Blog Tour: The End & The Long Road - Review & Giveaway (US/Can)

The End (#1 New World Series) - G Michael Hopf
ISBN - 9780142181492
Publisher - Plume
Release date - January 7th 2014
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What would you do to survive?

Young Gordon Van Zandt valued duty and loyalty to country above all, so after 9/11, he dropped out of college and joined the Marine Corps. This idealism vanished one fateful day in a war-torn city in Iraq. Ten years later, he is still struggling with the ghosts of his past when a new reality is thrust upon him and his family: North America, Europe and the Far East have all suffered a devastating Super-EMP attack, which causes catastrophic damage to the nation’s power grid and essential infrastructures. Everything from cell phones to cars to computers cease to function, putting society at a standstill.
With civilization in chaos, Gordon must fight for the limited and fast dwindling resources. He knows survival requires action and cooperation with his neighbors, but as the days wear on, so does all sense of civility within his community—and so he must make some of the most difficult decisions of his life in order to ensure his family’s safety. 
 

The Long Road (New World Series #2) - G Michael Hopf
ISBN - 9780142181508
Publisher - Plume
Release date - January 7th 2014
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The End was just the beginning of the new world….

Only six weeks have passed since a super-EMP attack devastated the United States, but already, life has changed dramatically. Most of America has become  a wasteland filled with starving bands of people, mobs and gangs. Millions are dead and millions more are suffering, with no end in sight.
For Gordon, Samantha, Sebastian, Cruz and Barone, the turmoil and chaos they dealt with in the early weeks after the attack will seem trivial in comparison to the collapse of society that plays out before their eyes. Uncertainty abounds as they all travel different paths in search of a safe place to call home. The only thing that is definite is that The Long Road will take its toll on all of them.

Think The Walking Dead but without zombies or Revolution and you have the basic premise of The End and The Long Road, apocalyptic thrillers written by G Michael Hopf. I secretly love reading this sort of book and I was intrigued about Hopf's books after rather liking said shows but I have to admit now a lot of both books went over my head. The main character, Gordon, is an ex-Marine, his brother Sebastian is a serving Marine and a lot of the action takes place on military bases/ships etc. using terminology that I had no idea about. The first book, The End, is about what happens initially after the US and a lot of other countries are hit by Super EMP (electromagneticpulse) attacks. We're introduced to lots of characters in lots of different locations and how they are all personally affected by what's happened, it gets confusing at times especially with all the politicking thrown in but there are your normal selection of heroes & villains with Gordon straddling the line (there are times when it feels like he's shooting people for the sake of it rather than actually needing to), think of him as anti-hero maybe. Yes, he's trying to protect his family but there were times when he went about it the wrong way. The first half of The End for me was hard to read and I did come close to putting the book down, there were quite a few things I didn't like such as the constant need to describe everybody's physical looks from build to hair to eye color and a lot of 'he said, she said' but the second half picked up the pace and I raced through it. The End was a fairly realistic look at what might happen, I don't know much about these things but I understand there's a huge movement about prepping for the end of the world which makes the books all the more scary. 

The Long Road picks up where The End finished thankfully as it The End finishes on a nice cliffhanger! Gordon, his family and friends are adapting to what's happened as are the assorted characters from the first book. Sebastian is in this book a lot more, we get to see more behind the Villistas gang, learn a lot more about the new President/Vice-President and get to see their plans for the future of the US. I'm not sure if it was just me but The Long Road seemed a lot more brutal. There is still a lot of shooting/stabbing in the name of protection but the deaths in this one hit a lot closer to home and another character from the first book, Barone, seems to have become sort of megalomaniac which is not how I saw his character developing at all! I enjoyed the second book much more, it seemed like Hopf was more comfortable in his writing and the things that irritated me in book one were less obvious in book two. The only thing I'm still not happy with is that despite dropping numerous hints and a lot of misdirection we still don't know who dropped the bombs on most of the civilized world or why it happened, book three is coming in April so maybe we'll get an answer then. If you want to read books that will make you think about would really happen should 'Revolution' become reality then definitely pick up The End and The Long Road.

About the author 

G. Michael Hopf is the best-selling author of ‘The End – A Post Apocalyptic Novel’ and its sequel, ‘The Long Road’. He spent two decades living a life of adventure before he settled down and became a novelist full time. He is a former U.S. Marine combat veteran and bodyguard. He lives with his family in San Diego, CA.

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Thanks to TLC for providing me with copies of both books for reviewing! Please follow the blog tour and see what other people think, find the schedule here.

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