A review by mikekaz
The Ghoul Archipelago by Jennifer Fournier, Stephen Kozeniewski
4.0
While I've really enjoyed Kozeniewski's novels so far, this one was a little harder for me to get into. I'm not exactly sure why because the world was fully developed and the characters were pretty three dimensional. By process of elimination, that kind of leaves the story but I also don't really want to point my finger there. Well, let me try to sum up the story and then see if I can figure out where I had issues.
One of the main characters is Captain Martigan; he commands his own freighter in the South Pacific. He's in the Curien islands, making deliveries for a criminal overlord when he gets a distress call. Then there's Reverend Sonntag, a religious zealout who uses the zombie apocalypse to gain more followers and more power. Then add Rand Bergeron to the list; he's a genius and immoral businessman who made his fortune by inventing a virtual reality box focused on sex. These characters, plus more, are vying for control: controlling the world, controlling people, or even just controlling their little corner of the world. And while there might be a common theme, the storylines connecting the characters was disjointed.
To start, each chapter is from a different character's point of view. Not a problem except that it took me a few chapters to figure out where each character intersected with the other characters. Another early problem that I had was I couldn't figure out when or how severe the zombie apocalypse was. Was it the recent past? Far past? Localized or global? The different point of views in each chapter made it more difficult since I thought maybe this character is in the past but this other character is in the future. Eventually I figured out it was all the same timeline and the characters' lives would cross over with each other. But then I had another dilemma, every character that I started liking and connecting with would get killed. Normally I like when a character's death is unexpected and I'm saddened when it happens. Unfortunately it happened frequently enough that didn't want to like anyone else because it meant that they would die. I don't want to sound too negative because the book really is good. I wouldn't have felt sad if I didn't care about the characters. The horrors visited upon everyone were pretty vile. I could picture the world around the characters even when I had problems connecting the dots. And maybe that is what it comes down to: I thought it was too fractured. Or maybe I should have realized sooner that it was all set in the same time and the characters would intercept with each other. I don't know. I suppose I would have to say be prepared for a crazy story that takes you in a lot of directions. If you find this book daunting, I would instead recommend a different Kozeniewski book: BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS. A crazy title but a more straight-forward, touching and impactful story.
One of the main characters is Captain Martigan; he commands his own freighter in the South Pacific. He's in the Curien islands, making deliveries for a criminal overlord when he gets a distress call. Then there's Reverend Sonntag, a religious zealout who uses the zombie apocalypse to gain more followers and more power. Then add Rand Bergeron to the list; he's a genius and immoral businessman who made his fortune by inventing a virtual reality box focused on sex. These characters, plus more, are vying for control: controlling the world, controlling people, or even just controlling their little corner of the world. And while there might be a common theme, the storylines connecting the characters was disjointed.
To start, each chapter is from a different character's point of view. Not a problem except that it took me a few chapters to figure out where each character intersected with the other characters. Another early problem that I had was I couldn't figure out when or how severe the zombie apocalypse was. Was it the recent past? Far past? Localized or global? The different point of views in each chapter made it more difficult since I thought maybe this character is in the past but this other character is in the future. Eventually I figured out it was all the same timeline and the characters' lives would cross over with each other. But then I had another dilemma, every character that I started liking and connecting with would get killed. Normally I like when a character's death is unexpected and I'm saddened when it happens. Unfortunately it happened frequently enough that didn't want to like anyone else because it meant that they would die. I don't want to sound too negative because the book really is good. I wouldn't have felt sad if I didn't care about the characters. The horrors visited upon everyone were pretty vile. I could picture the world around the characters even when I had problems connecting the dots. And maybe that is what it comes down to: I thought it was too fractured. Or maybe I should have realized sooner that it was all set in the same time and the characters would intercept with each other. I don't know. I suppose I would have to say be prepared for a crazy story that takes you in a lot of directions. If you find this book daunting, I would instead recommend a different Kozeniewski book: BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS. A crazy title but a more straight-forward, touching and impactful story.