|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
Review
"A significant contribution to an illustrious post-apocalyptic tradition that includes I Am Legend, The Day of the Triffids, Riddley Walker, The Road, and 28 Days Later . . . an absolute triumph: a novel that shows that literary horror still holds enormous potential to move and challenge its readership." —Strange Horizons
"Refreshingly literate take on the post-apocalyptic struggle . . . Williams has proven he is up there with the heavyweights in horror literature." —Horrorscope
Product Description
This is now. This is you. And surviving is only the beginning. The land is a scorched sprawl of rubble and corpses. A strange glittering dust coats everything-and the dust hides a terrible secret. New horrors are taking root. Survivor Richard Jane crosses a burned and battered country in search of his son-his one hope.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (55 customer reviews)
71 of 73 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Stark, Unforgiving Glimpse of the End, Jun 20 2009
By Shroud Magazine's Book Reviews - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: One (Paperback)
"One" paints an uncompromising portrait of the world's end. Though bearing echoes of preceding post-apocalyptic works, it blazes an original trail by instilling a numbing atmosphere of stark, stripped down survival. Man has fallen down the evolutionary ladder, and it's doubtful as to whether he'll rise, ever again.In a flash, ethereal fire wipes away everything. Richard Jane is an undersea diver employed by an oil company. He and his team are submerged at the time of the 'Event', protected by miles of sea overhead. It comes with a crackling hiss of the intercom, then an underwater downpour of dead, bleeding fish - everywhere. Jane and his team are the only ones to initially survive, their entire company on the surface killed.
Of his comrades, Jane alone makes it to shore. From there begins an agonizing trek to London. What's happened? Who's at fault? Was the cause natural, mechanical...or war? Eventually, Jane encounters others, even welcomes a nurse and a young boy as his regular companions, but deep inside one desire smolders into an obsession: get to London, find his only son Stanley, the joy of his life. Has Stanley survived the world's end, is he numbered among the dead...or has something much, much worse happened to him?
Years pass. Survivors band together in pockets all over London. Something like life continues, but it is hard, emaciated, caustic. Still nothing is known about the 'Event', except this: after it, something came on the winds, from the sky and beyond...and infested the dead. They now walk, blindly, senseless, devouring human men and dragging off the women for awful, unknown designs. A desperate plan has been hatched to raft across the London Channel, yet Jane still hunts the dark, wet corners of a crumbling London, despondently searching for a son he no longer believes has survived... but still can't let go of, regardless.
Though post-apocalyptic tales have been "done before", Conrad avoids all the obvious cliches. Even the requisite "zombies" read differently, though they do bear a resemblance to those in "The Rising" and "Dead City" because wildlife is infected, also. However, Conrad proves an oft-argued point: a horror staple doesn't have to be dried up or over-told. The real center of this novel is Jane's sense of loss, his quest to find Stanley. In many ways, everything else serves as compelling backdrop matter.
Also, William's vision of a post-apocalyptic world is very realistic. There's no grand battle for humanity's future ("Terminator: Salvation"). There's no Mother Abigail drawing together good souls against a didactic evil like Randall Flagg ("The Stand"). There aren't even diabolical zombies readers can root against, such as Brian Keene's wonderful creations, led by the maniacal Ob ("The Rising"). There's no kitschy explanation of the "Event". Just a horrible end, scrabbling survivors, new kinds of predators, and slim hope for all.
80 of 88 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Devil in the details, Jun 28 2010
By DrDean - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: One (Paperback)
I am an avid reader of post-apocalyptic fiction and happened to stumble upon this work. After reading several reviews I decided to give it a try. I wished I hadn't.I wanted to quit after roughly 30%. I pressed on hoping I had just hit a rough patch. After 75%, I found that I had to force the "on" switch of my Kindle.
The initial apocalyptic event is interesting and imaginative, yet the author stumbles on several small technical details early on. Oh well, we can overlook those. The main plot of the first part of this story holds it's consistency; our hero is determined to return home to his 5 year old son and is forced to walk a considerable distance, but it's in the details that the author looses credibility. As an example, the author illustrates our hero enduring a dust storm only several paragraphs after telling us about the incessant rain. Is it hot or is it cold? It's windy, but quiet? It is difficult to form a mental image of the stage where this story is set when the details keep shifting.
OK, so our story has no credibility due to inconsistency, but every great story is truly about the characters, right? It's in the arena of character development this story falls apart. After finishing 75% of the story I believe our hero has the weakest stomach on the planet as the author has described him vomiting no less than 15 times. Throughout the entirety of the work there are innumerable long flashbacks as the main character thinks about his son and remembers their time together. By the halfway mark of this story I was convinced I had experienced every excruciating detail of the child's five years. The second part of this story occurs ten years after the initial event and yet our hero continues to have a pathological fixation on this boy. I understand where some madness would be commonplace and understandable in the story the author is telling here, but don't ask the reader to share it.
As much as I wanted to enjoy this story, I couldn't. If you are willing to skip paragraphs or more accurately, pages and pages of erroneous, confusing, and illogical detail, to get to a somewhat interesting plot maybe it's for you.
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brutal, disturbing, confusing, Jan 28 2010
By D. Martin ""Brother Crow"" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: One (Paperback)
"One" is my first exposure to Conrad Williams. It is a brutally disturbing story, unflinching in its depiction of the collapse of civilization and the struggle of humans to survive when everything has been stripped away.I am an avid post-apocalyptic fan...rehearsing the end of the world from my reading chair is one of my favorite things to do (yeh, I am a sick puppy). Williams story here is a brilliant one, no doubt. The only clue to what actually causes the world's end is in the "introduction", where he thanks a scientist for helping him understand the effects of a gamma ray burst. The story begins with something causing massive death from what looks like microwaves cooking humanity from the inside out. Nothing works, the sky is blasted, corpses litter the landscape...and it seems as if Richard Jane, the story's protagonist, may be the only survivor.
I like the fact that Williams never attempts to explain what destroyed the planet, or even if it is a global or localized phenomenon. What he deals with is the raw human emotions of loss, fear, rage, and bitter confusion. And hope, as Jane searches for his son and joins with other survivors who are just looking for a way to survive.
The story takes an odd twist just beyond the midway point, when a dust that has settled over the bodies of the dead turns out to be something other than dust. A strange new take on the zombie story results, and it is graphic, disturbing and shocking. The story moves inexorably to an ending which really resolves nothing, but is literate in the way it communicates how one man finds hope in the midst of hopelessness.
It is brilliantly conceived story, and has strong emotional impact. Williams is a master of portraying both external and internal landscapes, of getting into people's hearts and heads, and in making you squirm with disgust at the horror of a nightmare existence.
My only problem with the book is that the language is dense; it seems as if Williams is trying to make his mark as a literate horror writer. I possess a Master of Arts degree, and am working towards a Ph.D. I have written and published before. However, I stumbled over his wording, his use of descriptive language and his phrasing. His paragraphs were not structured well (in my humble opinion) and I often found myself having to re-read a page or two to follow the narrative. It may be an editing problem, but I suspect he was trying to come off as a poetic writer...it just got confusing and obtuse, at times.
Not always, though...and that is why I rate this a 4.5. It ranks as one of the best post-apocalyptics I have read...and I do appreciate a more literary (and brutalizing) approach to story telling...something that does not flinch from the horror of the story.
Highly recommended...and I have already ordered two more of Williams books.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
