American Apocalypse: The Beginning

by Nova

In the not so distant future, the American economy fails, stumbling from a sharp decline into full out collapse. One casualty of the fallout finds himself homeless in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and faces new challenges at every turn just trying to survive. As he changes and adapts he learns hard lessons, makes new friends and ultimately becomes a formidable force of harsh justice in a lawless land. An unrelenting coming of age story set in the backdrop of a once proud America spiraling downward into third world squalor and violence.

Genres: Post Apocalyptic, Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 11, 2009

About the author

I am a writer among other things. I wrote, "Police Battalions of the Third Reich" and the "American Apocalypse" series.

Reviews

[Patti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sometimes, I think self-publishing is the worst thing that has ever happened to the printed word. Anyone with something to say can get their book out there, looking like a legitimately vetted piece of work. And we end up with this.

The main character is completely unlikable. He changes motivations as often as the clock changes time. Had he stuck with one or the other or even the other motivations, he might have made sense. People don't use contractions, which is very odd, unless he was trying to pad the word count. Everybody says "Jeebus" instead of "Jesus," which is cute for one person, not so cute for every single character, specifically the Mexican characters, who tend to take Jesus seriously. This may be an editor issue, but if you're going to use profanity, then use it throughout the book, not in one or two places and have the rest censored. Even if that's an editing issue, the writer should have looked at the book before he published it.

The premise is good, but the way he just piles on the crap without really giving much in the way of background left me wondering. Nuclear bomb detonations in other countries got nothing more than a couple paragraphs of musings.

The editor, who states in the beginning that it had been a long time since English 101, really should have brushed up on his editing skills before taking this on.

This was originally a blog, and in my opinion, should have stayed that way.

[Felicia A Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on the fall of our American way of life. Gritty and real, scary for sure, but perfectly possible. Probable, even. Timely, given the current state of our country and society.

Apparently, this book came about through the author's blog posts. I have never seen the blog, but I can see how he would have a lot of followers if the thoughts in this book are his.

Mr. Nova, however, should seriously engage the services of a good editor before he ever publishes another book. This one was bad, even for a self published work, and there is no excuse for it.

The story ends very abruptly, so we know there is another book coming. I will read it, but I hope that more care is taken to have it properly edited.

[Bob Crowley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent series until the author starts introducing the supernatural

[Kym Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I purchased this book some time ago after it was suggested that I should read it along with some other titles along the same theme, the post apocalyptic world and its survivors.

Whether it is post nuclear, zombie hordes, civil war, post World War three, etc etc. It is a popular theme to imagine a World where what we took for granted and found security in has become shattered. From the rubble and ruins of the positive before, the few survivors do their best to salvage a life and avoid the uncertainties that lurk. That sounds pretty exciting right ?

Well it is a hit and miss affair. This book is one of those misses.

From the 1980s genre z grade films to popular games like the Fallout series and better books than this one. For every Mad Max 2 there is an Ultra Warrior. This book would be an Ultra Warrior.

I wanted to like this book. I wanted the author to do well for their efforts. The book is handsomely presented for a self published work and despite some poor editing. Something we ALl can sukumb 2 at times. The book did present well.

It was with the main character and his journey that I struggled to maintain interest with and any hold real care for him. I did not find appeal with any of his activities or adventures. Perhaps it was the writing style which added to all of this but I just lost interest. I simply could not relate with our hero.

I regret to give this such a poor review.

IF you really really like books on the after math of civilisation then please go ahead. If you however have a higher standard for story telling and character development then perhaps over look this book.

30 %

[Jason Fedler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author has lots of grammatical errors and doesn't seem to understand the difference between "an" and "and", "to" and "too" and "two" and a couple other things like that, which I found a bit annoying, but it wasn't so annoying as to keep me from continuing to read it.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yea, I dug this book. Not the best writing/story telling but...hey, I'm obsessed with WSHTF. I just wish Nova would have gone more in depth on why and how the CRASH happened. You get bids throughout the whole book. Some interesting stuff.