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The Auschwitz Escape – by Joel Rosenberg

The Auschwitz Escape is a compilation of everything a person educated in the Holocaust has read and, over the years, been told. If you are familiar with the events, there are no surprises … if you are not, it is a novel based on historical events you should understand and “never forget”.

At approximately fifteen hours of listening, The Auschwitz Escape is just that … an escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland near the end of WWII. It is a novel, although the book refers to several historical individuals of the time. If you are interested in the actual events, there are documentaries and books created by survivors. For example, Night – by Elie Wiesel. Rosenberg indicates the Germans had the resources to send out aircraft to chase down prison escapees – didn’t make sense given it’s so late in the war – 1944. Maybe they did … but it’s a credibility issue to research.

At just under fifteen hours of listening, The Auschwitz Escape was released in 2014 by Brilliance Audio and, narrated by Christopher Lane … Lane is excellent.

Worth the read, the story is based on fact – this horror really happened, and there is proof. The gas chambers and ovens are still there…..

The Award – by Danielle Steel

The Award by Danielle Steel is a WWII rags-to-riches story.

Told in flashback, the story begins when Gaëlle de Barbet’s granddaughter learns that Gaēlle is a recipient of The Award she rightly earned years ago as a WWII heroine. Time spins back to sixteen year old Gaëlle in the midst of the German occupation of her home, starvation, and brutality. As a member of the French Resistance, she smuggles Jewish children to safety. Four years later, she is modeling for Christian Dior in Paris, Vogue in New York, and beyond.

Very DanielleSteelEsque, the lead is drop-dead-gorgeous, statuesque, beyond beautiful, and not just another pretty face – but initially naīve and innocent. And, of course, there is the drop-dead-gorgeous male love interest.

The Award is your typical Steel book; if you’re chic-lit fan, you won’t be disappointed.

Fear, Trump in the White House – by Robert Woodward

If you have been living under a rock and do not listen to news of any kind, the material in this book will be startling. If you have been following this national nightmare, there is not much revealed beyond a few anecdotes of the extremely warped character of Donald Trump, President of the United States.

Woodward makes it clear in the opening pages that Fear Trump In the White House  is a compilation of deep background, interviews, and notes; sources are not revealed. However, specific dates, names, quotes, etc., riddle the pages. Few high-level White House officials are excluded. Quotes by attorney John Dowd, and many others, at least at this writing, have not been disputed. Briefly, Dowd refers to Donald Trump as a “fucking liar”.  Dowd resigned as Trump’s attorney because Trump would not heed his advice and Dowd considered Trump disabled and unable to tell the truth.

Woodward has taken the entire last two years and crammed it into a few hundred pages. When you absorb everything that has happened during the campaign and Trump’s term to date … there is no possible way you will not conclude that America has made a horrible, frightening mistake. Americans are blinded by fat wallets and soaring markets, enabling Trump to break its soul. The man is unfit for the awesome responsibilities of the office and Woodward’s compilation of facts is disturbing proof of his ineptitude.

Trump’s willful ignorance of America’s world presence, our national security, defense, and intelligence organizations is astounding and terrifying. An example, an argument with Secretary of Defense Mattis. Trump does not understand why we have a military presence on the Korean Peninsula. Mattis had to tell him it was to prevent WWIII … more than once … later deriding the president as a fifth or sixth grader.

Fear Trump In the White House is approximately twelve hours of listening in audiobook format, narrated by Robert Petkoff, and released on September 11, 2018 by Simon & Schuster Audio.

Narration is fine, no issues.

Worth the read. Try to sleep well after your read…….

The Extinction Files – by A. G. Riddle

This review addresses the series, The Extinction Files, which at this writing consists of two, full-length, novels. Briefly, Pandemic is … well … just that. A worldwide breakout of a global pandemic begins with an outbreak in Kenya. Daily, we go from hundreds, to thousands, to millions, to billions of people either infected or dead. Book 2, Genome, involves the same bunch of bad guys who will pull the trigger releasing deadly nanos in the bloodstreams of everyone vaccinated from the original pandemic if the bad guys don’t get what they want … no spoilers. The nanos cause immediate brain hemorrhaging and a quick death. The audiobook versions of The Extinction Files are both narrated by Edoardo Ballerini. Pandemic is nineteen hours and Genome is thirteen hours of listening. Released by Audible Studios.

Liked. Always in for a good apocalyptic story.  Narration is good, no issues, production is fine. No offensive language, no explicit sex scenes that are not “fade-to-black”.

Didn’t like. There are way too many side stories that are not relevant to the story. Fillers galore, including superfluous characters with no value. Some familial coincidences are not believable. A bit of re-wind hell, which is frequent if your mind wanders .. usually when trying to think your way through something you just heard muttering, “Nah ….”

Okay if you’re into stretching imagination as taught as a mosquito’s ass over a rain barrel. Not great literature by any means, but enjoyable listens, albeit eye-rolling at times.

     

Stuff and Nonsense by Andrew Seiple

The only reason Stuff and Nonsense is not young adult (YA) is that it contains a handful of gratuitous swear words. There is no sex, nothing offensive that can’t be a word skipped when reading it to a 5 year old as a bed time story. Not sure why this has legions of fans and 5-star ratings – maybe it’s the popular trend of our video game/roll playing obsession.

Frankly, I wanted to punch that guy that kept popping out of the text giving the golum-bear points for each level of intelligence achieved or task completed. Sounds like that obnoxious infomercial guy that screams “BUT WAIT’. Annoying distraction that made it difficult to listen to or enjoy the story.

The cover is awesome. The unabridged audiobook is just shy of eleven hours of listening released by Podium Publishing in June 2018. Stuff and Nonsense is written by Andrew Seiple and narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds.

Maybe it’s better in written format, but the audio version is not recommended – unless you’re a a die-hard fantasy fan or a small child.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

The most intriguing aspect of Before We Were Yours is that this abuse happened. The book is extremely educational. It is human nature to close your mind to this type of reality, but in my opinion, everyone should be aware of this history.

Before We Were Yours is a fictional tale based on facts. It’s a familial story of the very poor being taken advantage of by a bureaucratic system of adoption in the early 20th century. Briefly, a poverty-stricken family is separated because of the inability to pay medical expenses. Children become wards of the state, are placed in orphanages, and are adopted out to the wealthy – who have paid for them.  This horror really happened; the specifics of the characters in this book are fictional, however. The epilog is extraordinary. Children were stolen/kidnapped from playing in the yard or sitting on the porch – simply because they had financial value as orphans and their parents were too poor to fight the system and get them back. A mind-boggling and heart-wrenching story.

Released in June 2017, Before We Were Yours is 14.5 hours of listening, written by Lisa Wingate, and narrated by Emily Rankin and Catherine Taber. No issues with narration; no explicit language, sex, nothing offensive. Give as a gift to anyone.

Recommended listen.

The Meg: A Series by Steve Alten

The Meg is the “megalodon”, a precursor, or big brother, to the great white shark. Actually, a great white is punny compared to this gunga-sized dude.

The Meg is the author’s attempt to give you the thrills, chills, of a man-guzzling creature through the point of view of  a marine scientist. Steve Alten fails, in my humble opinion. A great deal of telling vs showing. Are we spoiled by the Spielberg movie, Jaws? I think so…as this book has ‘movie’ screaming to be made. The author even says so in a strange mid-book prolog.

Steve Alten, the author, is doing his best to describe the shark  and it’s bloody sculduggery, primary what the book is about – description. And, some of us just gotta see it. This written conveyance of such undersea perils just didn’t do it for this reader.

You may find it peachy. There are several stellar reviews, so it’s probably just me. The unabridged edition of The Meg is 10.5 hours of listening, narrated by Sean Runnette. Took me a while to get used to his monotone reading – sounds like he has a lisp. Maybe a reading by a more vivacious narrator would make a better book — Scott Brick?

Release in April of 2014 by Tantor Audio. There are a number of books in the series, but … not for me.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Dark Matter is based on theories of the multi-verse, multiple universes. Imagine: You’re a happily married guy, with a pretty wife, handsome son. Life is good. You take a walk with the intent of buying ice cream. Somebody attacks you from behind, throws you into a car. You’re stripped naked, your neck is punctured with a knock-out drug. You wake on a gurney and everybody is glad to see you, glad that you made it back. But, there’s no wife, no kid, everything about your existence has changed. You’re now a successful scientist. You invented a transport system that allows you to traverse multiple universes.

There is more than one ‘you’. But … really only one ‘you’. The protagonist remembers his other self, and struggles sprinkle the pages with his desperate fight to go home. But, he is home. But, he’s not. Got it? 

Cyber Storm by Matthew Mather

An apocalypse, a New York city blizzard, cannibalism – Cyber Storm is desperation beyond measure. Is America under attack? Systems are down, no heat, no running water, no toilets, no electricity, looting, food shortages, soon people are dying by the millions, dead bodies in the street – bird flu? Is it world wide? Just us? Who will survive and how and where?

Exciting. It’s amazing how fast everything deteriorates, less than a month!

Cyber Storm was released in January of 2014 by Blackstone Audio. The story is just over eleven hours of listening, written by Matthew Mather, and narrated by Tom Taylorson. Taylorson does a credible job with both male and female voices; you’ll have no trouble discerning who-is-saying-what-to-who. Just over eleven hours of listening, realeased by Blackstone Audio in January of 2014.

Frowned at quite a bit of exposition in the last chapter or so to explain what happened, but still an enjoyable listen. Very thought provoking and will be enjoyed by apocalypse believers, preppers.