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- Hmm. The whole post-apocalyptic setting was all right, but it was wasted - not much in-depth thought put into it, and then it was more about limiting the number of people available for the showdown between good and evil than playing with what would happen after such an apocalypse.
- I've now read a Stephen King book, and can discuss how I found his writing.
- The pervasive casual racism, misogyny, and sexual violence.
- The lack of agency by any of the characters (the main characters had some agency from about pages 700 to 900, but then it was all ripped away again) - the entire story was deus ex machina, by design.
- The lack of characters that I cared about at all. (This surprised me - I'd figured that as a mainly horror writer his characters would be a strength, as horror needs audience empathy for the characters to even work. Instead, I found that I couldn't really tell some of the main characters apart other than their jobs, and the ones that stood out were more caricatures than 'people'.)
- The lack of creativity working with the setting. (It was basically all 'rebuild America just as it was', but with fewer doctors and lawyers.)
Nothing was particularly terrible, but overall, it just fell flat. And it fell flat for a really long time. I'm figuring out that when I generally like the setting and the ideas, if the characters don't have agency, then I'm not going to like the book. In this case, the world falls apart for like, 600 pages - while all the characters start having various dreams depending if they're good or bad, and start to follow the dreams. Then they get to re-build for a while, (my favourite part of the book) but then get told by the God stand-in what to do, and then go do it. Bravo, the end.
As far as post-apocalyptic books go, Earth Abides was much more thoughtful, and Dies The Fire was much more fun. This one, I was just happy to finish so I could read something else.
Rating: 2
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