitting grand finale.
‘The Rift’ is nothing short of a gripping and truly powerful novel, packed with action and tension, whilst dealing with difficult social aspects and the cruelty capable of our fellow man. Running at a total of 932 pages, Williams crams in as much as he can into this incredible and heart-wrenching tale.
The tale is centres around a handful of characters, namely the rebellious schoolboy Jason Adams and his newly acquainted travelling partner Nick Ruford. When a massive earthquake hits Missouri, Mississippi and Louisiana, the landscape is left in ruins. Chaos ensues as the nation’s infrastructure collapses, leaving the surviving inhabitants refugees within their own land.
Littered with detailed and beautifully involved subplots, each one telling their own individual stories; the storyline marches on at a breathtaking pace. With a carefully laid out plot, Williams draws the individual character’s stories together, delivering a natural yet seamless tale.
Nuclear Power Stations are hit hard by the earthquakes, resulting in a far more deadly turn of events. The Mississippi pours across the landscape flooding the areas with the critically damaged levee system.
Aftershocks pound the now thoroughly devastated landscape on frequent occasions, sending the survivors into repeated states of panic. Where some take to rescuing their fellow man from within the rubble, others see a new and deeply disturbing opportunity from the ensuing pandemonium.
A fanatical preacher who has spent years obsessing over the supposedly foretold apocalypse, sets up a massive camp for his newly acquired followers. With the days going by and sheer survival becoming more and more difficult, so the preacher’s sanity deteriorates until there is nothing left but a madman and his cult.
On the other side of the tale, a newly appointed sheriff who is also an active member of the KKK, begins an unsympathetic program of genocide, killing off men, women and children with his unrelenting extreme prejudice.
With each twist and turn in the tale, and when you think it’s safe to re-build, the world shakes you off your feet once again. Surviving the earthquake is pure luck, surviving the after-effects it soon appears is the real challenge.
With a deliberate play on words for the novel’s title ‘The Rift’, Williams spends a large proportion of his epic novel taking on the challenging and important issues of racial prejudices, whilst incorporating the theoretical idea that the New Madrid quake was the result of a failed rifting of North America. Multiple layers of elaborately constructed storyline produce a powerful novel delivering a novel where ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ meets ‘Ambush In Waco’...with earthquakes!
Williams tackles the issues of race and religion head-on, delivering a powerful message throughout. Williams incorporates actual historical elements into the novel, with clear parallels drawn to the likes of Huey Pierce Long (The Kingfish) as well as important true to life events such as the inspirational uprising in 1943 at the Sobibor concentration camp and the haunting events of the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.
The characterization of each individual, no matter how involved their part is in the developing tale, is truly exceptional. The reader can build up a gradual yet deeply set love for a whole host of the characters, whilst a slow burning rage builds deep within towards the fascist and corrupt characters that become so focal to the storyline.
The tale, although somewhat epic in length, remains fast paced and gripping throughout. Williams takes a while to get the tale in full swing, carefully detailing the characters individual lives before the inevitable earthquake rips their world apart.
The novel wraps up neatly, with a successful and truly satisfying ending. Williams avoids a clichéd over emotional conclusion, instead playing for a blunt yet altogether fitting grand finale.
‘The Rift’ is nothing short of a gripping and truly powerful novel, packed with action and tension, whilst dealing with difficult social aspects and the cruelty capable of our fellow man. Running at a total of 932 pages, Williams crams in as much as he can into this incredible and heart-wrenching tale.
December 16, 2024
Call it 3.5 stars.
Growing up, when disaster movies and novels were popular, I took a trip back. Although written in 1988, it fits nicely into the 70s disaster genre. The fault line that runs along the Mississippi River is the site of this disaster. It would not be the first time a major earthquake rocked the area. Excerpts from letters describing the 1811 quakes are used as introductions to each chapter of this novel, providing a dose of reality to go with the fiction. That 1811 earthquake was strong enough to ring church bells in Boston. People think of Los Angeles when they think about “The Big One,” but it is possible that The Big One could happen in America’s heartland.
The quake in The Rift is possible and well thought out. Williams did his homework with quake and the changes in geography. This quake is only the beginning of the problems the characters will have to face; for example, there is a nuclear power plant on the river (there really is one). Flooding, flooding creating toxic spills, and just like that, potable water is no longer available. Power outage and power grabs. Doomsday preachers and the Klan. The Rift is a good mix of the many possible scenarios that could happen.
Growing up, when disaster movies and novels were popular, I took a trip back. Although written in 1988, it fits nicely into the 70s disaster genre. The fault line that runs along the Mississippi River is the site of this disaster. It would not be the first time a major earthquake rocked the area. Excerpts from letters describing the 1811 quakes are used as introductions to each chapter of this novel, providing a dose of reality to go with the fiction. That 1811 earthquake was strong enough to ring church bells in Boston. People think of Los Angeles when they think about “The Big One,” but it is possible that The Big One could happen in America’s heartland.
The quake in The Rift is possible and well thought out. Williams did his homework with quake and the changes in geography. This quake is only the beginning of the problems the characters will have to face; for example, there is a nuclear power plant on the river (there really is one). Flooding, flooding creating toxic spills, and just like that, potable water is no longer available. Power outage and power grabs. Doomsday preachers and the Klan. The Rift is a good mix of the many possible scenarios that could happen.
December 1, 2008
_The Rift_ is as bloated and turgid as one of the corpses that keep floating down the Mississippi River in Williams' overwritten riff on the disaster/apocalypse theme. Williams has pacing problems, plotting problems and, more than anything else, the problem of having done such a massive amount of research that he can't bear NOT to make you aware of all the hard work he went through.
Williams starts off with the timeworn disaster-novel device that's as familiar and comfy as your favorite bathrobe: he introduces you to the six or eight different groups of characters that he's going to follow through the novel. You know who the bad guys are; you know who the good guys are. You know, going in, who's likely to survive the coming catastrophes and who isn't, but there’s nothing wrong with that. You don't read these kinds of novels for their great originality. Rather, you read them to see how well the writer spins a tale you know by heart.
In a novel of this size, however, that creates a massive, two-fold flaw. First, there are WAY too many subplots and WAY too many people running around in these 944 pages, yet Williams manages to write so few "round" characters that the conflicts, their motivations, or (especially) their resolutions are cardboard and predictable. But the fact that there are too many characters with a similar absence of depth is symptomatic of the poor choices Williams makes. When he does provide character detail, he often seems to do so at random. (**SEMISPOILERS**: What difference does it make, for example, that Arlette occasionally breaks into French or that she was hoping to spend the summer in Paris? What does the utterly useless and expendable character of Charlie, the” trading whiz” and soulless capitalist, add to the plot? After front-loading an extreme amount of detail about this character, Williams literally abandons him to an “I-can’t-be-bothered-with-him-anymore” conclusion. **END SEMISPOILERS**)
More damaging, from a plotting point of view, is the mundane fact that, each time there is a new earthquake (and there are LOTS of them), Williams retells the same event over and over: Here's how it affected Group A; now Group B; okay, and here's the way they felt it in Group C; over in Group D, meanwhile....
It's massively boring.
No less stultifying is Williams' insistence on quoting thousands of words from letters and newspaper accounts (real or invented, I don't know, but you won't care enough to find out) dating to an actual swarm of devastating earthquakes in the area in 1811. He intersperses these extracts, some of them rather long, at the beginning of chapters and elsewhere in the text. Here’s why it doesn’t work: (a) they all say EXACTLY the same thing in practically the same words and (b) the quotes are placed apparently at random, and do nothing to illuminate the action of the novel at that point.
I’m sure it was a challenge scouring the thesaurus for words that mean: tremble, shake, destroy, and fall down, but after the thirtieth time you read that a house was reduced to a “pile of broken timbers” or that the earth “rose up and smacked” someone in the ribs or that a boat “danced” on the river, you’ll want to reduce _The Rift_ to a pile of broken timbers. We get the picture, Walter. Really, we do. And yet the earthquakes keep coming, for no particular reason, and Williams keeps describing them as though we hadn’t already read the previous 200 or 400 or 650 or 812 pages.
In fact, Williams’ starts the book off with a great section, set in 700 AD or thereabouts, about the destruction-by-earthquake of the civilization that created the so-called “Indian mounds” in the area. But once that scene has played itself out, Williams doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver: the earthquakes 1100 years later or 170 years after that do the same damage and they do it in the same way: they just do it to bigger and more dangerous structures. Or, let’s put it another way: Williams wants the earthquake to be a major character in this novel, but the fact is that it’s the least interesting character of all because its features can never vary. The PEOPLE are what would make the story interesting, and there Williams falters.
Finally, there’s little satisfaction in Williams’ ham-handed effort to say something meaningful about race relations or about the American south (which is, here, cartoonish and two-dimensional) or about survivalists, religious fundamentalists, and assorted crackpots. (The “rift,” get it?) He’d have done better to leave aside the clumsy moralizing and cultural commentary. It’s a genre novel, Walter, not _War and Peace._
Williams starts off with the timeworn disaster-novel device that's as familiar and comfy as your favorite bathrobe: he introduces you to the six or eight different groups of characters that he's going to follow through the novel. You know who the bad guys are; you know who the good guys are. You know, going in, who's likely to survive the coming catastrophes and who isn't, but there’s nothing wrong with that. You don't read these kinds of novels for their great originality. Rather, you read them to see how well the writer spins a tale you know by heart.
In a novel of this size, however, that creates a massive, two-fold flaw. First, there are WAY too many subplots and WAY too many people running around in these 944 pages, yet Williams manages to write so few "round" characters that the conflicts, their motivations, or (especially) their resolutions are cardboard and predictable. But the fact that there are too many characters with a similar absence of depth is symptomatic of the poor choices Williams makes. When he does provide character detail, he often seems to do so at random. (**SEMISPOILERS**: What difference does it make, for example, that Arlette occasionally breaks into French or that she was hoping to spend the summer in Paris? What does the utterly useless and expendable character of Charlie, the” trading whiz” and soulless capitalist, add to the plot? After front-loading an extreme amount of detail about this character, Williams literally abandons him to an “I-can’t-be-bothered-with-him-anymore” conclusion. **END SEMISPOILERS**)
More damaging, from a plotting point of view, is the mundane fact that, each time there is a new earthquake (and there are LOTS of them), Williams retells the same event over and over: Here's how it affected Group A; now Group B; okay, and here's the way they felt it in Group C; over in Group D, meanwhile....
It's massively boring.
No less stultifying is Williams' insistence on quoting thousands of words from letters and newspaper accounts (real or invented, I don't know, but you won't care enough to find out) dating to an actual swarm of devastating earthquakes in the area in 1811. He intersperses these extracts, some of them rather long, at the beginning of chapters and elsewhere in the text. Here’s why it doesn’t work: (a) they all say EXACTLY the same thing in practically the same words and (b) the quotes are placed apparently at random, and do nothing to illuminate the action of the novel at that point.
I’m sure it was a challenge scouring the thesaurus for words that mean: tremble, shake, destroy, and fall down, but after the thirtieth time you read that a house was reduced to a “pile of broken timbers” or that the earth “rose up and smacked” someone in the ribs or that a boat “danced” on the river, you’ll want to reduce _The Rift_ to a pile of broken timbers. We get the picture, Walter. Really, we do. And yet the earthquakes keep coming, for no particular reason, and Williams keeps describing them as though we hadn’t already read the previous 200 or 400 or 650 or 812 pages.
In fact, Williams’ starts the book off with a great section, set in 700 AD or thereabouts, about the destruction-by-earthquake of the civilization that created the so-called “Indian mounds” in the area. But once that scene has played itself out, Williams doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver: the earthquakes 1100 years later or 170 years after that do the same damage and they do it in the same way: they just do it to bigger and more dangerous structures. Or, let’s put it another way: Williams wants the earthquake to be a major character in this novel, but the fact is that it’s the least interesting character of all because its features can never vary. The PEOPLE are what would make the story interesting, and there Williams falters.
Finally, there’s little satisfaction in Williams’ ham-handed effort to say something meaningful about race relations or about the American south (which is, here, cartoonish and two-dimensional) or about survivalists, religious fundamentalists, and assorted crackpots. (The “rift,” get it?) He’d have done better to leave aside the clumsy moralizing and cultural commentary. It’s a genre novel, Walter, not _War and Peace._
March 30, 2016
I was at the drug store and randomly saw this book tucked behind a bunch more in a pile by the register. It was marked down to a dollar and was very dusty. It was a thick chunky paperback and I figured what the heck. I was on my way to the doctors and I wasn't sticking my nose into any other book at the moment.
Wow! I really really liked this. Great drama. Written very well.
Wow! I really really liked this. Great drama. Written very well.
February 28, 2009
This is a fictional story of a huge earthquake hitting along the New Madrid fault of the Mississippi River. I loved learning about the actual history of this fault, where there was a major quake in 1811. Also interesting to learn the history of the moundbuilding Indians of the area.
September 30, 2010
Really good read, exciting and full of very cool descriptions & scientific/historic details relating to the New Madrid quake of 1812.
In 1812 a massive, catastrophic quake hit New Madrid, MO - so powerful it rung churchbells as far away as Boston, MA. It was 1000 times more powerful than the quake that hit San Francisco in 1906. It rerouted several major rivers including the Mississippi, flooded out whole towns, turned swamp areas into hills and made hills into lakes. It even had the Mississippi River flowing backward for almost two days.
The thing is, this quake is a recurring quake that hits every 200-300 years. Given that fact, Missouri is due for another major quake, very likely in our lifetime. Since Missouri, Mississippi, Tennesee, and Louisiana are all MUCH more densely populated today, it would be a major disaster - larger than any we in the US have ever seen.
The plot is good, the detail work appears to be accurate and is very interesting, the descriptions of the wasteland caused by the earthquake are fascinating and eerie. Very apocalyptic, even if regional.
The characters are mostly good - but my main complaint about this book centers around a few of the characterizations:
First off you will be safe SKIMMING the first 150 pages, where the characters get a waaaay long introduction that is just unneccesary and boring.
Secondly, the 'bad guys' in the story are a group of Aryan Nation / KKK-ers who round up blacks, put them in a camp, abuse & kill them, etc. The other 'bad guys' are evangelical Christians who believe it's the end of the world, who also end up rounding up people, putting them in a camp in order to 'save their souls', and kill a bunch of them.
To me, it's a totally absurd premise. When is the last time we in the US heard of white supremists and Christians going around killing people and putting them in camps during the aftermath of a natural disaster? Really?? If you look at the aftermath of disasters such as Katrina who was running around robbing, raping, looting and killing?
If you can skim the first 150 pages and then overlook the unrealistic premise of the 'bad guys', the rest of the book is really a good read!
In 1812 a massive, catastrophic quake hit New Madrid, MO - so powerful it rung churchbells as far away as Boston, MA. It was 1000 times more powerful than the quake that hit San Francisco in 1906. It rerouted several major rivers including the Mississippi, flooded out whole towns, turned swamp areas into hills and made hills into lakes. It even had the Mississippi River flowing backward for almost two days.
The thing is, this quake is a recurring quake that hits every 200-300 years. Given that fact, Missouri is due for another major quake, very likely in our lifetime. Since Missouri, Mississippi, Tennesee, and Louisiana are all MUCH more densely populated today, it would be a major disaster - larger than any we in the US have ever seen.
The plot is good, the detail work appears to be accurate and is very interesting, the descriptions of the wasteland caused by the earthquake are fascinating and eerie. Very apocalyptic, even if regional.
The characters are mostly good - but my main complaint about this book centers around a few of the characterizations:
First off you will be safe SKIMMING the first 150 pages, where the characters get a waaaay long introduction that is just unneccesary and boring.
Secondly, the 'bad guys' in the story are a group of Aryan Nation / KKK-ers who round up blacks, put them in a camp, abuse & kill them, etc. The other 'bad guys' are evangelical Christians who believe it's the end of the world, who also end up rounding up people, putting them in a camp in order to 'save their souls', and kill a bunch of them.
To me, it's a totally absurd premise. When is the last time we in the US heard of white supremists and Christians going around killing people and putting them in camps during the aftermath of a natural disaster? Really?? If you look at the aftermath of disasters such as Katrina who was running around robbing, raping, looting and killing?
If you can skim the first 150 pages and then overlook the unrealistic premise of the 'bad guys', the rest of the book is really a good read!
November 6, 2007
I had to skip the beginning of this book... I just found myself uninterested in the beginning story set in the past, and impatiently moved on to the "real" story. No doubt the author wouldn't want his readers skipping that part, but I don't think it hurt my reading experience with the book, and in fact I think it improved it. I also skipped the other small sections/paragraphs between book sections, as they were also bits from the past that didn't affect the overall story. What can I say, I'm just not much of a history buff.
This is a LONG book. I like long books- although I didn't fully develop interest in this one until around page 170 something, around the time things started going to hell. And while I wasn't that fascinated with the first 170 pages, they did help me build interest in the characters, so that once things started falling apart, I had interest in what happened to the characters. Not that I wouldn't have minded if that section were slightly shorter.
Ultimately, I'm glad I did hang in there, because as the story develops it's really quite interesting.
If you are the patient sort, I would say give it a try- it's a good read.
This is a LONG book. I like long books- although I didn't fully develop interest in this one until around page 170 something, around the time things started going to hell. And while I wasn't that fascinated with the first 170 pages, they did help me build interest in the characters, so that once things started falling apart, I had interest in what happened to the characters. Not that I wouldn't have minded if that section were slightly shorter.
Ultimately, I'm glad I did hang in there, because as the story develops it's really quite interesting.
If you are the patient sort, I would say give it a try- it's a good read.
September 18, 2008
It was interesting... for a while. Then it was a little tedious. Then it was boring. Then it was "just finish the book, yo!"
The little (pseudo?) historical notes from the 19th century earthquake were kind of cool. A few times. At the start of every one of a billion chapters? Skip.
All in all... ehhh.
The little (pseudo?) historical notes from the 19th century earthquake were kind of cool. A few times. At the start of every one of a billion chapters? Skip.
All in all... ehhh.
February 24, 2017
What a good story. I liked the way it switches from the present (or future) to the past with the written letters of those who survived the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 - 12.
The author develops the characters and the situations very well. The narrative moves along until the dialogs which grind on and on.
WARNING: There is a lot of hate filled racial narrative, which , I suppose is necessary for the back woods cone heads. This was very disturbing to me and could have been much modified and still been a good story.
There is some God cursing, which is totally unnecessary and offensive.
There is a crazy preacher who thinks he has all the right answers and this characterization gives us preachers a bad rep.
If you're prepared for these offensive narratives, then this is a good story.
The author develops the characters and the situations very well. The narrative moves along until the dialogs which grind on and on.
WARNING: There is a lot of hate filled racial narrative, which , I suppose is necessary for the back woods cone heads. This was very disturbing to me and could have been much modified and still been a good story.
There is some God cursing, which is totally unnecessary and offensive.
There is a crazy preacher who thinks he has all the right answers and this characterization gives us preachers a bad rep.
If you're prepared for these offensive narratives, then this is a good story.
February 28, 2017
The first half of the story is very well done, interspersed with quotations from historical records of the quake of 1812. This is a scary prospect -- what would happen if that same quake were repeated today, and The Rift attempts to present the possibilities. The devastation would be beyond comprehension, and beyond the capacity of the United States to deal with the consequences in a way that most people expect. Two thirds through the book, I became impatient with the lengthy and detailed explanations of the recovery efforts, and the plot seemed to become much more speculative and less probable. Some of the characters were caricatures and betray the author's prejudices about certain types/groups of people.
June 11, 2017
This could have happened yesterday
Natural Disasters effects so many lives and brings out the good and bad in people. People who aren't directly effected don't actually know what families go through when everything they possess is gone. This book, although not based on a true story, made me feel like I was reading about something taking place right now in our nation, in states not far from where I live. Katrina wasn't an earth quake but the flooding took so much from the families that were in it's path and it can change people, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.
Natural Disasters effects so many lives and brings out the good and bad in people. People who aren't directly effected don't actually know what families go through when everything they possess is gone. This book, although not based on a true story, made me feel like I was reading about something taking place right now in our nation, in states not far from where I live. Katrina wasn't an earth quake but the flooding took so much from the families that were in it's path and it can change people, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.
August 13, 2007
From the book jacket: It starts with the dogs. They won't stop barking. And then the earth shrugs - 8.9 on the Richter scale. It's the world's biggest earthquake since Lisbon in 1755, and it doesn't hit California or Japan or Mexico, but New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi River. I read the first 100 or so pages and felt like I was reading the script to a disaster made-for-TV miniseries. I finally gave up on getting any further.
February 6, 2016
I quit 117 pages in because there was nothing happening. The characters don't engage me at all and if they all get killed later on in a national disaster, I'm not going to be able to get excited about it. This is a very Seventies kind of disaster novel, with a lot of up-close sex scenes that have no bearing of any sort on the story.
January 16, 2011
Huckleberry Finn in an apocalyptic scenario. Thoroughly enjoyable!
September 3, 2022
Imagine a novel whose overarching plot is only slightly better than average but whose individual scenes are liquid gold. The way this guy writes about a monster wave chasing a captain on a barge is nothing short of spectacular. I wish he had spent a little more time creating stronger links between the individual narratives, because the end goal could have made for an adamant recommendation. As things stand, and this is only a mild spoiler, it feels like you get shoved from one earthquake to the next in a way similar to a roller coaster whose first drop assaults your guts but subsequent dips just don't have the same thrill. It's as if subsequent earthquakes have to happen in order to keep spurring on the story, and I wish the author would have relied more on his cast of characters to propel the narrative forward. The pieces are all there. I would have just enjoyed a tighter connection. So, yes, read it. After what feels like a whining session on my end, I did ultimately give it 4 stars for a reason. What fell short for me could very well be an undisputed winner for you.
May 30, 2020
Audible Audiobook. Okay, but - there is no "rift".
It's an apocalypse story involving a Madrid Fault earthquake. A huge earthquake - the entirety of the central United States. That's the same fault that last blew in the early 1800s and several times over millennia. Racism, good-ole-boy bigotry, preppers, nuclear plant dangers, insane preachers, vandals, hunger, and the angry, poisoned, Mississippi River, and tributaries play predominant roles. Heroes and bad-guys sprinkle the pages!
Narration is fine, no issues.
Enjoy, if you're okay with the length - a bit long.
It's an apocalypse story involving a Madrid Fault earthquake. A huge earthquake - the entirety of the central United States. That's the same fault that last blew in the early 1800s and several times over millennia. Racism, good-ole-boy bigotry, preppers, nuclear plant dangers, insane preachers, vandals, hunger, and the angry, poisoned, Mississippi River, and tributaries play predominant roles. Heroes and bad-guys sprinkle the pages!
Narration is fine, no issues.
Enjoy, if you're okay with the length - a bit long.
June 18, 2017
I think this book tried to go into too many directions resulting in a longer and less focused story. Characters were introduced, added little or nothing to the story, then were killed off; their existence and departure had no effect on the outcome. We also learned details about the main characters that added nothing to the story. Finally, which Rift? The Mississippi Valley, the broken families, or was it the rift between blacks and whites? At the end of the day, I read it and finished it. But, I don't recommend it.
Read
October 7, 2009At first, I thought I was reading the plot for another disaster movie. Too many characters, too many subplots. Then it all clicked. It became riveting and suspenseful. Although the book is very long (over 900 pages), once I got over the initial introduction of characters, I was hooked. A very good read.
November 21, 2017
Amazing story!
I wasn't sure what to expect as I started reading this story I enjoy reading disaster books but most of them are repetitive. This is not the case with The Rift. This book is unique and I have never read anything quite like it. I was engrossed in every page and I was routing Nick and Jason on. I recommend this book.
I wasn't sure what to expect as I started reading this story I enjoy reading disaster books but most of them are repetitive. This is not the case with The Rift. This book is unique and I have never read anything quite like it. I was engrossed in every page and I was routing Nick and Jason on. I recommend this book.
March 13, 2018
I had to give up on this book after about 100 pages of waiting for something to happen. I found myself skipping paragraphs after reading the first sentence. I just didn't need to know every small detail about the lives of a dozen different characters. When I realized what I was doing I had to admit that enough was enough. First time in years that I've abandon a novel.
August 16, 2010
A great doomer book about an earthquake on the New Madrid Fault that destroys St. Louis and Memphis
June 30, 2014
Good book but I read it years ago. It's very dated.
August 5, 2016
DNF.
Good book but too long!
Good book but too long!
June 12, 2017
3.5..a surprisingly decent read from the cheap seats at Bookbub. Lots of information on earthquakes interwoven in a story basically about the human condition and its response to catastrophic events.
October 28, 2019
Unusually, Williams is one of my go-to-authors, I just couldn't get into this. Got about 1/4th of the way and couldn't muster the energy to continue. Just not for me.
May 2, 2009
Very good disaster book. All loose ends tied up quite nicely.
May 14, 2022
Overall, not bad, but could have been better. More like 3.5 stars, not quite 4.
The bad:
He starts off with a prelude to the story talking about how prescient he was about events happening like in the book. It's not hard to predict general natural disasters. The hard part is predicting when/where they occur.
The comparison between Fargo and Grand Forks is off. I'm not positive about the total taxes between the two cities, but my impression was that at the time GF had higher taxes. GF does have significantly higher taxes now. GF had some permanent levies in place that gave way. Fargo constructed temporary dikes each year. My opinion is that it had more to do with the organizational skills of Dennis Wallaker in Fargo than anything in '97. The '09 Red River flood was even higher.
The story starts off a bit slow.
Quite a few characters that I just didn't care about. Including several that were introduced somewhat late, had only a scene or two, and/or then killed off early. The only ones I really cared about were Jason, Nick and Jessica.
I'm not sure the motors on the bass boat would have worked without a complete teardown after having been submerged.
There was a fairly explicit sex scene at the end of chapter 4 that took the story nowhere. I'm not sure what the point of it was as it was already established that those two characters were sleeping together. Maybe he was trying to show he could write erotica?
I don't think there was a single example of a law enforcement or religious figure in the book that wasn't deeply flawed in character. They all seemed crazy, racist or homicidal. Wait, I take that back. The one black Methodist preacher was a decent guy.
The good:
The story moves along fairly well once the earthquake hits. It just takes awhile for it get to that point.
He did a good job of trying to make the racist sheriff, Omar, look sympathetic for the first half of the book. It was almost like he was using the KKK like just another fraternal organization like the Masons, Elks, Moose, or Knights of Columbus. But once things went to hell, his true colors showed through. Omar had a definite story arc.
Jason grew from a bratty kid to a pretty solid teen/young adult. I liked his character arc. For awhile it looked like his part might just be a modern Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi. He matured well while still remaining a modern teenager.
Nick grew on me. At first he seemed a little too depressed and dejected. Once his interactions with his friend, Biondi/Viondi?, started with them fishing he became a more likeable character. By the end of the book he was a real take-charge kind of guy and showed off some of his work skills along with what his Dad had taught him. His actions at the camp were possible a little over the top, but I still enjoyed it.
Jessica started out like she was going to be just another diversity hire that skated through the story because she was the-girl-in-charge (which unfortunately is something that quite a few stories over the last couple of decades have given us). But she did have to work through some problems thrown in her way and handled them with aplomb. Her story arc, while not as expansive as some others, was at the core of the book and tied all of the rest of the story together.
Larry was a little "meh", but wasn't a bad character. He just didn't have any real arc or emotional appeal to me.
The AudioBook was narrated beautifully. He gave each character it's own voice and used inflection, cadence, and accent to make it easy to identify the various people. One of the best examples of narration I've seen so far in my AudioBook journey. The AudioBook was formatted well with no obvious errors, skips or garbling.
The bad:
He starts off with a prelude to the story talking about how prescient he was about events happening like in the book. It's not hard to predict general natural disasters. The hard part is predicting when/where they occur.
The comparison between Fargo and Grand Forks is off. I'm not positive about the total taxes between the two cities, but my impression was that at the time GF had higher taxes. GF does have significantly higher taxes now. GF had some permanent levies in place that gave way. Fargo constructed temporary dikes each year. My opinion is that it had more to do with the organizational skills of Dennis Wallaker in Fargo than anything in '97. The '09 Red River flood was even higher.
The story starts off a bit slow.
Quite a few characters that I just didn't care about. Including several that were introduced somewhat late, had only a scene or two, and/or then killed off early. The only ones I really cared about were Jason, Nick and Jessica.
I'm not sure the motors on the bass boat would have worked without a complete teardown after having been submerged.
There was a fairly explicit sex scene at the end of chapter 4 that took the story nowhere. I'm not sure what the point of it was as it was already established that those two characters were sleeping together. Maybe he was trying to show he could write erotica?
I don't think there was a single example of a law enforcement or religious figure in the book that wasn't deeply flawed in character. They all seemed crazy, racist or homicidal. Wait, I take that back. The one black Methodist preacher was a decent guy.
The good:
The story moves along fairly well once the earthquake hits. It just takes awhile for it get to that point.
He did a good job of trying to make the racist sheriff, Omar, look sympathetic for the first half of the book. It was almost like he was using the KKK like just another fraternal organization like the Masons, Elks, Moose, or Knights of Columbus. But once things went to hell, his true colors showed through. Omar had a definite story arc.
Jason grew from a bratty kid to a pretty solid teen/young adult. I liked his character arc. For awhile it looked like his part might just be a modern Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi. He matured well while still remaining a modern teenager.
Nick grew on me. At first he seemed a little too depressed and dejected. Once his interactions with his friend, Biondi/Viondi?, started with them fishing he became a more likeable character. By the end of the book he was a real take-charge kind of guy and showed off some of his work skills along with what his Dad had taught him. His actions at the camp were possible a little over the top, but I still enjoyed it.
Jessica started out like she was going to be just another diversity hire that skated through the story because she was the-girl-in-charge (which unfortunately is something that quite a few stories over the last couple of decades have given us). But she did have to work through some problems thrown in her way and handled them with aplomb. Her story arc, while not as expansive as some others, was at the core of the book and tied all of the rest of the story together.
Larry was a little "meh", but wasn't a bad character. He just didn't have any real arc or emotional appeal to me.
The AudioBook was narrated beautifully. He gave each character it's own voice and used inflection, cadence, and accent to make it easy to identify the various people. One of the best examples of narration I've seen so far in my AudioBook journey. The AudioBook was formatted well with no obvious errors, skips or garbling.
June 3, 2023
Maybe now wasn't the right time to have read this book. I love a good apocalyptic story and this one had all the elements of a great story, despite all the cliched tropes. And, as a native Californian who weathered the '89 quake, I was excited for a story with a major earthquake at its center. The book takes a while to introduce you to the main characters: Charlie, a commodities trader; Jason, a teenage boy; Nick, a Black man who just wants to find his daughter; a General in the Army Corps of Engineers named Jessica; the President of the USA; an end-of-days preacher who forces refugees into his cult; and a KKK card carrying racist, newly elected to the office of sheriff of a parish in Louisiana.
Jason, Nick, and Jessica were the stars of this story for me. The other characters were just a waste of space. Of course, that might be because the evangelical preacher and racist sheriff were hitting just a little too close to home considering the political climate of today. I had no interest in their stories at all and just skipped right over them until their parts of the story merged with Jason and Nick. And of course they merged because why wouldn't the main characters find themselves trapped in a cult and then a racist death camp?
There were moments of great action but those were overshadowed by huge sections in which nothing really happened. At over 900 pages, there was a lot of that.
Jason, Nick, and Jessica were the stars of this story for me. The other characters were just a waste of space. Of course, that might be because the evangelical preacher and racist sheriff were hitting just a little too close to home considering the political climate of today. I had no interest in their stories at all and just skipped right over them until their parts of the story merged with Jason and Nick. And of course they merged because why wouldn't the main characters find themselves trapped in a cult and then a racist death camp?
There were moments of great action but those were overshadowed by huge sections in which nothing really happened. At over 900 pages, there was a lot of that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 7, 2017
Jason Adams is a young boy caught in a natural disaster as is everyone else along the Mississippi River and its tributary river basins.
What’s happening? Continental plates and overlying sediments are shifting to relieve stress once again just as they did in the fall of 1811…before the area was thickly settled by white settlers; before the area became the industrial axis of the United States.
The scenario is realistic and ultimately frightening. It is a stark testimony to the powerlessness of humanity to control and manipulate nature; and to mankind’s vulnerability to both natural disasters and the darker, baser, more sinister predilection for violence, prejudice and taking advantage of others who have been hurt.
Using a cast of complicated well-developed characters, the author paints a picture of both the good and the bad in people who are all facing a struggle to survive whether they all realize it or not.
The Rift is a great read. It should be required reading for everyone who believes that Earth will remain unchanging in its present form forever.
What’s happening? Continental plates and overlying sediments are shifting to relieve stress once again just as they did in the fall of 1811…before the area was thickly settled by white settlers; before the area became the industrial axis of the United States.
The scenario is realistic and ultimately frightening. It is a stark testimony to the powerlessness of humanity to control and manipulate nature; and to mankind’s vulnerability to both natural disasters and the darker, baser, more sinister predilection for violence, prejudice and taking advantage of others who have been hurt.
Using a cast of complicated well-developed characters, the author paints a picture of both the good and the bad in people who are all facing a struggle to survive whether they all realize it or not.
The Rift is a great read. It should be required reading for everyone who believes that Earth will remain unchanging in its present form forever.
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