Year One – by Nora Roberts
Nora Roberts is one of the best selling authors of all time, right up there with Shakespeare, Tolstoy (Google it), and very well known, world-wide, as a sappy Romance author. Based on the numbers, she has legions of fans who absolutely adore her stories. Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, Nora is also J. D. Robb – author of the wildly popular In Death series. However, Year One is a different genré, SciFi.
Year One is a dystopian, apocalyptic story. Within a matter of weeks, an unknown virus sweeps the world, decimating billions of people. For some reason, which may be revealed in a sequel, there are folks immune to the virus. A few of these lucky people also have mysterious abilities – like sprouting wings, shooting fire from fingertips, ‘thinking’ a car ignition to fire, magical stuff. Some are good guys, some not so altruistic. Of course, we have a Type-A male lead, and a talented, beautiful damsel heroine — it is, after all, a Nora Roberts.
For hard-core SciFi lovers, this book isn’t going to cut it. Elements of an apocalyptic story are missing. Although there are frequent references to supplies, sources aren’t specific. And things don’t seem to run out; there is plenty of electricity, food, gasoline, transportation. If necessities are available, it surely wouldn’t be for very long. Realism isn’t in Year One. For example, the damsel needs to make the kitchen of an abandoned house sparkling, bleach and all, so she can cook – they will only be there are few hours, but … okay. Guess I’m a slob. I’d hand the Type-A a can of beans and a spoon I wiped on my jeans.
As for the romance … well, it’s Nora Roberts.
In my humble opinion, Year One is light-weight in both Romance and SciFi, and Nora should keep her day job.
The unabridged audiobook is just over twelve hours of listening, released by Brilliance Audio in December 2017, and narrated by Julia Whelan. Whelan’s male voices are problematic, but she does okay – the story is listenable. However, the lack of realism in a world pandemic beyond comprehension made it difficult for me to finish.
