The Jetty Journals

by Ian Buchanan

A group of Australian teenagers struggle to survive in a world devastated by a virus. If you enjoyed John Marsden's "Tomorrow" series, "Day of the Triffids", or "28 Days Later" then you will enjoy this exciting read. A rattling-along adventure story!

Nook

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Born in rural Western Australia, Buchanan grew up in the suburbs of Perth. He did his BA and PhD in the English and Comparative Literature program at Murdoch University, graduating in 1995. His PhD dissertation, entitled, "Heterology: Towards a Transcendental Empiricist Approach to Cultural Studies" attempted to fuse the work of de Certeau and Deleuze for the purposes of doing cultural analysis

Reviews

[Brainycat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about Karen, a teenager who survived a worldwide viral outbreak that causes death or zombieism for everyone but a handful of survivors.

The pacing of the book was excellent, but I felt the characters were a little wooden. This especially comes out in the dialogue; everyone sounds the same. Also, each of the survivors are kids - and I never got the sense that these children were forced to grow up too quickly.

Characterization aside, it was really neat reading about Australia. Obviously, it's not a tour guide, but the little nuances of speech and culture were fascinating to me. The action was what really makes this book; Ian has a superior grasp of pacing and the way the civilization rumbled to a halt was plausible, as were the survivor's reactions.

There's a mention at the end of the book of a sequel, and I expect I'll read it. Not so much because I'm interested in Karen as much as I am the post-apocalyptic world that Ian created.

This was a very, very quick read - I banged it out in one sitting. It's worth the couple bucks he's charging for it at smashwords.

[Kati · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an original story, even taking into account the theme, which is almost being overdone at this point, the narrative managed to be unique. I like that it was kind of 'timeless', in that there are not many references to time or place & the story can continue to be relevant no matter when or where you are. I find myself on here now to share my thoughts since I was looking this book up again hoping to find that a sequel might have been announced. I'm ready to know more!