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The Seamus Chronicles #1
Annihilation
Teen-genius Seamus Robinson is not your typical high school junior. He has sacrificed what is important to most kids his age to pursue his passion for physics. Natural ability and uncommon discipline have allowed him to focus on the development of a dark energy power reactor. Just after his mother leaves on a typical business trip the world is turned upside down when a virus ravages the US and the world. As entire masses of the population are annihilated communication with the remote mother becomes increasingly difficult. When she makes communication from her sanctuary at NASA Ames Research Center in California, she reveals a vaccine just before the Skype video-chat abruptly terminates.
Paddrick, his father, decides Seamus, his brother Liam and his sister Grace will be road-tripping it to California to seek the reunification of their family and whatever potential there may be in this vaccine. Gathering supplies locally shows no other living humans until they head to the local big box store. There they find one lone teenage survivor loitering near her lost family’s RV in the parking lot. Sophie’s taken in and joins the family on the trip West.
The trip does not go smoothly. The group must contend with a massive wildfire and the devastation it leaves in its path. Travel is arduously slow allowing time for speculation that the fire was a purposeful event, set by other humans. Trying to make up lost time, Paddrick pushes on into the dark night until they slam into a very clearly man-made barricade on the highway meant to disable and deter anyone heading West. While briefly on foot the group encounter a lost boy who can only identify himself by the state from which he came, Colorado. The boy too is taken into the ‘family’ as they make their way eventually to Ames.
Once arriving at their destination the world is again turned on their ear when they learn that it is Seamus’ genius and his power reactor research that had brought about the entire family’s vaccination against the government-instigated killer virus, and his work that will be vital to the growing troupe of survivors and their ongoing efforts to persevere.
Paddrick, his father, decides Seamus, his brother Liam and his sister Grace will be road-tripping it to California to seek the reunification of their family and whatever potential there may be in this vaccine. Gathering supplies locally shows no other living humans until they head to the local big box store. There they find one lone teenage survivor loitering near her lost family’s RV in the parking lot. Sophie’s taken in and joins the family on the trip West.
The trip does not go smoothly. The group must contend with a massive wildfire and the devastation it leaves in its path. Travel is arduously slow allowing time for speculation that the fire was a purposeful event, set by other humans. Trying to make up lost time, Paddrick pushes on into the dark night until they slam into a very clearly man-made barricade on the highway meant to disable and deter anyone heading West. While briefly on foot the group encounter a lost boy who can only identify himself by the state from which he came, Colorado. The boy too is taken into the ‘family’ as they make their way eventually to Ames.
Once arriving at their destination the world is again turned on their ear when they learn that it is Seamus’ genius and his power reactor research that had brought about the entire family’s vaccination against the government-instigated killer virus, and his work that will be vital to the growing troupe of survivors and their ongoing efforts to persevere.
200 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 20, 2014
29 people are currently reading
609 people want to read
About the author
K.D. McAdams
22 books23 followersK. D. McAdams is a fiction author writing thriller, dystopian and horror stories. His new thriller series, featuring Dylan Cold, is set in Southern New Hampshire where his small farm town is anything but quiet. K. D.’s first series, The Seamus Chronicles, follows a teen genius and his family from the apocalypse into the stars. His horror series, Metropolitan Zombie Survivors watches unlikely survivors struggle to escape major cities overrun with Zombies. K. D.’s works can be found on all major eBook platforms with select titles also available in print.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 6, 2014
Told from the perspective on a teen-aged boy who harbors a physicist deep within him, this post-apocalyptic tale stems from the premise that almost everyone has died from a fast-spreading 'killer cold'. Somehow, Seamus and his New Hampshire based family have survived - thanks to his mother who is currently attending a scientific conference in San Diego. When Seamus's father decides to pack up the kids (there are two more besides Seamus) and set out for San Diego they run into people and events that make their trip more difficult. At last the family is reunited but that is where the set up for Book 2 takes over.
I found Annihilation to be a well-written, fast moving story. I liked the protagonist being a teen-aged boy who is torn from his basement lab where he lives to work on his physics project; he is thrust into those social situations that his father has been telling him he needs to experience to live in the real world. Not only is Seamus thrust into the real world but he is quickly thrust into the role of adult when he steps in to help his father during their trip westward. We are given enough information about the characters in the Robinson family to flesh them out but not to make them complex. The action is always moving in the right direction to bring the reader to the story's end.
I enjoyed this book immensely. It is well-written and imaginative. I look forward to reading the second in the series.
I found Annihilation to be a well-written, fast moving story. I liked the protagonist being a teen-aged boy who is torn from his basement lab where he lives to work on his physics project; he is thrust into those social situations that his father has been telling him he needs to experience to live in the real world. Not only is Seamus thrust into the real world but he is quickly thrust into the role of adult when he steps in to help his father during their trip westward. We are given enough information about the characters in the Robinson family to flesh them out but not to make them complex. The action is always moving in the right direction to bring the reader to the story's end.
I enjoyed this book immensely. It is well-written and imaginative. I look forward to reading the second in the series.
April 29, 2013
I don't read much YA except for the uber-popular stuff so I didn't walk in with high expectations. What I found was a tightly written story of one family trying to manage and keep it together as everything they know changes.
This Reviewer’s Opinion:
I was at turns, moved and amused by the dynamics of the family written throughout this story. In some scenes the suspense is gripping and heart-pounding, and in others you can feel the family’s frustration with being on top of one another on such a long journey. While you can relate to the character’s emotions to the sometimes tediousness of a cross-country trip, the writing itself it actually never tedious. It’s fairly starkly written first-person narrative which keeps you engaged, while giving you the scene descriptors from the central-character’s point of view, there isn’t a lot of words wasted on overly flowery description or tangents.
Great read - highly recommend it.
This Reviewer’s Opinion:
I was at turns, moved and amused by the dynamics of the family written throughout this story. In some scenes the suspense is gripping and heart-pounding, and in others you can feel the family’s frustration with being on top of one another on such a long journey. While you can relate to the character’s emotions to the sometimes tediousness of a cross-country trip, the writing itself it actually never tedious. It’s fairly starkly written first-person narrative which keeps you engaged, while giving you the scene descriptors from the central-character’s point of view, there isn’t a lot of words wasted on overly flowery description or tangents.
Great read - highly recommend it.
September 16, 2014
Interesting book, however the style was a little off for me.
August 23, 2017
2014: temporarily abandoned
2017: I think I figured out why I originally stopped reading. As I am currently the parent of a sixteen-year-old boy (albeit not one of the MIT-at-age-10 level genius kind), and while reading this I would periodically ask, "How would you react in XYZ situation?" Most of the time, his response was much more on par with what I feel I would do in the situation. Like, what's the first thing you do 3ish days into the Apocalypse? Gather supplies. Which is what Seamus' dad has him do. Except that Seamus argues and gets angry about this decision, calls it sitting around and, essentially, a waste of time.
So, for starters, I can't relate to the main character. As the book went on, I thought he was more and more of an idiotic, unlikable douchebag. It's possible I'm being harsh and he has something going on with him that affects his ability to understand and/or interact with other humans. But his reactions drove me nuts. I feel kind of like a jerk saying that. But, for example:
Everything else:
- The trip to California is ridiculous and steretypical. There's a checklist. Rednecks bent on raping the girls and shooting the guys? Check. Lost child with dead parents? Check Natural disaster? Actually, I didn't see that one coming and it was a nice twist on things, but yeah, check.
- The only thing missing was any kind of debris on the highways and bridges. The lack of human chaos. Y'know. No biggie.
- Also, just food for thought: A 2014 Escalade has a 26 gallon tank and gets 14mpg city/18mpg highway. At normal speeds, that's 468 miles per tank. At 100mph (which is not normal speeds and would burn through gas way faster, obviously), you'd go through a tank in 4 hours and change, at which point you'd have to stop for gas. There's no way they'd have been able to drive for 12 hours, at 100mph or 60mph, without stopping for gas. There's just no way. (Maybe if they were hanging out the window and refueling from a tank mid-drive, but they weren't.) The logic of this frustrated me to no end.
- The pissing contest between scientists was stupid. Ridiculous. Omg why.
I ended up having a really hard time with this book. Was the premise okay? Yeah, I guess. But the execution was so infuriating that by the end of the novel I wanted to yell at someone.
Also? The Pacific Ocean in San Francisco in friggin' October is FREEZING, not "a little bit" cold.
2017: I think I figured out why I originally stopped reading. As I am currently the parent of a sixteen-year-old boy (albeit not one of the MIT-at-age-10 level genius kind), and while reading this I would periodically ask, "How would you react in XYZ situation?" Most of the time, his response was much more on par with what I feel I would do in the situation. Like, what's the first thing you do 3ish days into the Apocalypse? Gather supplies. Which is what Seamus' dad has him do. Except that Seamus argues and gets angry about this decision, calls it sitting around and, essentially, a waste of time.
So, for starters, I can't relate to the main character. As the book went on, I thought he was more and more of an idiotic, unlikable douchebag. It's possible I'm being harsh and he has something going on with him that affects his ability to understand and/or interact with other humans. But his reactions drove me nuts. I feel kind of like a jerk saying that. But, for example:
"'If we took an RV, that would be cool. We could cook and walk around while Dad drives.' Liam chimes in with classic non sequitur. His thinking is so non-linear it's scary. I cannot even imagine how he got from packing and getting done early to taking and RV. How do other people have so much patience with him? I find him to be totally insane."I mean, are we supposed to dislike Seamus? That paragraph is so blatantly... I mean. Seriously. C'mon.
Everything else:
- The trip to California is ridiculous and steretypical. There's a checklist. Rednecks bent on raping the girls and shooting the guys? Check. Lost child with dead parents? Check Natural disaster? Actually, I didn't see that one coming and it was a nice twist on things, but yeah, check.
- The only thing missing was any kind of debris on the highways and bridges. The lack of human chaos. Y'know. No biggie.
- Also, just food for thought: A 2014 Escalade has a 26 gallon tank and gets 14mpg city/18mpg highway. At normal speeds, that's 468 miles per tank. At 100mph (which is not normal speeds and would burn through gas way faster, obviously), you'd go through a tank in 4 hours and change, at which point you'd have to stop for gas. There's no way they'd have been able to drive for 12 hours, at 100mph or 60mph, without stopping for gas. There's just no way. (Maybe if they were hanging out the window and refueling from a tank mid-drive, but they weren't.) The logic of this frustrated me to no end.
- The pissing contest between scientists was stupid. Ridiculous. Omg why.
I ended up having a really hard time with this book. Was the premise okay? Yeah, I guess. But the execution was so infuriating that by the end of the novel I wanted to yell at someone.
Also? The Pacific Ocean in San Francisco in friggin' October is FREEZING, not "a little bit" cold.
December 22, 2020
Decent book
It’s a decent book but has some problems. For one the fire that supposedly destroys the are they are stopped in, sorry but that big of a subdivision with mown lawns would not have a firestorm race thru it like that( not enough fuel) now the characters are mostly believable but the wreck with the dozer isn’t believable because of no real injuries from that speed without helmets or any real safety gear
It’s a decent book but has some problems. For one the fire that supposedly destroys the are they are stopped in, sorry but that big of a subdivision with mown lawns would not have a firestorm race thru it like that( not enough fuel) now the characters are mostly believable but the wreck with the dozer isn’t believable because of no real injuries from that speed without helmets or any real safety gear
July 9, 2014
It was a decent story. I found this tale middling because of the lack of action and character behavior that doesn't ring true. It held my attention throughout so this is by no means a bad novel. I simply can't hold it in the same regard as other books I've given four or five stars. I will read the rest of the series to learn the fate of this ragtag band of survivors however.
September 9, 2014
Book one in the Seamus Chronicles. Suspenseful adventure across the country as Seamus and his family attempt to reunite with his mother on the west coast after the "killer cold" wipes out, nearly, the entire globe. I enjoyed the genius that Seamus possesses, as well as the other oddities of his siblings.
March 6, 2016
Survival
A good young adult book that gives a different spin on the post apocalyptic scenario. It glosses over some of the reality, but does give a few scenarios of what it might be like. There quest to get to where the Mom is and what happens next is a good beginning for this series. Will read the next book in the series.
A good young adult book that gives a different spin on the post apocalyptic scenario. It glosses over some of the reality, but does give a few scenarios of what it might be like. There quest to get to where the Mom is and what happens next is a good beginning for this series. Will read the next book in the series.
January 21, 2017
This first book in the series was included in a collection of post apocalyptic stories by various authors and I enjoyed it enough to purchase all 4 books in the series in order to find out what happens. I did find the main character a bit of a jerk/juvenile, but saw a bit of growth and hoped for more in the rest of the series.
November 9, 2014
"Annihilation' is the story of a family set in a post apocalyptic world doing everything they can to be reunited. The characters are well fleshed out and relatable. It is an easy one sitting read.
I received a copy of 'Annihilation' through the Goodreads Giveaway program.
I received a copy of 'Annihilation' through the Goodreads Giveaway program.
December 1, 2014
Details to come soon....
November 5, 2016
Annihilation
Unlikeable main character, lots of un-fact based theory to swallow down whole, nothing really driving this story except dark matter.
Unlikeable main character, lots of un-fact based theory to swallow down whole, nothing really driving this story except dark matter.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews