War Dogs Heading Home - Book 1 - (Wounded Warriors of the Apocalypse - Post-Apocalyptic Survival Fiction)
After suffering severe wounds during an IED blast in London, Staff Sergeant Jason Walker and his Military Service Dog and best friend, MMax, are being shipped home. An EMP blast causes their plane to crash in the middle of nowhere. Having survived two disasters, they face the struggle to get home.
Being warfighters, they certainly have the skills needed to survive in hostile surroundings, but in a world gone mad, where life clings on by a thread and people will kill for a few scraps of food, can they make it home alive? And if they can, will there be anything left to return to?
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
A.J. Newman is the author of over 22 novels that have been published on Amazon. He was born and raised in a small town in the western part of Kentucky. His Dad taught him how to handle guns very early in life, and he and his best friend Mike spent summers shooting .22 rifles and fishing. He read every book he could get his hands on and fell in love with science fiction. He graduated from USI with a degree in Chemistry and made a career working in manufacturing and logistics, but always fancied himself as an author. He served six years in the Army National Guard in an armored unit and spent six years performing every function on M48 and M60 army tanks. This gave him a great respect for our veterans who lay their lives on the line to protect our country and freedoms. He currently resides in Kentucky with his wife Patsy and their three tiny mop dogs, Sammy Cotton and Callie.
A STORY OF A WOUNDED SOLDIER HEADING STATESIDE FOR TREATMENT ONLY FOR THE WAR TO REACH HOME
War Dogs Heading Home: Wounded Warriors of the Apocalypse - Post-Apocalyptic Survival Fiction by AJ Newman is a very well written book about a wounded soldier and his wounded military dog that before they reach the VA Hospital, the war overseas hits the U.S. at home and almost dead themselves, they fight not only to survive themselves but to rescue those who can't protect themselves from the chaos of the aftermath of an EMP nuclear attack.
With the government and the military sidelined by the attack by terrorist, our hero/heroes, Jason and MMax struggle to make it home to Jason's parents in the remote Tennessee farmland. During their trip to Jason's family farm, they fight one battle after another to save a few that are bound to be kidnapped, murdered, enslaved, and worse by gangs, freed criminals, drug addicts, and just your everyday scum.
This is the start of what is no doubt going to be another great series by AJ Newman. I have really enjoyed reading the first book in this series and have already started the second book. I hope you too will enjoy this tell of a soldier and his military K9, which is also his best friend and vise versa.
Quotes from "War Dogs Heading Home: Wounded Warriors of the Apocalypse by AJ Newman:
"So get used to the complaints because you have a couple chapters of "pain" complaints and can kiss my redneck ass if you don't like it. Just hang in there buttercup, and the pain will ease as time goes on."
"I'd rather kick a wildcat in the balls in a phone booth than mess with that lady."
"You know when a prude curses and says, pardon my French."
"Sometimes life sucks, but you have to overcome the roadblocks and keep on keeping on."
I was torn on how to rate this. In the end, I gave it three stars for the reasons below. I will read more if they come out, so it’s not that I didn’t enjoy the story. But to me, five is saved for my absolute favorites I read over and over and four for “wow this was great,” leaving this series as a three to me.
It’s a good story overall, but almost reads as an unedited draft in certain ways. Not grammatically, but storywise. Some things take forever to happen with lots of details, then suddenly important things happen in the blink of an eye with no real development and details.
The dialog is sometimes—what words to use—stilted? undeveloped? slightly juvenile (but not really)? I can’t put my finger on it. I know a little is a part of making this guy “a bit awkward” but it’s not just that. This book could have used a good editor. It would be so good had it had that.
I do have one other silly comment. At one point, the hero counts as he tries to fall asleep. It’s supposedly one night. He says he counted to 187,900+. Uh, at one per second, that would take 51 hours. And no one can say 123,482 in one second, even in their head. So yeah, that was goofy. Hell, a guy counted to 1 million for some charity back in like 2005 or something. That took 2-3 months at several hours a day. There was video of the guy doing it. Yet this hero did 20% of that in part of one night? Do a little math if you’re gonna put silly stuff in the book. At 3600 seconds per hour, ten hours would only get you to 36,000 at an impossibility fast count rate. I would say it was meant as a joke, but the hero even says, “you think I’m kidding, but it’s true”—not sure why that stuck me so badly. I suppose because this story is “narrated” as the hero telling his story. And it made me think of the hero as a bullshitter. Not the intended result I’m sure.
First book I've read from this author, loved the soldier, military dog apoplectic theme
Got this of kindle unlimited and if I had the money I'd definitely buy this book to add to keep and re-read collection. Well written with family, strangers, friendly advisories and a few enemies. There is killing and cursing, but it adds to the characters development. No cliffhanger ending, but I immediately looked to see if a second book was available, sadly not at this time. I hope one is in the works . This was an absolute gem so glad it was recommended to me from Amazon.. well worth the price
This is an awesome story about a soldier and his wardog MMax
Wounded by jihadi insurgents in the latest warzone in the UK, Jason was packed into a medevac pod with everything he needed to survive the trip except for MMax who was bundled into another pod recovering from his own wounds. Almost to their destination, the plane suddenly lost power and crashed. Jason survived and worked past his pain to get out of the pod. He found himself in the midst of the wreckage, with only dead soldiers. He saw that some survivors had made their way from the downed plane. Inspecting the pieces of of the airplane, he found MMax's pod and helped his partner and friend get loose from his pod and both of them worked to remove themselves from the area. Along the way he ran into Billie and her spoiled brat son. Literally ran into them! He'd found a cart and horses and Billie demanded he leave one of the horses for her and her lazy kid since he had thoughtlessly ran over them in the dark night. He blamed her for carelessly camping on the roadway but left her a horse and a few supplies and left her behind to make her own way. He also rescued a woman and her daughters from an evil man and Karen and her two girls started travelling with Jason. After finding her home destroyed by looters, she followed Jason to his mother's home. Karen and the girls were good company and helpful on the trip. When they arrived at Jason's mother's house they found that Billie and Mark (the brat) had somehow found Jan's (Jason's mom) place a little before Jason and party arrived. And the sparks flew! Great characters and lots of action keep the pages turning! Some of the characters are hard workers and easy company (especially MMax, a working Wardog and Jason's best friend). There are other characters that are essentially evil and you just can't wait for karma to catch up to them. An amazing storyline works its way through the beginning of an apocalypse brought on by EMPs taking down the power grid. Hard to put down, exciting action gracing the pages, the master storyteller draws you in and forces you to face the characters with emotion: some with love and tenderness, others with strong action, often reached at the point of a bullet! This is a great read!
Five Fantastic Stars ✨✨✨✨✨ World Building 🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏 Characters 💁♀️👩🌾🙍♀️🙍♂️🙍 Storytelling 📖📖📖📖📖
I purchased War Dogs in a trilogy package.
Book 1 Heading Home. Jason Walker and his K9 buddy MMax are part of the US military, serving in a war overseas, are severally wounded and flown back to the states. Nearly home when something happens and the plane falls out of the sky. When Jason wakes inside his medi pod, he realises that he and MMax were left for dead. This is the story of how Jason and MMax band together and face adversity head on, the people they meet and help along the way as he slowly drags his and MMaxs broken body home.
Book 2 No One Left Behind. Jason , his Dad and MMax leaves the safety of the farm to search and rescue his sister and his brother and his family. Tragedy befalls them as they go from one tight situation to another. They help new friends but also loose people close to Jason. He saves a pocked sized hell cat whose name is Kat who gave as good as she got.
The world is a bleak and meaner place, where death and tragedy is all around.
Book 3 Amazon Warrior Jason finds that the balance of men to women ratio is heavily disproportionate. To survive and ensure their farm isn’t over run by bandits, thugs, thieves and FEMA, Jason has to train the women into an effective fighting force. The Warrior Women fight and die to protect their new home, friends and loved ones.
I really loved reading these books. The new apocalyptic world is a harrowing, uncertain and hopeless place to live. People turn on one another just for food scraps but the story expands throughout the three books to where there is a light on the horizon, and people evolve to work for the betterment and safety of their farm, their new home and undertake new challenges like farming and training to fight.
There are many characters in the three books and all are well thought out, rounded, and evolve along with the story.
Thank God it’s over … That’s all I could think when I finished this. I love the post apocalyptic genre, and have read a lot of them, but this was probably the worst so far.
Spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned.
My first gripe was that things went to hell within 24hrs of the EMP attack. I’m not talking people being in disorder and wondering what was going on, and maybe some looting, but people actually taking slaves for farm labor … within 24hrs. The whole thing was just ridiculous, people attacking and killing their neighbors, and dog packs running in the streets eating corpses by day 3?! Most people would still be trying to figure out what the heck was going on at that point.
Then let’s talk about the “bad guy”, who is held at gunpoint by two main characters in the first half of the book, but let go both times, allowing him to go on and murder two kids, rape their mother then kill both parents. After which he is captured, but the town counsel “doesn’t believe in the death penalty” so they are going to “banish him” cause he obviously follows the rules already. The murdered woman’s sister, whom he was actually after, again has the opportunity to kill the murderer and shoots off his ear instead, cause that will obviously scare him off. He goes on to kill all the town counsel idiots in retaliation, to which I can only say good riddance. Might I add this all takes place in small town Tennessee? As a resident of small town America myself, I can tell you that None of this makes sense.
Add to all this that one of the main characters is a nasty shrew of a woman with zero redeeming qualities, with a complete brat of a kid, and I was almost hoping the bad guy would catch them.
All in all, the setting and people’s reaction was so far over the top that it was ridiculous, add in unlikeable characters, and the decent characters constantly making too stupid to live mistakes, and the result is that I’m beyond ticked that I paid money for this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
After being wounded and removed from the frontline of fighting, Staff Sergeant Jason Walker's military transport crashes leaving him and his service dog, MMax, to discover that the world around him has lost all traces of humanity and is much more dangerous than the war he left behind. AJ Newman weaves a terrifying reality that could be a preview to this country's future. These characters had to be tougher, more versatile, and able to adapt to this harsh environment. Also, unseen dangers could appear at any time. So, they had to be constantly on the alert and quick to react in order to survive. One mistake or one aggressive action against our country, and we could find ourselves facing the same future as Jason Walker and the other characters in this story. Would any of us be ready to embrace this new existence? A.J. Newman has shown us a preview and it's the stuff of nightmares. Good Read!!!!
This was my first time reading this author, but will not be my last. I really love a good story with dogs. This story was a little slow to start out, but I am glad that I gave It a chance. It really confused me that anyone, especially a combat vet , would leave someone like Ray alive. But I guess, it was so there is a evil for the storyline. Tina, was a great addition to the family. This was a nice pace story, however, It did not make sense at some spots in the story. When MMax tracks the evil guy? Since I do not want to post any spoilers that's all I will say about it. I recommend you get the books and leave your reviews. I do like how it had a mini ending for the storyline. Yes, I really got tired of the word pain!
Love the interaction between service man and working dog. I am seriously reading prepper and apocalypse books, something i thought i would never do. But the state of our Nation and the dredful politicians, (Trump and followers) have put fear into my mind and vocabulary. I have learned a lot but not nearly enough to survive. Think I must consider delving deeper into things abd actually readying myself and loved ones for a frightening future if we want to have a future. Never ever thought I would put those thoughts into written words and be serious about it. In any case this is a good and entertaining read as well. Dogs are smarter and have better character and instinct than a lot of humans!
Hmmm. I struggled with what rating to give this book. In the end, I gave it a three. It has great potential. It just needs some editing. The characters are awesome. And who doesn't like a military working dog as a central character to the story? But, a good editor could have made this at least a 4, if not a 5.
It ended a little oddly for me. The scene where Jason is reunited with his father did not make sense in how it unfolded in the story. And there were some dialog issues that an editor would have improved. But the basic story was great. It just needed some more editing.
Another great book, though some things are far fetched. The author I feel does take his literary license a little far, and gives hints as to what the future holds when he writes it in this book. In a post apocalypse world, we can only imagine what it would be like. We can take some degree of truth to it from what people do after other natural disasters though.
Loved MMax and his handler. Story jives with other military PTSD stories. Setting is unique and definitely lends itself to a series. Looking forward to the next one.
Gripping and fast read.I can't wait for the next one.
I liked the characters including the dogs and they all had good but concise back stories. The story is believable and just the right intensity to keep you reading.
Fairly interesting but wish he had left Billie and Mark out of the story. As in his trilogy + 1, he puts in too many characters. You need a score pad to keep up with what he’s saying . Lets Jason make too many dumb mistakes. Jumps around too much. Not a fun read.
The writing was a bit amateurish, and the dialogue was unrealistic. That said, it did pull together by the end of the book. I did actually enjoy the story once I got over the writing style. It also didn't hurt that one of the main characters was Military Working Dog. All in all, despite the rough start with the writing style, the book was in fact interesting enough to get past that, which I think does speak well of the author. Just needs to find a new editor, or stop writing like he's writing and just be natural.
Fairly good writing for Kindle Unlimited. The main character is likable and the supporting cast is well done. The bad guys are evil and smelly, the goods are likable.
Well I enjoyed that book and am moving on to the next in the series. Once again the characters are likable even the ones that are not you want to figure them out.
Loved loved this short book! Well written, and nice and different! Funny , makes a change from some of the preper books, thank you for the short distraction.
Consumed this as an audiobook and found it a reasonable read. Always find Americans prudishness to swearing at odds with their acceptance of violence in these types of stories.