Solo

by Mike Kilroy

SHATTERED WORLD. SHATTERED MIND. The world is a gritty, dystopian remnant of its former self. Solo, an outcast and survivor with no past, struggles to find peace as he copes with the ravages of desolation and his shattered mind. Haunted by fleeting memories of a life from the "Before," he embarks on a quest for discovery with his only friend, Tom, a gruff, no-nonsense survivalist with a penchant for spitting out folksy one-liners. "Life is like licking honey off a thorn." Solo finds the "After" to be inexplicably surreal. Reality, a vestige of what once was, overshadows Solo's ability to find himself and the only woman he can remember, Eye Lyds. "The end ... has it come?" Unsure, Solo seeks answers amidst a quagmire of latent thoughts and images, sending him on a journey to his past: a woman, a hospital, danger ... and truth. "The truth? Why, when a lie would do so nicely? " Venture into the mind of a man lost to his own consciousness, where dreams are reality, and reality is in the eye of the beholder. From the best-selling, award-winning author of "Nine Meals" and "The 17" comes a story of unconditional love, survival and an unrelenting war against mental illness. Memories, filtered through a glass, seen darkly...will they destroy the man he's become or save the shadow he used to be? "Vows made in storms are forgotten in calms."

Genres: Post Apocalyptic

204 pages, Paperback

First published December 23, 2014

Reviews

[Lauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really strange story about a shattered man trying to figure out what is real and what is just craziness in his head, in a post-apocalyptic future. Weird book, but I liked it.

[Robert Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find the style and the narrative construction annoying in its fluctuating between ham-handed juvenility and occasional sophistication and literary weightiness. In my view, the juvenile and the simplistic win out over the literary and the sophisticated. I rarely read more than half of a novel, only to abandon it. But my annoyance at the unfulfilled potential of this novel, at the persistence of poor writing, unmotivated character actions, of unsatisfying world-building, inconsistency and just plain spectacular mediocrity led me to delete this from my Kindle, at about the 55% mark. I just could not force myself to go on. The divergence between the promise of this book's underlying concept and the erratic, but mostly poor execution. I dislike writing bad reviews. Alas, that's all I can do here. I found the main character unbelievable, the plot line erratic and unsatisfying. *sigh*

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went Solo after Nine Lives & Frail Man

This is a post-apocalyptic/psych, fast paced thriller which I was easily introduced to after reading Mike Kilroy's Nine Lives series.
He gave us a very cool and tremendously interesting concept to ponder and one could say would lead nicely into a sequel. Some twists, some turns, enough to satisfy what we want in this genre. Not utterly fabulous but his sequel to it can be.

[Mallory Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exciting read!

This book was pretty short I got thru it in a weekend or maybe it was just so good I couldn't put it down! I'd recommend this book to anyone!