Cannibal Reign (Harper Thriller)

Jack Forrest and his crew of former Green Berets are preparing for the end of the world in an abandoned missile silo, gathering a group of 50 men, women, and children in hopes of riding out the disaster to come. An asteroid is on its way towards Earth, and threatens to kill everyone within thousands of miles of impact, and kill millions more as the earth plummets into nuclear winter and ashy darkness. Meanwhile, astronomer Marty Chittendon knows it's coming, and implores the only woman he's ever loved to take the news public. Will Earth survive, or fall in a sea of death and destruction?

Well, from the title you can already tell that after the asteroid hits, things certainly aren't coming up roses, but it's hard to imagine just how awful things do become. In Cannibal Reign, the author has taken a familiar post apocalyptic scenario and turned it into his own creation of terrifying adventure and characters to root for (and fall in love with.) The narrative weaves among three separate storylines, eventually bringing them together to explosive effect. Jack Forrest is tough and very capable, but doesn't take himself too seriously, which I loved. Quietly nursing his heartache over losing his son, the people in his care are in more than capable hands, and his core of humanity and loyalty runs very deep. Marty Chittendon starts as a geeky astronomer who's inner strength gets to shine after the disaster. Shannon Emory, perhaps my favorite character, is a soldier that abandons her team after it becomes clear that they may have certain plans for the women of the group. She's got the heart of a warrior and the skills to match.

The world post-asteroid is absolutely terrifying (to put it mildly.) People are succumbing to their baser instincts, including, but not limited to, rape, human slavery, and cannibalism. The food is running out and the weak are no match for those strong of will and evil of heart. Don't worry, there are some shining souls in this blasted world, but they're few and far between. The author is very good at the little details, which sometimes get lost in a book of this scope and length, and he obviously did his research into group dynamics and the psychology of post traumatic stress syndrome. The action is nearly nonstop and the fight scenes are choreographed to the hilt. I never lost my place, even when the action got particularly frenzied.

Cannibal Reign is not for the faint of heart, and even though things never get gratuitous, the author doesn't pull any punches here. What makes things even more terrifying is that the horrors are perpetrated by thinking (I use this term lightly) humans that have devolved into vicious animals. To be sure, things are very, very dark and heartbreaking, but underneath it all, there are glimmers of hope, and the author never loses sight of that. Where there is hope, there is light, and our heroes (and heroines) will do anything to find it for those they love. Cannibal Reign is a scary, nonstop thrill ride into the dark hearts of man, shot through with the souls of those that refuse to surrender to the dark. I loved this book, and fans of post apocalyptic fiction and thrillers should not miss it! I can't wait for the next one!

VERY MINOR SPOILERS:

This year marks the 35-anniversary of Lucifer's Hammer, which I read at some point during the 80's. I always wished for a worthy sequel or at least a successor. Mr. Koloniar is most definitely "worthy" by penning an amazing effort. Especially, when one considers this work is coming from a first time Author.

A quick note. I came to hear about "Cannibal Reign" via a recco through a thread commenting on the sub-par effort of the latest work by a well-known TEOTWAWKI Author (no names - JWR).

A major component of my process when reading fiction is to generate a running mental analysis of the story/plot lines and how I would have done things differently. I will generally make some allowances for "poetic license" and then offer up my thoughts in the "guts" of any review that I submit.

The only glaring weakness was having the military drop off 2-truckloads of MRE's directly to silo. Forrest should have offered to meet the trucks at some distance away from the silo and then taken the time to work up a more plausible cover story.

Random Thoughts:

1.) Another review commented on the seeming preoccupation with sex. First and foremost, being essentially restricted underground in relatively close quarters, even with electricity, Xbox, reading and board games are going to get "old" pretty quickly! As for the other alternating storylines, while it is not fair, women throughout history have been viewed as a valuable commodity. Therefore, consistent with the breakdown of modern society and the onset of "Social Darwinism", it is not unrealistic to believe that there will be a severe regression back to a more primitive set of values

2.) If there ever is a total breakdown of society, what preparations can be made where rogue bands of military become an adversary? This book drove the aforementioned home more than any other in the genre and frankly, it made for quite depressing contemplation

3.) Death or Cannibalism? On the surface I don't know that anyone would admit to choosing the later, though how far would I go as a father to feed my starving daughter?

The action sequences are gratuitous and grounded. There is laugh out loud humor. Military and non-military battle sequences (including a naval engagement). Framework is offered for rebuilding. There is even some politics thrown in.

IMHO, benchmarks for a successful TEOTWAWKI novel are equal part: plot, story, action (grounded) and practical applications. Perhaps most important is both being mentally challenged through constant contemplation and wanting more! The ground was set for a sequel and while I have not being able to confirm through my admittedly limited search, I can only hope that between Margaritas Mr. Koloniar has copious notes for the next installment. In any case, as fine of a freshman effort that has been penned, it would take a great deal for me not bookmark Mr. Koloniar's next effort for immediate consumption.

This book was highly entertaining, interesting, vivid and frightening at times. Had a hard time putting it down at night. Looking forward to Mr. Koloniar's next one!

A view of the human condition many would not like to consider in the realm of possibility. Are we merely fooling ourselves to not address the potential? The "Omega Man" for our generation. Brilliantly written with characters that both attract and repel, one gets the feeling you are "there" in the shoes of the people trying to survive. In the end, a thread of humanity prevails even in the face of destruction.

Excellent read! Highly recommended!

I loved the story of the world ending and the action in this book. It was face paced and I didn't want to put it down. But, and this is a big but, the men and women relationships in this book was something like I remember from junior high. Their behavior felt out of place in my opinion, very juvenile. And don't get me started on the last scene with Jack and Melissa. It was just down right weird! Throw in some random sex and that's were the book veered of course at times. I am no prude and love a good sex scene to liven things up, but the sex scenes felt awkward and forced. Despite this I still liked the book quite a bit. It's a good poolside summer read.

Even though I enjoyed this novel from page one, I started the journey with a certain skepticism about the apocalyptic form, a skepticism I was able to keep perhaps until the end of the first short section called Book One. I discovered the real novel began with Book Two, and my little car clicked into the tracks of the roller coaster, which went faster and wilder as it ran its course. By that time I had forgotten all about what genre or sub genre I was reading, and the characters took over, and the episodes and stories. I found myself with tears in my eyes a couple of times. How Koloniar kept the human strain alive through all of this is a very wonderful mystery. There are masterful scenes and episodes and turns of plot through the novel that keep us up too late at night. Koloniar handles the interweaving of plots and people so naturally we always know where we are, who we are following, and how we are feeling about it. We always know where the moral center of this universe is, and that informs our every response. This book is strange and unique and at the same time traditional in values and craft. The prose never stops its forward motion, but it never runs off without us. The writer is telling US this story. Beautifully done. I eagerly await the next!

I really enjoyed this book. If you are into the post-apocalyptic stuff then this is up your alley. It does not have the cerebral make up of The Road, just a warning, if that is what you are looking for. This is a character-driven novel. While I admired The Road its not what I would consider a fun read. Cannibal Reign is exactly that, a very fun read. The characters are very vivid and you find yourself caring for them and wanting to see them survive. The author finds a balance between some light-hearted character interaction (I laughed out loud at some scenes) while still being extremely brutal in many scenes. I like that he has the testicular fortitude to hurt or kill characters, because thats what happens in real life. I did think that there was a lack of strong female characters, there really is only one character who picks up a gun and actually fights, but the non-fighting women were still very likable. I also felt that some of the scenes were a tad watered down, but i assumed this was done to move the story along. For instance, when really, really, really bad news (like, uhhh, the world is about to end as we know it) is given to a character the reaction was very "Holy crap! Thats insane! I can't believe it!.....Ok, i've processed it and moved on." I can only imagine that these scenes were longer before being edited to cut down on pages. And, I'd like to point out, that while I did a bit of an eye roll when characters moved on from really bad stuff quickly I didn't think it took away from the story at all. I still loved everything the author did. I don't want to rehash the story line, you can read the book description for that. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves character-driven stories with action (examples: The Unit, Mad Swine, LZR-1143 ).

Now that others have given the "report" of what the book is about, I can do a review. AWESOME!!!!!!!

In my old age, I have gotten into the post apocalyptic type stores in a big way and have read lots of the ones out there, including the zombie ones. This particular story tops my list. I ate it up - better a book than a person, right?

I do hope this author will work on another (or more) novels. He wrote a very believable story with great characters. I was sad to see it end. PS. Thanks for saving the dog!

An astronomer and a handful of former green berets discover the government is covering up a massive asteroid strike that will hit North America in 90 days. The asteroid will kill 90% of the population when it strikes and create a nuclear winter from the resulting dust and ash in the atmosphere. There is nothing that can stop it. The berets purchase a decommissioned missile silo and set about stocking it with supplies to survive 18 months underground. They also invite 50 people (mostly single mothers and their kids) to join them to give the human race a chance to survive. Meanwhile, the world outside descends into chaos, turning all "Mad Max" with warlords taking over and turning to cannibalism to survive (hence the book's title).

I listened to the audio book and enjoyed it. The narrator was good and production level excellent. As for the story itself, it was pretty good, but the prose (though well-written for a first novel) was a bit dry and took forever to get to the apocalypse. The asteroid didn't even hit until near the end of Disk 4 (of 12), which is way too long. On the other hand, once I resigned myself to the fact that this was the direction the author wanted to go, I began to appreciate the level of detail he put into how the decommissioned silo was being set up, stocked, and populated: who and what was chosen to survive in the shelter and why. I liked Jack, the main character and commanding officer, for his confidence and sense of humor, as well as his vulnerable streak.

Cannibal Reign takes a more thoughtful approach to how the apocalypse would go down than the cheesy B-movie title would indicate. This is both its greatest strength and weakness, because it didn't match my expectations. So in some ways, I got more than I paid for, and in other ways, I got less. With a more serious, less exploitative title, I may have had fewer issues with the long, drawn-out beginning of the book that was firmly stuck in "prepper" mode. Then again, without the gory title, I might never have picked it up in the first place. It definitely jumped off the shelf at me. It isn't really a horror book though, despite some of the horrific things that happen in it.

The one thing I hated about the book was the code-breaking sections, where huge chunks of code were thrown at me in the most boring, obnoxious way possible. These seemed to drag on forever. I fast-forwarded past them, much like I skipped past all the boring cathedral-building architecture descriptions in The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Nobody reads these kind of books to get that level of academic detail. We signed up for action and adventure–an interesting insight into other people's lives—not a cryptography lesson.

Another, lesser issue was the sprawling, split-nature of the story. While the majority of the book focuses on the Green Berets and missile silo, some chapters spend time on other characters in different parts of the country. Yes, these characters all meet up with the Green Berets sooner or later, but it made the story seem a bit bloated. In other words, it messed with the pacing.

Overall, I liked Cannibal Reign because the author tried to do something a bit different while still hitting a lot of the "check boxes" fans of the post-apocalypse genre want.

Long a fan of post-apocalyptic novels, I was immediately taken with the author's theme. Not one to write reviews I nonetheless felt compelled to share his effort with others. The fact that I looked Mr. Koloniar's name up on Amazon to see if he had written others is a good indication that I was very impressed. Many others have written about the plot and excellent character development. I'll end by saying that it won't be long before Mr. Koloniar is in Jonathan Mayberry's league which is very good, indeed.