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A review by pjonsson
The First Bird by Greig Beck
3.0
As you can see above this is the omnibus edition of what was initially released as three separate books. The three books are not very long though so this edition, at around 440 pages, is not really much more than one reasonably big sized novel.
It is a fairly enjoyable apocalyptic horror/thriller novel. I quite liked Greig Beck’s Alex Hunter series so I thought I would have a go at this one as well although Alex Hunter himself is absent in this book. The story is a variant of the “someone brings disease into country, disease spreads, world goes to shit” theme with a few nice twists. As I wrote it is generally enjoyable reading, especially the first two parts (or books). The third part is dragging down the rating quite a lot though.
In the first two parts we get on a tour of discovery deep into the South American jungles trying to find the source of the disease and, of course, a cure. As we have become used to with this author nature have a few nasty surprises for us and not everyone that goes out comes back. The writing is good and it is nice reading.
Then we come to the third part. Here the setting changes and we more or less enter a zombie apocalypse back in the US due to the spread of the disease. Okay, I could have lived with that but the author also throws in an insane old senator and religious nutcase which I could have been without. My worst gripe though is that the team, especially Carla who is supposed to be a professional employee of the CDC, starts to behave in an utterly idiotic and unprofessional way.
The ending have a nice twist, suitable for this kind of apocalyptic story, to it although you could see it coming rather early. The book was on its way to a 7 or 8 out of 10 rating until the third part. The third part really dragged it down.
It is a fairly enjoyable apocalyptic horror/thriller novel. I quite liked Greig Beck’s Alex Hunter series so I thought I would have a go at this one as well although Alex Hunter himself is absent in this book. The story is a variant of the “someone brings disease into country, disease spreads, world goes to shit” theme with a few nice twists. As I wrote it is generally enjoyable reading, especially the first two parts (or books). The third part is dragging down the rating quite a lot though.
In the first two parts we get on a tour of discovery deep into the South American jungles trying to find the source of the disease and, of course, a cure. As we have become used to with this author nature have a few nasty surprises for us and not everyone that goes out comes back. The writing is good and it is nice reading.
Then we come to the third part. Here the setting changes and we more or less enter a zombie apocalypse back in the US due to the spread of the disease. Okay, I could have lived with that but the author also throws in an insane old senator and religious nutcase which I could have been without. My worst gripe though is that the team, especially Carla who is supposed to be a professional employee of the CDC, starts to behave in an utterly idiotic and unprofessional way.
The ending have a nice twist, suitable for this kind of apocalyptic story, to it although you could see it coming rather early. The book was on its way to a 7 or 8 out of 10 rating until the third part. The third part really dragged it down.