Extinction Point

Extinction Point #1

by Paul Antony Jones

Reporter Emily Baxter has a great job, an apartment in Manhattan, and a boyfriend she loves. All that changes the day the red rain falls from a cloudless sky. Just hours after the first reports from Europe, humanity is on the brink of extinction, wiped from the face of the earth in a few bloody moments, leaving Emily alone in an empty city. As she struggles to grasp the magnitude of her situation, Emily becomes the final witness to the end of our world… and the birth of a terrifying new one.

The world she knew and loved is dead and gone. Now Emily must try to find a way out of New York as the truth behind the red rain is revealed: the earth no longer belongs to humanity.

Genres: Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Horror, Fiction, Dystopia, Apocalyptic, Aliens

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

A native of Cardiff, Wales, Paul Antony Jones now resides near Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and commercial copywriter, but his passion is penning fiction. A self-described science geek, he’s a voracious reader of scientific periodicals, as well as a fan of things mysterious, unknown, and on the fringe. Paul is the author of six books, including the bestselling Extinction Point series and Toward Yesterday.

You can learn more about Paul and his upcoming releases via his blog at www.DisturbedUniverse.com or his Facebook page www.facebook.com/AuthorPaulAntonyJones/

Reviews

[carol. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some books are made for procrastination reads, and this is one of them. Bought and read in a single summery afternoon, it was the perfect excuse to sit outside in the first 80 degree day with the new Kindle.

It begins with Emily, a mid-twenty-something reporter who is waiting for an appointment to interview a doctor. As far as introductions go, it's a mediocre one, showcasing Emily as somewhat of a judgmental snot--Jones should have skipped it and went straight to the biography info-dump when she's grabbing a sandwich and checking the news in an internet cafe. The press is reporting a mysterious red rain that has been falling over Europe causing alarm and confusion. Just as she packs up to leave the cafe, it starts falling in New York City as well.

I admit, I'm a sucker for apocalypse survival stories, and in that aspect, Extinction Point delivers. Unfortunately, almost everything else about the story needs work, including characterization and writing style. Take Emily, a native Iowan who grew up in "a small backwater farm town" with a mere six years under her belt in the Big Apple. I'm a midwestern girl, born and raised, and have witnessed two of my best friends head to the big city. So believe me when I say that I did not find the lead character believable that I'm coming from personal experience. Almost nothing about her as a composite made sense to me; in bits in pieces, it was fine, but when you put it together, it didn't jibe. An Iowan who longs to escape but doesn't drive? Mr. Jones, most rural kids learn to drive long before legal age, especially if they want to get off the farm. He states she doesn't drive because she could "bike everywhere in ten minutes." Have you ever been through a midwestern winter? You don't bike anywhere in an average low temp of 14 to 18 Farenheit. That is not normal teen behavior. New Yorkers not driving, I get, as NYC has one of the best mass transit systems in the country. I know two New Yorkers that never learned to drive until they hit college. But rural kids? Nope. Rural kids that end up being lead reporters for the local paper? Double nope.

Then there was this little oddity: "he had no problem with her use of 'language,' as her mother would call Emily's ability to swear like a proverbial sailor. Dating was hard enough in this town; finding someone to put up with her inordinate knowledge of cuss words was even harder." Mr. Jones--have you been to America in the last decade and talked to anyone under thirty? I'm pretty sure "cussing," as you so archaically phrase it, isn't a problem in dating.

Then there were the New York details themselves. "The owner of the building was big on security, so every apartment was equipped with a peephole that gave the occupant a fish-eye view of the corridor directly aside." That's not "big on security." That's New York. Heck, that's America. Why even describe the reason for the peephole anyway? She has to look out it; that's its only significance. Don't waste time on something that doesn't matter and will only point out you don't know what you are writing about. Likewise, the description of office blocks, with "here and there was the occasional small store. Within walking distance, a hungry office worker could find a coffee shop and a florist, and just across the street from her place, a small corner convenience store that kept a stock of canned goods, newspapers, and candy." They're called bodegas (or more racially, 'Korean groceries') in New York, so every time they were referred to as "the convenience store," or "the little store" it felt overly explanatory, and again, ignorant.

But that was just the beginning. I didn't believe Emily had the drive or hustle it takes to be a junior reporter at a major city paper--when deciding between work and a sandwich, she chose the sandwich--and she had to remind herself to photograph the red rain. I really, really didn't believe her reaction to the boyfriend's excruciating and messy death. She was able to move on within a day (including moving his body!, and her grief was limited, especially for a violent death. Granted, she may have been in shock. Except she frequently wasn't. I saw someone I didn't know die in a way that was strikingly similar, and I was traumatized for a week--and I've been in the medical field for years.

Here is the clinching craziness: at a newspaper meeting, the newspaper manager states: "The paper is officially closed until this all blows over. I'll see you all then." Hello? Have you seen the media in America? Close down? Not bloody likely.

Writing was overly bogged down by details, particularly in the beginning. I understand that part of survivalist stories is that the reader is hoping for a survival blueprint, but this was too much detail even before the event. For instance, Jacobs lists four other stories (and their implication) that Emily reads before getting to reports on the red rain. When her boyfriend wants to know what food is in the house, Emily actually lists it.

Then there is the plot point of when her reaction to the disaster included calling the White House and the FBI. I stopped a minute in shock. I worked in emergency services for a decade, and I'm pretty sure calling either of those agencies never, ever comes up as part of problem-solving on the individual level. It was an oddity that made more sense when I found out the author was not American. Believe me, Jones, the only reason Americans call the White House is to voice opinions on the social policy of their choice, not because they expect solutions. Just a little incongruity that stuck out.

Language itself needs some work. There was genuinely odd imagery: "trying to ignore the cramps in her legs that felt like a dog nipping at her ass."

Now that I'm writing it all down, I realize there was quite a bit that bothered me. I haven't read a lot of indie fiction, but I'd guess it was middling for the type--could have benefited from a few more readers and re-writes, but there are some interesting bones here. Jacobs does develop an ominous tension and his attention to detail makes coping with the fallout intriguing.

Ultimately, I read this in the best possible environment for this type a book--a warm, sunny day after a long winter that put me in the best possible mood, and led me to forgive many character and writing faults in favor of a moderately interesting plot. Quite honestly, I suppose it was a two stars read. Not terrible enough to quit, but not awesome enough that I didn't wrinkle my forehead a few times, or turn the pages rather fast so I could finish and get inside. Besides, I was getting sunstroke.


Cross posted at: http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0...

[Joe Valdez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whenever I’m in the mood for a snack and go to the fridge, I rarely select anything healthy. In the mood for science fiction, I threw Extinction Point by an author named Paul Antony Jones in my Kindle cart. Published in 2013, I liked that this book hit two of my favorite keywords—Female Protagonist and End of the World—and appreciated that it was free to borrow on Kindle Unlimited. I can’t say that I had zero expectations because Justin Cronin’s vampire apocalypse novels certainly set the bar for what’s possible in the genre, not to mention a good old British doomsday like War of the Worlds or Day of the Triffids. What I got here was amateur hour by comparison with one of my least favorite keywords: Ends In Cliffhanger. 

The story is true blue ‘50s science fiction. Emily Baxter, reporter for the “New York Tribune,” is ordering a cappuccino one fine day when reports of strange weather in Russia hit the Internet. Soon, the reported red rain begins to seep upon New York, killing birds immediately. By the time Emily makes it back to the office, the news out of Eastern Europe is that there is no news—no one can be reached. CNN provides footage out of France of dead bodies and reports of many sick people before their on-the-scene eyewitness vomits blood and collapses. Emily returns to her fab skyrise apartment where her cop boyfriend joins her. Pretty soon, he’s drowning in his own blood but rather than join him, Emily survives, one of roughly 8 million in New York to win the doomsday survival lottery. 

Everything in this book feels like the first thing that popped into the author's head, which is a problem when none of it’s original. The protagonist is a reporter from Iowa, because, why not. Lois Lane is pretty bitchin’. Her boyfriend is a cop, because, why not, it's a reliably male profession. The setting is Manhattan because, why not, based on almost every end of the world movie, TV series or book, New York dies first. The first survivor Emily encounters is a dog, because, if you're alone at the end of the world, you need a dog. This is story development along the lines ofFamily Feud, where “Surveys Says!” is what the author went with. First place here is you lose me as a reader.

The story is mostly about how everyone in New York dies at the same moment except our bland heroine, which is pretty heavy stuff, but the writing isn’t up to telling that story. Emily tells us what she’s thinking, which is often some variation of, “This is very, very bad.” Yeah, totally. I can get that. It felt more like the author was watching Mystery Science Theater and commenting on this silly movie he was watching as opposed to something that was happening. 



I love a good apocalypse story centered on women who go shopping, meaning, they gear up for the journey ahead. The movie Night of the Comet put an ‘80s twist on that. My favorite aspect of Extinction Point was Emily gearing up at the local bike shop and Whole Foods as she prepared to pedal off Manhattan Island. Because if you want to survive doomsday, your calf muscles better be in shape and bicycle repair knowledge wouldn’t hurt.  

I found it a particulrly lazy effort how at least three times, Emily closes her eyes and waits to die with all the survival instinct of a crash test dummy, only to be saved by the author. I think this is referred to as “deus ex machina.”

My biggest complaint with the novel is that instead of providing the reader an ending, we get a set-up for the next novel. A lot of this was going on in the self-publishing world a few years ago with novels being sublet into four or five smaller novels in order to move more product. In other words, you’d have to spend $100 to get the whole story. This makes it impossible for me to recommend this, even if the writing was high quality, which it is not.

[Will M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the shortest yet most disappointing reads I've ever had. This had such an interesting premise, but the delivery was terrible. The writing felt like I was reading a YA novel. The main character was really annoying. Let me quote some annoying or contradicting or stupid things that happened.

"Okay, big boy," she said, when she was finished and confident that was the only wound the dog had received during the fight. "How about I fix us some dinner?

The mention of food seemed to get Thor's attention

She didn't fucking mention the word food. All she said was dinner. The author could've said "The mention of dinner seemed to get Thor's attention " But no, the author seemingly concluded that dinner and food for dogs are the same thing.

"She picked up the bowl, opened a second can for the dog

She's probably the only one left in the place and the food in the grocery(even the canned goods) might get spoiled soon, but she fed her last few remaining food to the freakin' dog. Wait, there's fucking more.

Emily opened the final can of corned beef and fed it to Thor.

She fed her last fucking can of corned beef to the dog. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs, but this is not practical. You should consider your life first before the dog's.

A couple of energy bars satisfied her own hunger

There is no way that a couple of energy bars really satisfied her hunger. This book is full of lies.

Now let's talk about that terrible ending. He didn't explain what the freakin' red rain is. He just ended with Emily and the dog. Sure we get the new alien thing, but he didn't explain it well enough. The book is so short, that's quite good, but short enough to be inadequate. This novel is mediocre as hell, but I don't even know why I liked it. I guess I like post apocalyptic shit even though almost all are the same. 3 stars at most, and guess what, I'm planning to read the sequel soon. The author better explain the main premise or his next book's going to receive not more than 1 star from me.

[February Four · Rating 2 out of 5]

Red rain good. Aliens good. (Awesome concept.) Biker who can't drive, good. Obstacles in her path, plausible. But seriously. Packing all those clothes, food, stores?

1. Yes, there is talk of scavenging along the way, explaining why she's not carrying too much food. There are bike stores in most major towns, but I can see packing lots of bike supplies because you don't want to get stuck between towns without bike-fixing gear. But seriously--limiting yourself to a liter of water a day? Can't you carry more than that and scavenge for bottled water when you scavenge for food? Water is important, especially with all that biking! Also, panniers, yes, but wouldn't pulling a little cart along behind you be a great way to carry things without weighing yourself down too much? People put children and pets in those little things you hitch to a bike, so why not food, water, bike-fixing gear, even those spare rims Emily wanted so much?

2. Packing all your clothes and worrying about clean underwear? Hello, Emily, there are department stores in pretty much every city. Also, I suppose I shouldn't expect a man to know about pantiliners, but Jones wrote about tampons and pads, so do a bit more research or ask a woman!

3. Double-burner propane burner with tanks (plural) of propane? Again, what happened to scavenging? And seriously, a double-burner? You're eating for one!

4. That GPS for your bike, Emily, it needs batteries. So does your flashlight. Okay, maybe the GPS is pedal-powered, but the flashlight sure as heck isn't. But I don't see Emily packing batteries, rechargeable or otherwise. I don't see her packing up more solar panels connected to battery packs. I don't see her picking up portable battery packs (astronomy shops! camping supply place! She's a journalist, she should know these things.)

5. Oh, and considering she's WAAAAY overpacking, what was wrong with grabbing a can opener and not having to deal with looking for pop-top cans? Grocery stores sell those, you know. Can openers, I mean. You know, the manual kind you crank to open a can?

*sighs* I thought the aliens were great. But considering the level of detail Jones is lavishing on the way Emily is preparing for her trek north (spending the ENTIRE BOOK on it, in fact) you'd think he'd THINK about the preparations a little more!

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

NOTE: Whenever passages from the book are quoted, all emphases are mine.

This review is full of spoilers. I can’t even begin to describe how incomplete, how uninspiring, how nothing this book was without spoiling it. Besides, you really don’t want to read it. Trust me on this.

I read Extinction Point because my wife downloaded a free sample on her Kindle, read it, and thought the book might be something we’d enjoy reading together. Boy, was she wrong. That I promised to read the book to completion is the only reason that I didn’t dump it a third of the way through it. Yes, Extinction Point was that bad, bad enough to stand as the single worst post-apocalyptic book I’ve ever read. It offended me on an intellectual level.

The idea, the concept behind the novel, was something that could be worked and developed into something great, but my overall impression is that Extinction Point was not well thought out. The execution and details were major failures.

Before I discuss them, let me give you a brief overview of the book: Emily Baxter is a reporter for New York City daily newspaper. Emily grew up on a farm in Iowa, did not leave the state until she was in her twenties, and yet, never learned how to drive. As the novel opens, she lives in Manhattan on the seventeenth floor of a higher end apartment building. One day, a mysterious red rain falls on Europe and then, hours later, the United States. Within eight hours after the fall of the red rain, seemingly all animal life dies except Emily. A couple of days later, Emily posts her cell phone number on every social media site she can think of. A day or so later, she receives a phone call from a research center in Alaska where a team—supposedly; we never hear from or of anyone other than a man named Jacob—of scientists survived. They suggest Emily come to them.

Much of Extinction Point’s many problems are caused by the author’s use of language. The novel read to me as a collection of words that the author thought might sound pretty together. Sadly, many of his words and phrases failed to make any sense when put into context. “His face turning as white as the blood-splattered sheet of paper he still clutched in his free hand” makes no sense. My absolute favorite:

The line of work Emily was in had long ago taught her to trust her gut instinct. For some unknown, subconscious reason, she hesitated at the threshold of the apartment, the flat of her left hand resting against the door, her right hand clenched so tightly around the ax handle that she could feel her nails digging into the flesh of her palm. Something did not feel right, she realized. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but she had a definite sense of offness about what she was hearing. From the dark apartment beyond the door the wail of the child sounded again, louder now that she was so close, breaking through her indecision.

Wagghhhhh!!!

A scene from the movie The Shining—the one where an insane Jack Nicholson chops down the door to his kid’s room with an ax—leaped unbidden into her mind, sending a shudder of unease down her spine, but she dismissed it as just nerves.

He just loved contradicting himself throughout the book. “She was glad she had brought the flashlight with her, as the interior of the store gradually became darker the farther back she walked. She fished the flashlight out of her backpack switched it on, and twisted the beam adjuster until it gave off a wide angle of light that pushed back the remaining darkness. There was almost enough light to see by without the flashlight…” Another: “Emily didn’t think there would be any kind of threat in the store; Mike was too smart to have stayed. He would have gone home and died with his family just like millions of other Americans probably had.”

Many of the protagonist’s thought processes failed to make any sense. Everyone around Emily is dead, but when she saw a body under a blanket on the sidewalk, she calls out to it and runs up to it with the full expectation that it’s a living person who’s sleeping on the street. Why would she expect this man to be alive? If he was alive, why, considering that everyone else is dead, would he still be sleeping on the street.

That’s but one example of Emily proving to be the dumbest ELE survivor in literary history. There are scores of others. She was worried about drinking tap water after everyone died, but she was comfortable taking a long bubble bath. She was worried about what was going on in the city, but she took a sleeping pill. She stayed in her seventeenth-floor apartment. She holed up in her apartment for days, but did not leave her computer on so she could research as much as she could—Emily was a reporter, remember. She was a reporter who neither reported nor recorded anything that was going on. She didn’t right anything down. She didn’t type anything. She didn’t take a single photograph with her cell phone. Nothing.

The biggest example of Emily’s—and, by extension, the book’s—stupidity is that she thought riding her bicycle from Manhattan to Alaska (heading due north before heading west, too) was a smarter decision than teaching herself how to drive there. My favorite, though, was that after making contact via telephone with a research team in Alaska, Emily rejected the idea of getting out of New York: “What? I’m not planning on leaving my apartment, let alone New York. Why would I need to get out of New York?”

Another one of the things that really bothered me was that Emily’s building had one elevator. It is a high end building with at least twenty floors of apartments and forty units per floor. One elevator? Nah, son. But the story required there to be only one elevator, which the author made undesirable to his heroine, because he needed her to trudge up and down sixteen flights of stairs every time she traveled to and from her apartment.

The dumbest thing about the novel that wasn’t related to Emily’s thought processes was the woman’s last night in her apartment, a day after the power had gone out. One of the creatures chewed threw the floor above Emily’s apartment, fell into her bedroom, and knocked over a lit candle. Emily didn’t notice the fire right away; she only did so when standing by her apartment’s front door. The smoke traveled from the bedroom to the front door, but not into the exposed apartment above her? If it was strong enough to make it to the front of the apartment, would her unit’s fire alarm not have gone off? Fire alarms do have batteries, right? Like I said, the author did not think his story through to completion. After letting the creature out through her front door (yes, she let it out, mainly because she—the author, really—forgot that Emily had a shotgun at her disposal), Emily looks through the peephole into the unlit hallway and saw creatures there. Because this was the world’s most magical peephole, Emily was able to see creatures in the hallway even after backing away from the door. The next day, when she was leaving, she was able to see and avoid falling through holes that had been chewed through the floor. We know she didn’t use the flashlight to see them because we read that she didn’t turn it on until she reached the stairwell. Emily Baxter, our heroine. Maybe she was immune to the red rain because she has built-in SONAR.

I don’t know whether or not the author ever lived in New York or visited the city, but his writing demonstrates very little knowledge of the city. Emily’s boyfriend, Nathan, was a New York City police officer. He was described as tolerant of Emily’s “ability to swear like a proverbial sailor.” You see, “Dating was hard enough in this town; finding someone to put up with her inordinate knowledge of cuss words was even harder.” What New York City is this guy talking about? Speaking of Nathan, a New York City cop would never say “I couldn’t even get within ten miles of the precinct.” First of all, New Yorkers—city dwellers, period—don’t think in terms of miles. Second, and more importantly, Manhattan is only 13 miles long and a couple of miles wide. If the officer was stationed in that borough, then he would have spoken in blocks or given a specific street. If he needed to report to a different borough, then he would have said that he couldn’t get anywhere near it. What good do “miles” do anyone here? Also, what New Yorker thinks of the state? Every New Yorker I know thinks of the city. The state is just…a place. “Is that just here or throughout the state?” is only asked by a New Yorker in fiction.

The geography of the story frustrated me often. Emily’s apartment is described “handy for the Sixty-Sixth Street and Lincoln Center subway station.” Later we read that she leaves her apartment on her bicycle, heads southwest on Amsterdam until she turns left onto Eighty-Sixth. This places her apartment at least twenty blocks north of Lincoln Center Plaza. Umm… When Emily finally decides to leave New York, she planned heading directly North. “If she did that she would be out of the city I a day at most.” How big does he think New York is?

Extinction Point also lacked completeness. There was a beginning—really, it was just the beginning of a beginning—but no middle, and certainly no end. Instead of a novel or the opening of a series, this was more like the opening installment of a serial that would have shown up in the Saturday Evening Post a century ago.

Extinction Point is a novel that lacked continuity. It is a post-apocalyptic tale that lacks desperation. It is a story of science fiction that is less scientific than an episode of Looney Toons. After the red rain falls, Emily decided that people got sick and died due to a virus. She did not think it; she did not hypothesize it. No, Emily knew it. Later in the novel, she decided the red rain was alien. No scientific clues, no evidence, no actual thought behind it. As the entire novel is spent inside of the woman’s head going through every inane thought, I find it reasonable to expect that we would have read Emily’s decision process on the cause of the apocalyptic event if she actually had one. Figuring out the cause is only the single most important plot point this book would have been able to offer.

But Emily never seemed to grasp the gravity of her situation. The further removed I am from finishing the book, I actually grow convinced that the author was more concerned with showing how talented a wordsmith he can be than he was with staying true to the story. How else to explain the inclusion of the following prose as Emily leaves her apartment for the last time:

Leaving it behind was going to be painful not only because of her deep emotional investment but because, when she stepped outside that door for the final time, she was also stepping away from the last remnants of her old life and all the security that came with it.

Emily Baxter, a shotgun in one hand and all that was left of her worldly possessions strapped to her back, opened the door to her apartment, stepped outside, and closed the door on her old life as she began a new journey out into the unkown.

What? Everyone she’s ever known has been dead nearly a week, her adopted hometown has been taken over by what she believes are aliens, and the author treats it as if she’s leaving home for a job in the big city.

Despite everything I’ve written so far, Extinction Point’s biggest failing is its absurdity. Actually, its biggest failing is the writing itself. There were some funny moments and some good turns of phrase. They were, unfortunately, few, far between, and lacked any cohesiveness. I really don’t know what the author was thinking. I do know he was in love with his words. “It was like watching some strange migration.” No, it was not like watching some strange migration. It was watching a strange migration. “She knew, with a concrete certainty that sank deep to the bottom of her stomach, the world would remember this day, and those that followed it, for as long as there was still a human race.” Gee, you think?

Whenever he tried to put together a poignant or emphatic moment, it fell flat. Usually, it was because he couldn’t leave a sentence alone and, instead, had to stamp it with Emily’s feeling about it. Emily is an idiot, so this never helps. “This sickness, this red plague, did not seem to discriminate between species, and Emily was pretty sure that was a very bad thing.” Also, “Now that she had seen what had crawled out of one of those cocoons with her own eyes, there was little doubt left that what she had witnessed over the past few days was connected, part of some unfathomable plan.”

Oh, Emily. How stupid can a protagonist be? When it comes to her and her trip, the answer is immensely. Many reviews about Extinction Point go on and on about how stupid it was that Emily decided to ride instead of drive to Alaska, but that decision was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dumb decisions. Emily packed a tiny apartment onto her bike. Multiple wool sweaters, multiple parkas, multiple pairs of shoes, multiple gallons of water, multiple pairs of socks, multiple T-shirts, multiple multiples of multiples, as if she wouldn’t come across a store or home during the 4,400+ mile trip to Alaska. In total, it had to be a couple hundred pounds of stuff.

The final 20% of Extinction Point must be treated as an entity unto itself. Even though I had considered the first 80% to be the dumbest book I’d ever read, I now refer to that final fifth as “the dumb part”. It was…special. Emily brought an entire Wal-Mart with her on her bike, but she didn’t think to bring a map or a pair of sunglasses. Of course, that means she had trouble with morning sun and she got lost. Yes, she did have a GPS with her, but she had an “innate stubbornness to refuse to rely on technology unless she absolutely had to. The GPS and sat-phone were not going to work forever, so the sooner she learned to get by without them the quicker she would become self-sufficient.” Where I come from, using the tools that are available to you is the definition of self-sufficiency. Why did she even bring the GPS?

The most ridiculous thing Emily failed to bring with her was a tent. You’re probably thinking that she could just sleep in people’s houses, in their beds. Emily, darling little saint that she is, has a moral objection to doing that. Even though she’s the last known survivor of the lower forty-eight, Emily has a moral objection to sleeping in others’ beds. She’ll break into houses and scavenge for food, but she can’t sleep in a bed. I know, I know; I don’t get it either.

The most important thing she forgot to bring with her was a contingency plan. Jones’ text explicitly states so.

After a fire forces Emily into a panicked detour, she comes across a “forest unlike any that had ever existed on Earth before,” a forest of alien trees. After a week of cowering and refusing to act like the only reporter on the ground in the face of the story of all-time, she decides to stop riding her bike and stick her hands into the alien goo. Instead of trying to ride her bike around the forest or find another way, Emily decided that the safest and smartest way to run away from the aliens was to WALK HER BICYCLE THROUGH THE ALIEN FOREST. She was already nursing a pretty bad shoulder injury. I will never understand how this was a healthier or safer option than riding her bike around the forest. Of course she was attacked by monsters and of course she forgot she had the shotgun and of course she was rescued BY THE LAST LIVING DOG ON EARTH, a dog from Valhalla, New York named—yes, you guessed it—Thor. Prior to that climactic scene, the creatures had shown exactly zero interest in Emily. What’s one more contradiction?

A reader is left with no conclusion but to believe that the only reason for the fire, the fire, and the monsters was to have Thor save Emily. Why didn’t the author just give Emily a dog at the beginning of the book? Did he not realize that many apartments in New York City are pet-friendly.

I joked with my wife that the author must not use UPS—he can’t make logistics work for him. (Thank you! Thank you! I’ll be here all week.) Extinction Point was a logistical nightmare. Practicality, geography, science, societal understanding, and common sense are but a sample of the ideals that never made an appearance in a novel whose protagonist, who also served as the only POV character—and, for a good 80% of the novel, its only character at all—is a veteran newspaper reporter. Some stories are plot driven. Some are character driven. Extinction Point is deus ex machina driven. There is no reason, no logic, behind the action. I can only go through so much of it here, but nearly every page contained something frustrating enough to make me laugh.

[11811 (Eleven) · Rating 1 out of 5]

This sucked so bad I DNF'd at around 10% and regret every second of my time wasted. It was free and I still want my money back. The writing was horribad. May God have mercy on us all.

[Erin (PT) · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I read the first/sample chapter of Extinction Point on my Kindle, I thought that a) here was a book in that narrow crevice of intersecting interests that I and my husband could read together and b) here was a story that had an interesting premise. As far as it goes, both those things were right.

I still maintain that Extinction Point has an interesting premise…but the author does nothing interesting with it. There are many problems here.

And I have to confess, I felt overwhelmed when I sat down to write this because there's so much wrong at pretty much every level; at a certain point, I could only report in aggregate, because to go into sufficient detail would be to write a novel myself.

I've compared Extinction Point to friends as a NaNoWriMo project, I've compared it to a season of Dragonball Z. If neither of those metaphors mean anything to you, let me break it down like this: everything that happens in the book is really only the first few chapters of an actual story; it's just that everything is inflated and bloated and stretched out by page after page of the author describing everything in excruciating and unnecessary (and boring) detail.

The premise behind Extinction Point is that our heroine, Emily Baxter, is a newspaper journalist in New York City and, on the day our story begins, a mysterious red rain falls across the globe, killing pretty much the entire population of the planet (including animal and insect life) except our girl, Emily, who is somehow immune. This set up gives us many questions and a wonderful mystery: What's happening? Who is responsible? Is Emily really the last person on Earth? What now?

Unfortunately, the author—and by extension, Emily—doesn't seem all that interested in what's going on or why. And I can't really talk about that without going into massive spoilers, because the problems permeate EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. So.

It makes sense, in the beginning, for Emily to hole up in her apartment. It's what's been advised by the Powers That Be and, up to the point that (practically) everyone on the planet dies, where else is she going to go? However, once everyone dies—even before they start turning into alien drones—Emily's insistence in clinging to it is both inexplicable, and incredibly stupid/dangerous. As things get progressively worse from there (all the corpses turning into the aforementioned drones, the power going out, a fire, aliens actually burrowing in/through her apartment), her refusal to leave gets increasingly stupid and ridiculous. The fact that the majority of the book is Emily hiding out (in denial) in her apartment (on the seventeenth floor!) and combined with some common sense problems from an author who has clearly never lived in an inner city apartment building (smoke alarms, peepholes, a singular elevator), take the willing suspension of disbelief and created something as alien as his new inhabitants of New York City.

Emily is a dumb protagonist stuck in a frequently dumb story. In one sense, this is okay, because it's the least tense, least dangerous and most forgiving apocalypse ever. Through most of the story, the only real danger comes from Emily herself as she makes one bad decision after another and hurts herself while making them.

I also want to put something in here about Emily's privilege. Emily is, as I said, a dumb protagonist. Some of this is a very realistic (if tedious) dumbness; some of this is a fairly unrealistic dumbness clearly invented by the author for his "plot" needs. And some of it is just Emily being a rather annoyingly privileged middle class white chick. This is most clear for me when she, over and over again, refuses to grasp the reality of her situation. Everyone's dead? Let's take a bath and a sleeping pill! It never occurs to her that the janitorial or maintenance staff of her apartment or the newspaper will have master keys; in fact, the janitorial and/or maintenance staff never come into her mind. She has weird 'moral' angst about scavenging things for her own survival—and frequently she just does not think to scavenge or refuses to scavenge (as when she refuses to sleep in a bed or to get sunglasses that would actually HELP her, or when she grabs a GPS device but not a map) that shows a level of Nice White Lady that, under the circumstances is both tragic and laughable.

Further, though she's a journalist—and the only person "on the ground", because the only other survivors we know of are in Alaska, an area apparently free of the red rain and alien menace—Emily demonstrates virtually NO journalistic curiosity about what's happening, she refuses to give information (possibly VITAL information) to the survivors in Alaska about what she sees/what's happening because she's afraid it sounds too crazy and she chooses the worst, most dangerous and idiotic times to engage with the aliens who otherwise seem content to ignore her (cutting open the pupa at the newspaper office when already on another mission and injured, detouring through the alien forest and dragging her bike behind her (while still injured) instead of taking the smart route and detouring around the lake on her bike).

Half the time, she treats the events of the apocalypse as her personal spa day (taking long baths in her limited water supply and then downing a sleeping pill, luxuriating in the awesomeness of a bike ride on a sunny day through Central Park, etc.) than a disaster of nearly unimaginable proportions. She evinces no concern when she sees the aliens have not only consumed/transformed the animal life on the planet, but are similarly transforming the plant life, as well. As practically the sole survivor of the apocalypse, Emily may be spoiled for choice when it comes to canned goods and bottled water, but as the aliens transform the soil and plant life, I'd think Emily had taken enough first grade biology to worry about what she's going to breathe in the fairly near future.

Emily is not helped by Jones, who undercuts her, and his own story, at every turn. Emily takes supplies (a shotgun, a GPS) only for the author to clearly forget them for long stretches at a time, or, as in the case of the GPS, refuses to use them for the most specious, pasted on reasons. The absurdity of Emily's insistence of going up and down from her 17th floor apartment, even after the power has died; her inability to drive coupled with her refusal to learn or even try, but that's she's going to bike all the way to Alaska; her insistence on packing supplies that she won't need for months, if at all, even though every store, shop, mall, etc. is hers for the scavenging, with NO competition for resources; her apparently magical Backpack of Holding…it's all ridiculous and only gets more so as the book goes on.

Worse, there's no TENSION to any of it. We don't know anyone other than Emily well enough to have any particular feeling about it when they all die…and Emily never seems to suffer from any particular grief about the losses, even her parents or boyfriend. There are no other survivors who might provide a threat. The aliens, for all Emily's (fairly reasonable) terror, are mainly nocturnal and, even when awake/abroad, pretty much ignore her, even when she's directly interacting with them, as when she destroys one of the gestating drones at the newspaper office, or when a drone burrows through the ceiling of her apartment, trying to get outside to join its brethren. There's no drama to any of it and no dramatic arc. Bottom line: this apocalypse is boring.

And when something finally does happen, in the last chapters of the book, it a) comes after so much ongoing ridiculousness and b) it's so obviously contrived (as an unnecessary excuse to bring in Thor the Magical Dog), that it again holds no real tension. Emily is our only protagonist and the story hasn't GONE anywhere yet; of course she's not going to die! (and if she did, would it really be so bad?)

Though I found nearly everything about the book exasperating, I was still considering reading the second book when it came out. Not because I was enjoying it, but because so little had been delivered on the story premise that had so intrigued me in the first place, I still wanted to know where it all went. That resolution lasted only through about two-thirds of the book. But, after wading through that last third and finding out that Jones plans to string this all out through at least another four books (though so far he hasn't given enough plot for ONE)…nope. Apparently my masochism does only extend so far.

[Gertie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Everyone has their own way of realizing to what degree they are enjoying a book they are reading. For me it comes down to a few things.
1.) I think about the story when I'm not reading it.
2.) I look forward to picking it back up again.
3.) I am disappointed when it is done.
If I don't look forward to reading a book, then it's just filler. When this book ended I was definitely irritated with myself for not taking longer to enjoy it. (I'll know better when the next one comes out!) Something kind of strange happened with this book too. When it was done, I had a very hard time picking up another book. Nothing looked good enough, when what I really wanted was to still be reading about Emily and her story.

This is not a story about constant action, fighting, or tons of witty dialog, although you do get the impression that our heroine, Emily, would be more than capable of exchanging witty repartee with a worthy companion, were she not the only living person within way-further-than-shouting-distance. This story is about character, perseverance, struggling to survive despite having no one to share that survival with, and more than a fair share (and that's a good thing) of "Eeeek!" creep factor.

Speaking of creep factor, that was one of my favorite things about this book. As Emily makes her way around, investigating what has happened and determining what to do next, she encounters frequent signs of the world's new boogeymen. I don't want to give away too much, but let's just say, there's more than one thing to fear in this new world she has been marooned in. I enjoy a good shiver or squeal of happy-disgust (if read much horror, you know what I'm talking about), so I definitely got a kick out of this book.

A couple of things led me towards calling this a 4.5 star book. One thing is that I kept noticing a certain remoteness/coldness in Emily. When some events happened I would expect a likable character to be very concerned about her family, friends, neighbors, boyfriend (and of course, for herself). She worried about #1 okay, but everyone else... not so much. I think that was intentional from the author, but as a woman myself, I expect a certain amount of caring from another woman's character.

DISCLAIMER:
I know the author, through Goodreads. If you've ever read a book by someone you know (and maybe even like), you'll notice there is a constant mental dialog occurring simultaneously with reading the book. First, you are looking at things that you can provide reader feedback on, and second, and this one is a doozy, you have to constantly ask yourself, "Did I really, like this, or is it just because I know the author?" Every laugh, smile, or nod of appreciation gets questioned, if you are conscientious enough to attempt to stay unbiased. And, it is always SUCH a relief when what you are reading turns out to be good. Sometimes even great. Fortunately, I really, genuinely enjoyed this book. I'd have liked it even if it was written by someone I thought was a total asshat, which really says something about the book itself. :-P

[Michelle, the Bookshelf Stalker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Badass Hidden Gem...

http://badassbookreviews.com/badass-h...

Read my review at badassbookreviews.com

I admit it. I’m a fan of the series Doomsday Preppers. I also have a major crush on Les Stroud of Survivorman. There is something about a guy that can survive with nothing but his common sense and his knowledge of the world around him! I will also admit to having an emergency backpack filled with stuff that I hope to never need. I’m not a fanatic in any way, shape or form. I’m semi-prepared for earthquakes, floods, fires, and other natural or man-made disasters. However, I am NOT prepared for…

BLOOD RAIN!

Holy red smoke! This book scared me. I like scary books but this book SCARED me. It makes you think, what would you do?

So, on that note, what would you do if red rain was falling? I’m not talking about rain with a mild tint but rain that clung to the glass of the window like mud, or, more appropriately, like blood splatter at a murder scene. That’s right folks…

BLOOD RAIN!

Would you go out and stand in that rain and look up out of curiosity? Would you taste it? Yes, some people would. That little thought disturbed Emily greatly…

Why the hell would you stick that stuff in your mouth? Emily wondered. The level of some people’s intelligence never failed to amaze her. Who knew where it came from?

Our poor, poor Emily. She has a problem, she lived. In fact, she may be the last person on earth. What did she survive? The beginning of Extinction Point deals with this little mystery.

Is it fallout from an experiment gone bad?
Is it some weird natural phenomenon like the bioluminescent dinoflagellates that make the oceans glow in neon lights?

Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out what causes the almost extinction of the human race!

The story

The author came up with a clever survival story. Not only does Emily survive the blood rain but she also has to deal with her own extreme loneliness, the metamorphosis of the human carcasses to something else (can’t say more, it’s a spoiler), and how to survive when all Emily ever wanted was to report the news, not become the news.

Overall

The strength of this story is the details and the believability. The author makes the reader truly believe the events in the book. I loved how every move Emily made was described and how the reader could go “NOOOO” when you watched Emily go somewhere where you knew trouble was waiting!

The weakness was the details. I know, that makes no sense since I just said it was a strength. However, after a while, I was tired of watching EVERYTHING Emily did. I was afraid I was going to read “Emily farted” next in the book. Thankfully, later in the book, we get to meet THOR. I have to capitalize THOR since he is larger than life and he is plain awesome. I’m not going to spoil THOR since he should be a surprise to all the readers. GO THOR!!!!

This was a great book 1 and a great start for a series.

[Experiment BL626 · Rating 4 out of 5]

CAUTION: Long Review, Slight Spoilers

I hesitated reading Extinction Point (EP) because I did not care for the author's other Apocalyptic book, Towards Yesterday. However, when the author offered me a free copy I took the opportunity. At most I would have wasted my time and be placed in an awkward situation of low-star rating the book. Yes, it's that same kind of awkwardness when Grandma gives you a present... and it's an ugly sweater. Fortunately, I found the book thoroughly enjoyable.

EP starts off with Emily Baxter on a reporting gig. I instantly like Emily the first time I read her internal monologue about weird magazines found in waiting areas. My affection for her increased when Emily refused to accept any nonsense from the hooky-playing receptionist, barring Emily from her appointment. All that happened in the first scene, a short scene. A definite strong start the book have. Already I was rooting for Emily and salivating to read more of her. The book did not disappoint.

Exclusively told from Emily Baxter's side in 3rd PoV, the story is about Emily trying to survive the Apocalypse alone. Not that she had any choice since everyone else was dead. By luck or genetic Emily managed to survive the plague brought on a mysterious weather phenomenon dubbed as "Blood Rain." The book pulled no punches, the first time Emily saw herself truly alone was after witnessing her boyfriend's spontaneous gory death. Later on she tried calling her parents in Florida. No one answered. Ever. Emily then walked to her neighbor's place where a mother and a father and their little boy were dead. From the blood spill and stain, they too must have suffered a spontaneous gory death. Dead person here, dead person there, dead people everywhere. Blood all around. Emily go crazy?

The Character(s?)

+++ Emily

No, Emily did not go crazy. She did screamed some when she saw her boyfriend dying in front of her. But that was it. The story could have made Emily go bat-shit crazy at the blood bodies surrounding her, but it didn't.

Death was coming for her, she knew and waited. It was just a matter of seconds before she joined Nathan and the millions of victims across the world who had already succumbed to this violent, insidious red-plague. What was strange though was with the inevitability of her death came a serenity of sorts, a calmness within her mind as everything complicated in her life ceased to matter. Her only responsibility now was to wait.

The cold honesty of her situation, the simplicity of it all, was a welcome relief.

So, she waited.

I tearless wept for Emily when I read that passage. I was delighted when she managed to pull herself together quickly after. However, I soon noticed this "cold honesty of her situation" became somewhat of a repeated occurrence. I was happy to see Emily being well aware of the danger she placed herself in, even when was she weaponless. I was not happy how that same "cold honesty of her situation" made her quickly resign to death when face with danger and seemingly no chance of escape. Many times when I wanted to scream "Don't give up!" at her. Nevertheless, as far as character flaws goes, this "cold honesty of her situation" was very low on my irritation scale. I hardly ever thought she was annoying because of it, I thought the flaw made her more real as a person.

Throughout the story, Emily was smart and resourceful. She achieved a good balance between her paranoia that was brought on by the Apocalypse and her inquisitiveness that made her a talented reporter. I did have moments where I didn't know what she was doing or why she was doing it, but I didn't doubt her action. I was confident knowing whatever Emily did she did it for a good reason.

Emily Baxter was a kick-ass heroine in the fact that she did things and got things done. She may have been weak in front of the WTFkery mutants the Apocalypse birthed — what average person wouldn't, but when she had an opportunity to overcome them she instantly took it. When she got hurt, she didn't shrug it like it's nothing. She said ouch, disinfect it, and then let it rest like a reasonable person.

Bonus part was her morbid humor. That was icing on the character cake.

Some messages explained their authors were hunkering down and hoping to ride out the storm, there were even one or two that dismissed the threat as nothing more than mass hysteria.

How'd that work out for you? Emily wondered.

LOL. Absolutely hilarious. Too bad no one was there to appreciate this irony or to tell “I told you so”...'cause, you know, they're all dead.

+++ Thor

He's a dog, specifically an Alaskan Malamute. He saved Emily from the WTFkery mutant. He's trained, so trained that despite starvation he won't eat until Emily had to give the Eat command. Nothing more to say except I love him. I kinda wish he showed up earlier in the story, but then it might have lessen the impact of his arrival. The story really want to pull the point across that Emily Baxter was alone.

+++ WTFkery mutants

The dead bodies didn't stay dead for long... No, they didn't became zombies. This is what made EP distinctive from the common Apocalyptic books. Instead, the mysterious red thing from the "Blood Rain" molded the various body parts into some sort of creatures I don't know what it is but I personally nicknamed them as WTFkery mutants. As the story described these, um, things were about grotesque as a leaf-nosed bat — I dare you to google that — or the human centipede from that...well, The Human Centipede films.

More than the WTFkery mutants, what made EP scary-good was well how it build up the suspense of Emily meeting a WTFkery mutant for the first time. Second was the fact that some of them were not aggressive. You read right. Some. Not all. Some.

How ironic was it, she thought, that in every alien invasion movie she had ever seen, every sci-fi book she had ever read, the aliens were always either intent on eating us or just misunderstood. No one ever seemed to consider the possibility they might just ignore us completely; that the survivors of the human race might be so very inconsequential to their plan.

No kidding. How dare some of these WTFkery mutants ignore Emily. All of them should be trying to chase and devour her. Get with the Apocalyptic act, would you? /sarcasm. LOL.

Addressing the Apocalyptic Issue

+++ cause of apocalypse

The story addressed all the finer points of the Apocalypse very well. The events leading up and after "Blood Rain" were well built. The red thing that made everyone died and change into WTFkery mutants were well developed — I was pleasantly surprised at how scientific Emily was in her examination of the Apocalyptic red thingy. There many theories Emily played around; the one seem best to me was that it was some sort of an alien virus. EP never outright said what it is, thus the answers — including the one why the Apocalypse happened — lies in future books which I eagerly look forward to.

+++ get your weapon

EP seem to accurately describe what an Apocalyptic survivor would have to do to keep on surviving. One thing that slightly irked me what that I wished Emily would have got her hand on a weapon as soon as possible. It's always smart to run away and hide, but there are times when that isn't feasible. I hope in future books, Emily would always have a weapon at hand. Like Gin Blanco from my favorite Urban Fantasy series, the Elemental Assassin. That kick-ass heroine never walk anywhere without her silver knives.

+++ travel by... bike?

The biggest issue — of the very few issues — I had with EP was the bike. Um... Is Emily going to travel to Alaska by bike? Not that it's impossible, but it doesn't seem very practical. Or fast. If Emily can't travel by car because of all the abandoned cars blocking the roads, why not a motorcycle? It's almost as slim as a bike that she can move through tight passages. I hope this issue is quickly addressed and resolved in the sequel.

+++ travel by... bike? [ETA]

I finally figured out why Emily would pick a bike. The answer was there right all along, it just took a while for me to get it through my head. Anyway, the reason is because if it's anything is broken, she can fix the bike. Yet...

I guess it's because I'm mostly focusing how the book is set up. The book is divided into seven parts, each part is a day. Each day consist of multiple chapters. If the next book is going to be the same, divided into days, then I wonder how many days it would take for Emily to bike from NYC to Alaska.

A few reasons why I find a motorcycle more practical is because what if a WTFkery mutant start chasing her? It's easier to make a quick getaway on a motorcycle than on a bike. A bike would require exercise on her part, while with motorcycle all she needs is gasoline. What happens if she's injured or too tired to ride a bike and then a WTFkery mutant or a bunch appear? A bike won't help. And there's only so many she can shoot, assuming if she's an accurate shooter, assuming if the mutants can die with bullet wounds, assuming if the mutants can even be pierced with bullets.

The book always made me aware of the time. Emily riding a bike doesn't really push the point of how urgent it was that she need to escape the city full of WTFkery mutants and reach the haven in Alaska.

If riding a motorcycle is simply too scary for her, there's always the scooter.

The Editing

For a self-published book, EP was well edited. Nonetheless there were some mistakes, mostly of the rogue punctuation kinds. I believe I only noticed them because I literally read EP word for word. That's how good the book was; I didn't skim anything. The followings are mistakes I found:

[Her stomach gave an anticipatory grumble. .] Kindle Location 182. There's an extra period.

[As Emily ’s eyes roamed the buildings,] Kindle Location 590. There's an extra space in the possessive noun.

[Obviously, the power was still on because her alarm clock was still working,.] Kindle Location 1688. There's a rogue comma before the period.

[intent on insinuating themselves into every nook and crevice of the apartment and the city. .] Kindle Location 1925. There's an extra period.

[Waggghhhhrrrrrgh!] Kindle Location 2065. This needs to be italicized like the other onomatopoeia.

[She took the bergen and left it near the front door while she grabbed her jacket .] Kindle Location 2415. There's a space before the period.

[was loose enough she wouldn’t end up accidentally stabbing herself .] Kindle Location 2420. There's a space before the period.

[She began to breathe a little easier ,] Kindle Location 2920. There's a space before the comma.

[what he liked to call ’the best bargains on two wheels‘.] Kindle Location 3116 The type of single quotation marks are not correct. It's supposed to be ‘ first, and ’ second.

[It was intoxicating..] Kindle Location 3186. There's an extra period.

[911] Kindle Location 370, 457, and 585. These are supposed to be "9/11" to denote it as an event, not an emergency number.

These are the mistakes I found in my first reading the book. However, as I said before, I only noticed them because I literally read EP word for word. There was nothing I found boring about EP at all.

+++ The Editing [ETA]

They're fixed.

Conclusion

EP was great. I give it four-stars for I really liked it. It's been a while since I read a well developed science-fiction Apocalyptic book. I recommend this book for readers who looking something other than zombies, zombies, and more zombies. If readers like me who were not at all a fan of Towards Yesterday but still want to give the author a second chance, this is it right here.

I'm biased in favor for a single PoV, so I hope the future books will stick with Emily. EP is a strong start of a series. This is a bit frightening for me because I don't know how the next book will top this one.

[Tim Bergmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really kind of disappointed here

first the good: the premise, great idea. You're basically one of the last people on earth due to a kind of stealth alien invasion. Author looks like he set everything up well, planned out the way the alien takeover is happening and looks like he has a plan for the future.

the bad: the heroine. Doesn't drive at the beginning is really no big deal. That at age 30ish that she's never driven is a bit unrealistic, but okay, I can roll with that. However, if you are the only person left in the world and you are trying to go thousands of miles and you don't want to drive a car or learn is asinine, stupid, and just flat out dumb.

Maybe she's only riding a bike til she hooks up with predictable dog and book 2 she'll get over it. But then again, the dog addition was also predictable. Did I mention predictable.

Add that everything that she seems to be carrying seems too much for a bike. Again, she's one of the only people left in the world, there's a lot of stuff she probably doesn't have to worry about. She can basically go into any store and grab what she wants in terms of clothing as needed. She can go into anyone homes and probably get more than enough canned foods as she travels, etc... There's lots she doesn't have to worry about that she needlessly does.

The problem is that she's a reporter, and at the beginning seems to be the go-getter type, at least that's what the 1st few paragraphs shows us. But when it comes right down to it, she's not. Thus, the first few paragraphs that I think were designed to show us who she is, is pointless and meaningless. Also, as a reporter, the first thing she tries to do is call people to find out if anyone is alive and only as an afterthought does she check social media websites the next day? Really? Not remotely consistent with a reporter these days.

And that she's too afraid to even learn to drive a car? Really? No one else on the road. Grab a car and learn. You're an intelligent woman. You won't have to worry about running into someone. You won't get a ticket. If you get in an accident, get another car. They're free at this point.

What the book did was make me think about what I would do if I were in this situation:
1) obviously learn to drive. Why? More protection, and better able to carry needed things. Think a decently large car.
2) rob any grocery store of canned goods, water, etc... put in a said vehicle,
3) go to a hospital and get medical supplies
4) go to a library and find any books about survival
5) before the power goes out, download any books about survival, or even just for reading that you can, then go to an electronics store and grab tablets, usb drives, storage, etc, along with car chargers so that you can always keep up. Hell, grab a few cell phones while you are at it, if they are pre-paid and usable, just in case.
6) go to auto shops, get an extra spare tire, oil, tools, etc.. that you might need just in case.
7) hit up an rei for survival gear. hell, grab a bike rack and a bike if you think you'll need it. Grab a tent, lamps, warm clothing, etc...

To conclude: The only reason I gave it 2 stars was because it made me think about those 7 things and that for the most part, it was well written and easy to read. The obvious plot issues is why I ranked it down. Though, because of the premise and the hope of a little more intelligent 2nd book, there is a chance I might check out book 2, but it would definitely have to be in a discounted bargain bin or a serious kindle sale for me to purchase it.

[Benedicte Serner · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this story started out really well and then it just dragged on towards the end.
The premise of the story is awesome; young independent woman who is the sole survivor of a red rain plague that hits the whole world wiping out man and animal alike. The monsters that the people surrounding her turn into were well written and made me want to read the whole thing straight away but then I find myself really noticing that this book could have done with a general editing. On almost every page there is a hyphen mistake or two, place names are misspelled and the repetitions really killed it for me. It is one thing to mention that her shoulder hurts, but to repeat it again and again and again just makes for a very slow read.
Plotwise forcing the heroine to bike instead of drive could have made for an interesting way of telling the story but add that she has no clue how to pack a bag (the amount of stuff she brings with her would require a small tank to carry) and the fact that all this added weight still does not hinder her from carrying her bike over fences, tree trunks etc she would have probably been better off just winging how to drive a car or at least find herself a motorbike. Never mind the fact that she is going to drive to Alaska on this bike, yeah that's right peddling through ice and snow.
Towards the end you find yourself wanting the plot to move on instead of detailing her every idea and meal. Of course to add on top of the cliche that they story turns out to be towards the end we also get the trusty dog added. Maybe this indicates that there will be more survivors, but how did the dog manage to survive without eating anything? And also, why does she not rummage through the house she stays at, stealing clothes and other supplies than just a couple of cans of things? How about looking in the trunks of some of these cars you keep passing, as the author keeps reminding us that our heroine was the only person not stupid enough to try and make a run for it with everything they own?
In the end the suspense of the first half can not really outweigh the dragging on of the plot in the second half. Lovely premises, poor execution.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I really liked the concept behind this book, a very interesting take on the apocalypse/post-apocalypse genre. The idea of the "red rain" was fascinating, however, there were some flaws with the book that prevented me from giving it a higher rating.

First, what I enjoyed. Like I said above, I really enjoyed the take on what has happened in this book. The "red rain" and the results of that, are fascinating so far, and I am very interested to see where it goes. Also, throwing in the aspect of not knowing where it came from - is it alien? or the world reinventing itself again? - really intrigued me. I enjoyed the main character Emily, but not until about half way through the book.

Truthfully, Emily annoyed the crap out of me for the first part of the book. She seemed like a very typical New Yorker, which I am sure was what the author was trying to convey. She just didn't have much substance. She was very shallow, and as she became the supposed lone survivor in NYC (was she really? and how did she really know this in a city of millions of people? did she search every single building for survivors?) - her survival skills those first few days REALLY drove me crazy. She grew up in a little farm town in Iowa, and the author states she spent most of her time outside. She didn't learn anything in those days? Seriously? Her lack of concern about how to survive in those few days drove me nuts, and then when she did start manning up and realizing she needed to get out of there, the supplies she went for were not going to suffice. The camping store would have been the first place I would have gone, not the last. One other thing about Emily that didn't sit well with me in the beginning was her lack of emotion over all of the dying people, especially her boyfriend. She had been with him 2 years, and apparently loved him, yet was totally unemotional about his death. I think that could have been written a little better.

Overall editing could have been much better. This book has a lot of potential, but just needs some tighter editing and revision. Missed and repeated words, grammar, punctuation, the usual things I have seen with self-published Kindle books. Some of the sentence repeating really bothered me, as in the author would describe something and then a paragraph or page later, would describe the exact same thing using the exact same words. Once could be overlooked, but I saw it multiple times throughout the book.

Like I said earlier, I would really have liked to give this book a higher rating. The concept is unique and intriguing, but Emily needed some more meat to her, and some better editing would have been definitely appreciated. I will read the next book, but I hope some of these things can be corrected until the next one comes out. Looking forward to it!

[Tori · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is so much I didn't like about this.

Emily as a leading character, wasn't a strong enough personality for one. Every now and then there may be a little "fun fact" about her slipped in between scenes but other than that the book is like a to-do list of her day.

Maybe the author wanted a very plain generic " everywoman" type of lead. But all this does is make me not care one way or the other about whatever happens to her.

Oh and do we know what happens to her!! We know every second of her freakin' life. I kept waiting for her to say she needed to pee and then we would get a couple paragraphs of how she proceeds to relieve her bladder. God, how trivial. This could have actually been summed up into a short story.

Another thing that unnerved me. Girl doesn't have her license, so instead of just finding an abandoned car and keys, putting it in drive and pushing the gas peddle, she decides to bike her self to Alaska. From New York. To Alaska. No one else on the roads. No cops. But she wants to bike. Am I the only one scratching my head? Anyone over 16 knows the main points of driving a vehicle even if they've never tried. And would sure as hell try if they were trying to get across the country quickly.

And the ultimate mystery surrounding this "extinction", (sorry for all the quotes) was a major let down. I had expected something a little more creative. Something never been done before. But this has been done to death. The beginning of all the chaos is quite interesting and that's why I was so let down by the direction it eventually took. Red rain falling spontaneously from the sky all over Earth. That had my imagination running wild. Grrrrr. I was so let down :(

Yeah. This book made me type a sad face.

Anyways, to summarize:
It's too long. I skimmed all of the final chapters without feeling like I missed anything.
Emily is not a good enough leading character. No personality or qualities that made me care whether she survived or not.
And the main plot of the story, what the hell is going on, is not that fascinating or new.

I would not recommend it to anyone, and I definitely won't read the next book in the series.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading a glowing review of this book from a GoodReads friend and finding that it was available for a mere $2.99 on Kindle, I had to snatch it up. Then, on a sleepless night when I was sick of the never-ending book I was reading, I decided to give this one a try. Oh, sweet popcorn! I was soon devouring this book with eyes flying over the pages at record speeds.

Reports of red rain come to New York from Europe shortly before all contact with Europe ceases. So when red rain begins to fall in New York, everyone either panics or goes home to be with loved ones. After the rains, Emily cannot seem to find signs of anyone alive in New York. Even the internet seems to show no signs of life anywhere. Is she the only person left alive? And why did the residue of the rain seem to show signs of intelligence? Was this a terrestrial biological attack or could it have perhaps come from an extraterrestrial source?

This book excelled spectacularly as a horror read. I paused from my reading last night while at my favorite coffee shop, went to the restroom, and was startled by a misplaced garbage can. I also found myself double-checking the restroom ceiling. What was I looking for? I'll not give away anything except to say that I definitely was NOT looking for zombies.

With many questions left still unanswered at the end of the book, I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel coming in the summer of 2012. This one gets 4.5 stars from me.

[Livvywivvy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this book a higher rating because I enjoyed the concept, the execution however, made it a frustrating read. The book desperately needs editing, simple actions like eating or dressing are written about in excruciating detail which detracts from a strong premise and slows the pace down to a limp. There are some major flaws in the plot, namely riding to Alaska on a bike (!) because Emily, the lead character, has never learned to drive. This was frankly infuriating and nonsensical. Automatic cars are not hard to drive, plus with no one else on the road, what does it matter if she's a bad driver? She won't get pulled over. Also she kept on going back and forth from her apartment and never seemed to be in a hurry to get away from the aliens. It made me less sympathetic towards her and her situation because it just seemed to highlight the lack of emotional depth that she showed throughout. The ending was disappointing as it felt like it was just an introduction to the next instalment. I think it should be the first half of a bigger novel with a lot of editing to quicken the pace and keep the action coming. Having said that, there were moments of real tension and the mystery of the premise kept me reading until the untimely end. I would probably read the next one because I want to know where the story goes, but I just hope it is more polished than this.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a bit of a sucker for a good apocalypse it has to be said. Extinction Point was a highly readable example, lone surivor, strange alien goings on, people dropping dead all over the place and the world changing rather significantly.

This is a fairly short and quick read following our main protagonist Emily in the 7 days following a mysterious red rain that has wiped everyone else out (and not in a pretty way either, some of the descriptive passages in this novel are rather horrific which all adds to the fun). Emily is preparing to go looking for other survivors. In that interim though she is going to face some very weird goings on.

I very much enjoyed the concept and the execution of this one - I was quite fond of Emily, which always helps and I'm admittedly hooked into the narrative now and am going to HAVE to hunt down the sequels and see what is next. This is very much a "Part One" in that there are no answers to be found, simply questions - intriguing questions at that, the flow of it is pretty perfect, it was a 2 sitting read for me.

The fact that my chronic impatience kicked in as I read the epilogue bodes well, all in all a pretty great read and I'm looking forward to eventually getting my answers. Recommended for fans of post apocalyptic tales.

Happy Reading Folks!

[Susana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Final rating: 1-1.5/5

I got this book free at a website that I (unfortunately) lost. I decided to review the book.

Before fully reading "Extinction Point", I tried 2 times to read it and never got past 29%, because I was reading from my computer. After fully reading it for the third and final time, I'm starting to think that there may have been more reasons for not having finished the book earlier...

You know when you watch a reality interactive competition show (ex: Masterchef, America's next top model) and when judging they say a paradoxical statement that doesn't make sense, until you see an example yourself. For example, a paradoxical statement often used on ANTM is "It looks as if the outfit is wearing her, not the other way around." Well, you don't understand that statement, until you see this:

Another paradoxical statement that you need an example to understand is: "A little is more." Well, if there is one good thing that came out of this book, it was teaching me precisely what that statement means.

Mr. Paul, like many of the authors these days, decided not to fully understand this statement leading him to make a book into a series that REALLY didn't need to become one. I would justify Extinction Point to be a series with 2 books in it...but four?!?

The book starts of great with Emily, a reporter from a small town now living in New York, who is out on her daily assignment. Emily's job is fast paced, adventurous, and adjusted to suit her needs. I was even able to find some form of satire:

"She pulled up her web browser and checked CNN. There was the usual potpourri of stories on the news website's front page: conflicts still raged across some Godforsaken third-world country; a politician had been caught with his pants down again ; reports of some weird weather throughout Europe, and some thoroughly uninspiring stock-market numbers that meant her 401K was going to be worth even less than it was yesterday."

"There was a message from her editor at the paper reminding her to get her stories in before deadline along with the usual collection of spam promising to increase her penis size and offering cheap prescription medication imported directly from China"

Getting further into the story, however, I noticed some serious punctuation, grammar, and overall writing style errors, which should not be characteristic of a man who says that he has been-and I quote-"a writer for well over 25 years now." While Carol focuses on the inaccurate aspects of the book in terms of customs in the United States (such as the fact that Emily SHOULD know how to drive, since she comes from "a small backwater farm town" and rural kids learn how to drive long before the legal age), I'll be focusing more on the writing style and grammar errors.

   AND NOW...A LESSON ON editing...or my attempts at it

I'm actually quite surprised at how bothered I was when I found commas missing or not in the places they were supposed to be. I didn't expect that to bother me as much, but it DID. And I'm fully aware that the author is a native of the United Kingdom, but (and please correct me if I'm wrong)I'd like to think that the grammar rules are the same in the UK as in the USA, even though we have spelling differences. The following are direct examples from the ebook with the underlined part representing the punctuation and etc. that is missing.

-The barrage of questions from Sven Konkoly, one of the paper's sub-editors , broke her from her introspection.

-He sat back down and looked up at Emily, who had managed barely make a dent in her own dinner in the time it had taken him to devour his in its entirety.
CORRECTION: He sat back down and looked up at Emily, who had barely managed to make a dent in her own dinner in the time it had taken him to devour his in its entirety.

-The dog must have been a magician in another life , because he made the food disappear in a second.
Note: Poorly made comparison.

-There were several bike shops within a few miles for her to choose from , but she decided to head to her favorite, the oddly named STEALS ON WHEELS over on Lexington and 75th. It wasn't one of those mega-store we-sell-everything emporiums where you could buy just about anything , but no one knew you from Adam.
Notes: The "we-sell-everything" should be self explanatory, so that the "where you could buy just about anything" is already implied. I'd like to think that people will be able to tell the difference between me and this Adam guy, whoever he is. My guess is that the author meant: but no one knew you LIKE Adam.

-Ridding herself of her emotional burden had released her from its weights and allowed her mind, and her heart, to expel the pain. That was a good thing.
Note: I think the reader is smart enough to infer that anything that expels pain is a good thing. Verbosity.

-So if she didn't document this, and if she didn't at least try to figure out what was going on, then who would? So no! No talking myself out just yet. Not until I've figured out exactly what's going on here. "Damn right," she said aloud, allowing a flicker of a smile to cross her face...
Note: Sudden shift from 3rd POV to 1st POV is awkward and rough.

-The streets filled with people and vehicles intent on getting wherever it was they were headed.
Note: The sentence is pointless and vague. People and vehicles in the streets of New York are intent on heading places-it's in their nature.The reader already knows this, so the sentence doesn't add anything to the story. How about "The streets filled with people and vehicles intent on escaping their unavoidable red filled doom"?

-Emily quickly counted at least fifteen unmoving shapes lying in the street. [...] This was bad, she realized. This was probably very bad.
Note: NO SHIT...Unnecessary repetition for emphasis

-When Emily placed her eye to the viewer , it wasn't her colleagues from the paper,. iInstead , she saw a police office standing outside her door.
Note: This sentence is placed before a momentary break in the chapter and prompts the reader to continue reading to "discover" why there is a police man outside of Emily's door. The foreshadowing is nonexistent, because the reader has no in depth background on Emily nor has Emily done anything to make her have a police officer at her door. Fail...

-Directly across from the apartment block was a row of offices and stores, and as Emily scanned the buildings for any sign of life, her eye caught an indistinct shape...It was hard to make out exactly what it was from where she was standing...
MOMENTS LATER AFTER GETTING CLOSER AND REALIZING THAT IT'S A BODY
Emily watched a dust particle that had, until moments earlier, been heading out towards the street perform a meandering u-turn, before descending slowly down toward the corpse and settle into place on the man's left hand.
Note: Emily's eyes weren't able to distinguish the shape of a body, but they were able to focus on a SINGLE dust particle among a New York street...LKJEIALADHFASKLDAJ?!?!?!?!?!?

-EVERYTHING ELSE!!!!!!!!! Especially the (for the most part) single sentence fake emergency sentences at the start of each chapter or on the momentary breaks within the chapter.

Furthermore, Emily spent most of the first chapters attempting to find the "right word" to describe her situation and it was quite annoying.

"It was all just too...sad. Yes, that was exactly the word to describe this situation. It was all just too goddamn sad."
A FEW MOMENTS LATER...
"'Fuck!' she said aloud...That single expletive was not exactly what she would describe as the most profound statement on the world's passing, but it summed up her feelings quite succinctly, she thought."
ANOTHER FEW MOMENTS LATER...
"She didn't know why she felt the way she did..."

There were also moments were Emily was such a weak character, making it seem as if she preferred to be one of the many dead people on the ground around her than alive. There was no reaction to her boyfriend's death or to anyone else she's ever loved/cared about for that matter. Apart of me realizes that the magnitude of her situation and the huge number of deaths could have driven her insane if she allowed herself to have some sort of feelings, but I would have probably preferred this, instead of having a bland character. Additionally, Emily's characteristic as being the only survivor made the book feel more like a to-do list check off, where I was literally being told the exact time, place, and actions taken to do blank. There were chapters where the author named so many streets as if expecting the reader to know exactly what he was talking about. These chapters made me think that maybe my ebook was missing a page with a map on it...

In the book, Emily tells herself: "Don't be so damned ridiculous" and "You're a bloody idiot." At least Emily was honest to herself, because that's exactly what she is and what she will continue to be despite Jones' attempts to make us sympathize with her.

[Hayat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars!

I wanted to try something different and Extinction Point was surprisingly good and had me hooked from the first page. My only issue with it is the mystery went on for far too long and by the end, nothing was explained or revealed. It was annoying not to get answers to the question of what is the red mist? And what are those creatures?

The first half of the book was a solid 4 stars but the second half was 2 to 3 stars. The ending felt like we were still in the middle of the book with very little progress. The author really wanted to stretch this one out to fit several books and I kind of lost interest in the mystery at the end.

[Ulises · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know what's one way to really dampen the mood of a post-apocalyptic story that actually has some REALLY good scenes and some REALLY good scares, including a stairwell-turns-dark scene that had me leaning forward in my seat on the subway as I read it?

Have the character actually exclaim things like "Ouch!" and act like a wisecracking valley girl just two days into a post-apocalyptic event that wipes out the planet.

I don't know. Like I said, this book had some REALLY good scenes and scares, and it was a three-star book up until the parts where the main character, a young reporter named Emily Baxter, just carries on a little too casually for the apparently last person alive in NYC. I mean, c'mon, she's just seen people bleed out and die horrific deaths, and she thinks it's a great time to take a hot bath and eat ice cream like she's on a spa vacation? Her reflections as she's exploring her surroundings are more like those of a preteen on Twitter than a seasoned reporter who just happens to have stumbled onto the greatest story of her life. She takes forever and a day to act on a situation that clearly requires some immediate action, and is a klutz to boot.

I guess she's just supposed to be an everywoman. She's remarkably unspectacular, she's not the brightest, and she's just an average woman who rides a bike to work and can't drive a car. Okay, I get it. But for some reason, this everywoman approach just didn't seem to work here. The novel seems to be trying to craft her into someone smarter than the average reporter, someone who just happens to know how to fire a 12-gauge shotgun, and someone whose good sense and miraculous DNA sequencing have made her somehow immune to the red rain. But there is just so little that's remarkable about her, and it seems hardly plausible that she could survive the apocalypse just by wiping down her bike or staying in her apartment.

Moreover, the writing was a bit wordy at times and definitely hung on an adverb or two along the way, and my feeling is that the book could have used another round of editing before being ready for prime time. Also, the book is clearly written as the first part of a series, and so leaves a LOT of questions unresolved. I guess this is the author's way of making you buy book two, but I'm not feeling it. I think this story could have been told in one book, or at least made book one much more self-contained so that it didn't have so many loose ends that essentially make this a plot-less read.

And, finally, the ending. Okay, you know the drill.

Spoiler alert.

Don't read on if you don't want to be spoiled.

I'm serious! Spoiling is imminent!

Okay, here it is...last chance!

Seriously, what's up with the magical dog that just happens to show up in the nick of time to save Baxter's derriere? I mean, C'MON MAN! How insane was THAT convenient plot-friendly insertion that had no bearing on anything and no indication that it could even be possible? What, is the answer to how this dog just happened to be there at the right time (and who just happens to understand everything Baxter says to it) in book two? And, seriously, he's named THOR??!! Argh!!!!

Yeah, sorry, the book lost a star by the end. Solid intro, solid middle, crappy ending.

[Steven Konkoly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Jones has started a refreshingly unique Post-Apocalyptic series, unlike anything I have read in the genre. Set in the present day, Extinction Point starts out with news of an advancing world-wide phenomena... an intense red colored rain that falls mysteriously at 12:30 PM local time and abruptly stops a few minutes later. Emily Baxter, reporter for a Manhattan based newspaper, finds herself indoors when the thick crimson rain strikes the concrete jungle around her. Careful to avoid contact with the thick red fluid, she reports to work, expecting to find a flurry of activity. She finds the rest of her colleagues speechlessly glued to the news floor's television monitors. Reports from western Europe are sketchy at best...Eastern Europe has stopped transmitting video altogether. As New York City descends into panic, Emily returns to the safety of her apartment, never to emerge into the same world again.

Extinction Point brilliantly increased the tension with each successive chapter, as the menace of Earth's apparent demise slowly unravels around her. Nothing is what it initially seems, as Emily ventures into her new world. She is the apparent sole survivor of an extinction level event, but her loneliness is replaced by horror, as she starts to make inexplicable and disturbing discoveries.

The author has a talent for description, immersing the reader in the solace of an empty city. His true talents for description shine, as more of the "red rain's" true purpose is revealed. Paul Jones' ability to bring complex concepts to life through description and narrative is awe inspiring. Few authors could successfully create the world that emerges after the "red rain." Even fewer could relate the experience to readers in such vivid detail.

I thoroughly enjoyed Emily's transition into survivor mode. Shuttered in her apartment, she reluctantly comes to terms with the fact that she has to leave the city. The author chose to make this difficult for her...as a true New Yorker, she never learned how to drive. She is bicycle bound, which adds a whole new dimension to her survival story. Readers will enjoy watching her prepare for the trek out of the city, and may even argue with her as she shops empty stores and adds gear to the limited list she can carry.

The story is punctuated by realistic periods of slowdown and reflection, as the main character contemplates the strange phenomena outside of her apartment, but the author keeps the tension level high. The "new world" continuously changes around her, unveiling the alien-intelligent design of the world's metamorphosis. I couldn't wait for her to turn another corner.

I eagerly await the next installment in this series, which will clearly plunge Emily into an increasingly unfamiliar world, as she treks north.

[David P Forsyth · Rating 5 out of 5]

While building on a popular apocalyptic theme, there is more than enough original plot and imagination to set this book apart from the crowd. Think The Day of the Triffids meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets I am Legend and you still won't have grasped the full scope of the apocalypse in Paul Jones' artfully crafted tale of extinction and survival. Five stars for this up and coming author. I can't wait for the sequel.

If I were to offer any criticism of this book, besides being too short (LOL), it is that Emily Baxter, being a newspaper reporter, should be taking pictures on her cell phone, or at least writing in a notebook or using a tape recorder, as she witnesses the apocalypse. I think a reporter would want to chronicle the amazing and horrific events, even if she wasn't sure there would be anyone left to read/see/hear them. Her journalistic descriptions might have fleshed out even more of her well developed character traits and clarified her impressions of the apocalypse. Journal entries would also be a way to break up the descriptive narrative in a novel that does not have a lot of dialogue between characters. Just a thought.

Nevertheless, this was a first-class read and I have high expectations for the sequel. I'll also be adding Towards Yesterday to my reading list! Bravo, Mr. Jones. Keep up the great work.

[Stephen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on this 2/3 through. Cool concept: alien rain falls on planet, mutating earth life into new lifeforms. But poor execution. As others have noted, the writing style is very "simplistic." High school paper direct (she did this and then that and then that) versus complex sentences, atmosphere and emotion. The real killer though is the lead character Emily. The author attempts to portray Emily as independent and capable. Her actions however reveal her to be quite possibly the dumbest survivalist ever written. As the world dies around her, she never thinks to stock up on food, water, flashlights, anything. She sees strange and alarming alien transformations. When she then ventures out into the potentially dangerous city, she chooses to arm herself with...a kitchen knife. And the coup de gras where I stopped reading: After finding via cell phone other survivors in Alaska, Emily lays plans to join them...by riding a bicycle...from NYC...3000 miles...solely because she doesn't know how to drive! For a much much better plucky last girl on Earth story read David Palmer's 1984 novel Emergence. Skip this one.

[T.W. Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This brings a fun and new twist to the Apocalypse genre. I honestly did not have any idea what to expect, but this book pulled me in from the start. Obviously no spoilers, but this twisted little story introduces you to a strong, smart female protagonist in Emily Baxter.

Now, I will say that this first book is set up, and it leaves A LOT of open questions. There were scenes where I really wanted to know what the heck was going on with the various "things" that formed after the red rain. I will be continuing this adventure very soon.

***Note for the audio version, the narrator was fantastic and helped to convey Emily's personality very well. She even managed to handle the rough job of capturing a "screaming cry" without blowing out my ears.***

[Loopy · Rating 1 out of 5]

25% and I was still skimming, waiting for something other than her every move and inner thought to be described in excruciating detail, nope, time to move on.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this book one of a series rather pedestrian in execution. The Idea is interesting - a red rain which instantly kills birds and after a delay, people, only to revive and repurpose them with devastating effect. Unlike many similar tales, it's not a standard zombie apocalypse. However the protagonist, a female New York reporter, is a really irritating character who makes so many silly mistakes it becomes impossible to believe she would survive. Even her choices of clothing to take when she finally decides to leave the devastated city aren't sensible. She has the option to take fleeces and other modern walking kit from the camping shop she raids but keeps the woolly jumpers from home, items that, far from wicking away moisture as the narrative states, would become saturated. She takes tinned food and bottled water rather than the dried food and water purification means the shop offers. And despite being armed with a shotgun her reaction when faced with a nasty creature in New York is to shut her eyes and wait for it to kill her.

The style is clunky because every little action tends to be spelled out: for example, we aren't just told that the character removes an object from her backpack, but every little stage of unzipping a particular pocket etc.

The story is also dragged out, taking the whole of the first volume to escape the city. Luckily I didn't have to pay and also obtained volume two or might have found that more annoying. But I can't rate it as more than an "OK" 2 stars.

[Anissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up on my Kindle a bit ago & decided to give it a go. For some reason I was thinking it was post-apocalyptic zombies but alas it was better. It was alien invasion! It's been a while since I've read a good alien story so I was thrilled as the story unfolded. We follow Emily, who is seemingly the lone human survivor in NYC after a strange weather phenomena & it's through her eyes that we experience everything that comes with that. One would think that being the last human would be the worst thing to contemplate but then you realize it's not when the metamorphoses begin. And when that seems like the worst, it's not, the things that result from the metamorphoses start running around. All I can say is, it was icky, creepy & I loved every minute. I want to complain about her not checking Twitter & FB more quickly or thinking to get the hell out of the city faster but then there'd be no story & things wouldn't have been able to unfold as they had to. Also, I completely bought the emotional toll this whole thing took on Emily & her desire to hold on just a little longer to her familiar surroundings.

I've pre-ordered the next book because I need to know how Em & Thor will make out. Maybe there'll be others to meet along the way of this trip to Alaska. Also, I am looking forward to Jacob & the rest of the people at the base camp possibly having new information to impart. In the whole book, I think there were only three typos, so no complaints on the usual indie "strikes against" list. Well done!

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extinction point is interesting. It's a pretty big chore to get me to read a book with very little dialog. I probably could've given this one four big whopping stars if not for one small detail...

SHE'S PLANNING TO RIDE A BIKE FROM NEW YORK TO ALASKA!!!! #stupid.

Seriously, her motive for choosing to ride a bike is that she never learned to drive a car. You know what type of person can't drive a car? Little people who can't reach the pedals and people without feet, who can't reach the pedals.

It seriously ruined the book for me, you know how long it takes to figure out how to drive a car? 5 minutes. If a 15 year old kid can learn, I think a 30 year old woman would pick it up ok. Deserted highways and zero traffic...Make it work. Seriously, she's going to scavenge and carry a day or two worth of food on her bicycle... Uggh, can't take it, DRIVE A FREAKING CAR! Pile all the cans of food and crap you want into that baby. What are you going to do? Travel a hundred miles a day 6-8 hours worth of pedaling a day, uphill sometimes, weighted down but tons of food and water.

Oh wait, now she has a dog, now you're going to have to go even slower. Enjoy the 40 years its going to take you to travel 3000+ (or however many miles it is) through mountains and frigid weather on your bicycle. Unless she gets a car in book 2, I won't be reading it. Because as interesting as the premise is I just can't get past the absurdity of the bike.

[Karen Silvestri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly don’t pay much attention to the bestseller’s list anymore. I get my reading material free from Amazon. Yes, it is risky. Not all of the novels are worth reading and many are not edited properly (see previous post on the New Novel), but now and then you find a gem!
I just finished reading Extinction Point by Paul Jones and couldn’t put it down. (see below for synopsis) There were two or three minor typos, but the story was so engaging that it really didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the story. It is the first in a series. I’m not exactly a fan of novels that just end and you have to wait months for the sequel (example Justin Cronin’s Passages…still waiting, Justin!). Jones promises the sequel in August though, so I will definitely read it when it comes out.
The reviews at Amazon are almost all favorable ones albeit the general consensus on the use of a bike rather than a car and the minute detail used as the main character prepares for her journey (read the book and you’ll know what I mean!). The plot and the conflicts are engaging and the main character is interesting and well formed.
The book is no longer on the free list, but it is priced at $2.99, so it is well worth your while if you enjoy the sci-fi and/or post apocalyptic novels.

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Extinction Point' by Paul Antony Jones is the first book in a series, and it's a pretty good one. I tell you that so you understand that the story does not really stand alone in this volume.

Reporter Emily Baxter is a reporter living in New York. Really early on in the book (so you don't think this is a spoiler), a weird weather phenomenom occurs which bathes the earth in red rain. Emily finds herself unaffected as everyone around her succumbs to the effects of the rain. Emily watches the world around her change rapidly. What begins to happen next proves to Emily that the world no longer belongs to humans. Is she truly alone and what will she do to survive?

It moved along rather quickly and I liked the main character well enough. The book ends with her still on her journey, so I'll definitely read the later books in the series.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Amazon Publishing, 47 North, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.