An awful book with a ridiculous plot. This left me vowing never to read anything by John Birmingham again.

Anther great What if? written by John Birmingham. Looking forward to reading the next one.

Made up of too many parallel and completely self-contained strands, repeating the same reactions to the events over and over. Cut down to one or perhaps two of the threads, it might have been the beginning of a decent story.

1 star - binned it before half way, please don't write anymore!!!
2 stars - finally binned it after really trying, I mean really trying and I hate to not finishing someth....
3 stars - finished it but boy was that hard work on times, it just about hooked me back in as I was about to dump it
4 stars - great book but it lacked something, something, can't put my finger on it but.... something
5 stars - want more, more books, more movies about the books, more movies about the authors and the making of the movie, just more!!!

Repetitive descriptions, especially when he describes the smell of a place (which he seems to love to do.) If it's a place with more than 2-3 people, he ALWAYS uses "farts", or more often, "stale farts". His repetitive description feel like the latter, literarily speaking.

He also does this when people get shot up, using the word "meat" far too often, in ways that just feel the SAME.

Interesting idea: an "energy field" appears over most of the continental US (except Seattle) and eliminates all inhabitants. The disappearance of the super power creates war and anarchy all over the world.

Not a great book, not a good ending, ends up being too action focused. But still a fun exercise to think this through.

Not a bad book. I felt like the author couldn't decide if it was a political thriller, sci if, or an action adventure story. I bored very quickly of the politics and geopolitical history but loved the action scenes. I'll probably read book 2.

Strong concept, mostly good characterisation but it seemed to drag on a little.

The storytelling style reminded me of Red Storm Rising with the story pivoting between a number of unrelated threads and the pace picking up as the story progressed. In fact it was a bit of a cross between Red Storm Rising, The Stand and The Dome.

I didn't so much read this as listen to the audiobook and the ironic part of listening to him was that, even though the book was written by an Aussie, the narrator did an abysmal job of an Aussie accent when reading the token Aussie character. It was laughably bad. However he was strong across the many other characters and in the end it didn't detract from the story.

I like where the author is going with this, and I like that I can't guess ahead. I'd give it 7/10 if GoodReads permitted (or three and a half stars) but would have given it more if only the pacing had been a little sharper.

Creo que sólo un Australiano podría haber escrito esta novela.
Y creo que también, que se nota mucho el narrador masculino.

Mi única gran crítica son los personajes femeninos en esta novela: o son la femme fatale fantasía de todo hombre (a lo Lara Croft), o son la pobre damisela en problemas. No hay punto medio.

Aunque pareciera que está todo bien logrado, y no quedan TANTOS cabos sueltos, creo que vale la pena leer el libro, más que nada porque todos alguna vez nos podríamos preguntar "qué sería del mundo sin Estados Unidos"
Y, una vez más, sólo un Aussie podría responderlo.