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80th out of 109 books
—
246 voters
The Final Winter: an apocalyptic horror novel
by
Iain Rob Wright (Goodreads Author)
On the night where it begins snowing in every country of the world, a group of ordinary people gather at an old English pub. At first they assume the weather is just a random occurrence, but as the night goes on, and weird things happen, they start to realise something far more sinister is occurring.
And that someone amongst them may be the cause of it all.
By the end of the...more
And that someone amongst them may be the cause of it all.
By the end of the...more
Kindle Edition, 1st edition, 344 pages
Published
May 23rd 2011
by SalGad Publishing Group
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Awful dialogue , poor characters. I was constantly wishing the author would use the word " he or she " said this, did that, etc etc instead of using their name all the time when it clearly wasn't needed!
Read this a few months ago when it was offered as a freebie on Amazon.
Just skimmed through it to refresh my memory and decided to share my thoughts as it is a forthcoming book choice of this club.
Sophisticated it is not, for easy reading after a hard day at work on a gloomy winter evening it is.
Without giving too much away the plot revolves round a typical English pub which has become cut off due severe unnatural weather conditions.
For a middling book of around 250 pages the characters are devel...more
Just skimmed through it to refresh my memory and decided to share my thoughts as it is a forthcoming book choice of this club.
Sophisticated it is not, for easy reading after a hard day at work on a gloomy winter evening it is.
Without giving too much away the plot revolves round a typical English pub which has become cut off due severe unnatural weather conditions.
For a middling book of around 250 pages the characters are devel...more
A mysterious snow storm ravages nations around the world. Inside an english pub, a group of ordinary people take refuge from the cold and hope to ride out the storm. Soon they realize that the storm is hiding malevolent forces and that surviving might not be easy as the thought.
"The Final Winter" is my first title from author Iain Rob Wright and one gripping apocalyptic tale. The characters were well developed, especially Harry; a depressed man who has lost everything close to him, drowning his...more
"The Final Winter" is my first title from author Iain Rob Wright and one gripping apocalyptic tale. The characters were well developed, especially Harry; a depressed man who has lost everything close to him, drowning his...more
Now that it is time for a review, I find it difficult to write without adding to the book description or giving away some of the story. Kind of reminds me of the movie, "The Fog", except that it's snowing with white out conditions that make it impossible to see mere inches in front of your face. Workers from the small town video store and food market brave the deepening snow - attempting to join others at the local pub to wait out the storm. They soon discover that vile creatures are roaming thr...more
First posted review of 2013!:)
Review of The Final Winter by Iain Rob Wright
5 stars
This has to be one of the scariest apocalyptic novels I have ever encountered—one of the most terrifying of any genre. Reading this on New Year’s Eve may not have been my smartest move; granted, I am not surrounded by incessant snowfall—but the sheer implacability of the terrors in this novel!!
I cannot get this story out of my mind: it’s not just “apocalyptic horror.” “The Final Winter” is a medieval Morality play...more
Review of The Final Winter by Iain Rob Wright
5 stars
This has to be one of the scariest apocalyptic novels I have ever encountered—one of the most terrifying of any genre. Reading this on New Year’s Eve may not have been my smartest move; granted, I am not surrounded by incessant snowfall—but the sheer implacability of the terrors in this novel!!
I cannot get this story out of my mind: it’s not just “apocalyptic horror.” “The Final Winter” is a medieval Morality play...more
3 likes · like · see review
"The Final Winter," by Iain Rob Wright...
...will not be the final read for this reader. In this kinda-sorta Biblical Apocalypse, the horror premise is sound, even if, at first, a bit hard to swallow: Snow is falling, and its coming down--EVERYWHERE, a world-wide phenomenon.
With that premise, the author then focuses the camera on three groups of people that eventually hole up in an English pub, the lot doing their best to believe that emergency services are on the way, that the falling snow will...more
...will not be the final read for this reader. In this kinda-sorta Biblical Apocalypse, the horror premise is sound, even if, at first, a bit hard to swallow: Snow is falling, and its coming down--EVERYWHERE, a world-wide phenomenon.
With that premise, the author then focuses the camera on three groups of people that eventually hole up in an English pub, the lot doing their best to believe that emergency services are on the way, that the falling snow will...more
OK, so the opening epigraph contained a Bible verse that completely set off my Fight Club Curse, so before even the first word of the novel was read, I figured out pretty much all of the salient points. That said, for once that didn't hamper my enjoyment all that much.
With this book, imagine Stephen King's The Mist only globally and replace mist with blizzard. We start off on three fronts: a pub somewhere in the UK, and the grocery store and video store on the same street. The majority of the st...more
With this book, imagine Stephen King's The Mist only globally and replace mist with blizzard. We start off on three fronts: a pub somewhere in the UK, and the grocery store and video store on the same street. The majority of the st...more
Had great potential at the start, but couldn’t deliver.
This started out great and I'd settled myself down for a fast, all-in-one-sitting, read. Sufficient gore and tense situations that kept me second guessing who the real good guys/bad guys were. Reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s The Mist to be honest. But then we hit about the three-quarters mark and I literally went WTH happened? The story slipped into silly mode and I found myself totally turned off. I don’t know, maybe I expected too much...more
This started out great and I'd settled myself down for a fast, all-in-one-sitting, read. Sufficient gore and tense situations that kept me second guessing who the real good guys/bad guys were. Reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s The Mist to be honest. But then we hit about the three-quarters mark and I literally went WTH happened? The story slipped into silly mode and I found myself totally turned off. I don’t know, maybe I expected too much...more
First published in May of 2011, British author Iain Rob Wright’s debut novel ‘The Final Winter’ found itself falling snugly into the recently popularised post-apocalyptic revival that had seen a sudden resurgence of similarly ‘end of the world’ themed tales.
DLS Synopsis:
Ever since Harry Jobson’s wife and son had died at the wheels of a convicted drink driver, Harry’s life had been a constant and purposeful descent into misery and drunken despair. Night after night the unemployed thirty-one year...more
DLS Synopsis:
Ever since Harry Jobson’s wife and son had died at the wheels of a convicted drink driver, Harry’s life had been a constant and purposeful descent into misery and drunken despair. Night after night the unemployed thirty-one year...more
After an exceptionally hard winter in the UK, and my husband's oft stated desire to be snowed in in a pub, this book sounded like a good read for me. Something very strange is going on. News channels are reporting that it is snowing in every country of the world. That night in old English pub The Trumpet a small group of locals gather, debating the cause of this odd occurrence. But as the night goes on things get stranger and the group grows as other take refuge from both the snow storm and sini...more
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Well, what can I say?
When you eventually get there the basic premise is excellent & the story is good, but..
The first 20% or more I found extremely irritating because despite it's being set in England with English characters it is written in American with American idiom. I did get over this.
Up to about 70% it's just setting the scene with very little plot movement & overly drawn out character development, though the characters do end up being quite well described it took a lot of reading...more
When you eventually get there the basic premise is excellent & the story is good, but..
The first 20% or more I found extremely irritating because despite it's being set in England with English characters it is written in American with American idiom. I did get over this.
Up to about 70% it's just setting the scene with very little plot movement & overly drawn out character development, though the characters do end up being quite well described it took a lot of reading...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Fans of Stephen King will enjoy Wright's The Final Winter. The cast of characters is fairly well-developed and their dialogue is very genuine. They initially deliver a rather blase reaction to such an epic storm, making it somewhat lighthearted to start. I enjoyed their backstories and that they all had their issues. I did recognize the character of Mr. Fergus at his first appearance. I kept getting the feeling I was reading a screenplay and The ending seemed a bit too tidy, but I won't spoil it...more
When three groups of people get trapped by a snowstorm, they have no idea what is in store for them. At first they think it is simply a bad winter, but quickly find out that it a lot more serious than that.
I found that once I had started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. It is so easy to read and the story kept me involved until the very last page. Will the people escape from both the freezing cold and the horror going on around them? Or are they all doomed to die? A must read.
I honestly don't even remember when I added this to my kindle, but the other day I was in the mood for something different and found this on it.
Interesting "End of the World" story. It's hard to give much of a review without major spoilers. The summary of a group stranded in a pub during a terrible snowstorm does not do this book justice. Even though I've had trouble getting anything to "hook" me lately, this book did just that. I finished it in two sittings.
There were a few issues I had. Severa...more
Interesting "End of the World" story. It's hard to give much of a review without major spoilers. The summary of a group stranded in a pub during a terrible snowstorm does not do this book justice. Even though I've had trouble getting anything to "hook" me lately, this book did just that. I finished it in two sittings.
There were a few issues I had. Severa...more
This started out great and I’d settled myself down for a quick, all-in-one-sitting, read. Sufficient gore and tense situations that kept me second guessing who the real good guys/bad guys were. Reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s The Mist to be honest. But then we hit about the three-quarters mark and I literally went WTH happened? The story slipped into silly mode and I found myself totally turned off. I don’t know, maybe I expected too much from an apocalyptic horror story, but I felt this cou...more
An interesting premise, but unfortunately there's not a whole lot of depth given to the actual story behind what's going on. This would make a far better movie than a book, in my opinion - in a lot of ways it's a classic horror movie, a bunch of broken/twisted people stuck in one place during an apocalyptic situation, and, one by one, we find out the truth about (most of) them and their dark sides/secrets.
The reasons behind the apocalypse are interesting, but that part isn't given quite as much...more
The reasons behind the apocalypse are interesting, but that part isn't given quite as much...more
I grew up in the kind of area when this novel is set and so it was easy for me to identify and recognise the principal characters in the story.
It would be quite easy for the group of assorted misfits, assembled in the pub, to become cliched. However, the author paints authentic and believable pictures of each of the protagonists. When the demand is made to "bring out the sinner" it could have been aimed at anyone inside the pub.
The invading army make for an interesting blend of conventionally pe...more
It would be quite easy for the group of assorted misfits, assembled in the pub, to become cliched. However, the author paints authentic and believable pictures of each of the protagonists. When the demand is made to "bring out the sinner" it could have been aimed at anyone inside the pub.
The invading army make for an interesting blend of conventionally pe...more
I really enjoyed The Final Winter, it took a few unexpected turns and ended in a way I could not have conceived.
The Trumpet is a sorry looking pub in the middle of a run down council estate in the English Midlands, surrounded by a few empty shops, a supermarket and a video store. One fateful day it starts snowing heavily not just in England but all over the world and people begin to fear the worst as electricity supplies stop and all TV and radio transmissions fade. Stranded in the pub along wi...more
The Trumpet is a sorry looking pub in the middle of a run down council estate in the English Midlands, surrounded by a few empty shops, a supermarket and a video store. One fateful day it starts snowing heavily not just in England but all over the world and people begin to fear the worst as electricity supplies stop and all TV and radio transmissions fade. Stranded in the pub along wi...more
I was not expecting that!
I always like a book that does not beat around the bush taking 20 chapters just building up to the plot.
I found the characters in this story not very interesting tho. And because of my personal spiritual beliefs and knowing The Bible I found certain aspects of this story laughable and not in a good way.
Its not a complete loss. I definitely do not feel I have wasted my money on the book. I may give the author another chance.
I always like a book that does not beat around the bush taking 20 chapters just building up to the plot.
I found the characters in this story not very interesting tho. And because of my personal spiritual beliefs and knowing The Bible I found certain aspects of this story laughable and not in a good way.
Its not a complete loss. I definitely do not feel I have wasted my money on the book. I may give the author another chance.
This was another random choice from my TBR list and a very good one. Expecting another climate change end-of-the-world scenario I found myself reading a distinctly British horror story with a really quirky feel.
I finished this in one sitting; it was very easy to identify with the characters and on several occasions it made me laugh out loud. I'll definitely be adding some more of this author's work to my TBR list.
I finished this in one sitting; it was very easy to identify with the characters and on several occasions it made me laugh out loud. I'll definitely be adding some more of this author's work to my TBR list.
This novel draws you in and the suspense keeps you there. I have never read an apocalyptic book like this one. Not only do you get to know the characters but the story allows you to under stand Heaven and Hell through this authors writing.
Hard to believe you could ever be safe in a bar full of scared and angry drunks, right? That is the only safe place left as the world as the characters with in know it.
Hard to believe you could ever be safe in a bar full of scared and angry drunks, right? That is the only safe place left as the world as the characters with in know it.
I don't usually get into apocalyptic horror, but this seemed like a good read after getting some snow and a cold snap to contend with. The story line was progressing well until about two thirds into the book. It then becomes pretty unbelievable. All I ask is that horror be somewhat plausible. This was just too far away from realism. I did keep reading, however. I would say the author did pretty well for his first effort.
cant really add anything to the in depth comments already made describing the book... However I LOVED the "Britishness" of the whole thing... was nice to recognise things.... very easy to read yet hard to put down... read this in 2 sittings.... the short stories at the back are amazing.... keeping my eye on this brilliant author!!
please write more!
please write more!
What a great book! It held my attention & I finished the book in 2 sittings. I can't remember whether I paid .99 cents or if it was free, either way I got way more than I bargained for! I also think that this would make a great movie. The writer did a great job of exploring the characters of the story. Give it a try--I think that you'll like it!
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I found this book to be intriguing. I was curious because I thought it was a horror book, and yes it was but it wasn't. It's just something you have to read and judge for yourself. I gave it the 5 stars because any book that keeps me up reading past my bedtime is worth the sleep deprivation the next day at work brings.
An enjoyable read. I liked the narrative style and the author managed to keep me interested throughout. I did guess the ending but it was still satisfying. I did think there was potential to do more with the story and was a little disappointed that I didn't get any goosebumps, but aside from that it was a good read.
Enjoyed this end of the world, we're all going to die story. Found it quite addictive and read it in one sitting but it was slightly obvious in places and I didn't think it brought anything new to the table. Although that could be that I have been reading rather too my end of the world, we're all going to die recently.
This book definitely kept my interest although some parts were horrifically graphic with the thoughts of a rapist. The end felt a bit forced, or I would have rated it higher. The second story in the book was called "The Peeling" and it was very gross. Vivid descriptions. Not for the faint of heart.
1 like · like · see review
I was pleasantly surprised and quickly enthralled by this book. A great story line, excellent capture of the fickle nature of human emotion and literally couldn't put it down (thanks for a sleepless night!) Loved it, will be seeking more of this authors work for deffo.
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Iain Rob Wright was born in 1984 and lives in Redditch, a small town in the West Midlands, UK, with his cocker spaniels, Daisy and Oscar, his fat old cat, Jess, his many tropical fish, and the love of his life, Sally. Writing is the passion that fills his life during the small periods of time when he isn't cleaning up after his pets.
Horror is his beloved genre and his next gruesome novel, Animal...more
More about Iain Rob Wright...
Horror is his beloved genre and his next gruesome novel, Animal...more
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Dec 31, 2012 04:30pm