ENDWORLD: DOOMSDAY

Once again I am going to put my feet up and hand over the controls to a guest reviewer.

This time it's Steve M. Of the Western Fiction Review site.

And a gem of a SF adventure.

ENDWORLD: DOOMSDAY by David Robbins – Leisure, April 2009

At a remote site in Minnesota, filmmaker Kurt Carpenter has built a secure compound and invited a select group of people to bunker down until the worst is over. The world into which they re-emerge is like nothing they’ve ever seen. At first they think they’re the only ones left. But they soon find out how wrong they are. In the wasteland of what used to be America, their battle to survive is only just beginning…

At last, something the fans have been clamouring for, another book in the postapocalyptic series Endworld, which saw its last book appear some seventeen years ago. Ever since fans have been demanding more, and now they’ve got their wish, so does the book fulfil their dreams?

This new Endworld book does not continue where the series left off all those years ago – a series that was so successful that it spawned a spin-off series Blade – but goes back in time to that fateful day when world war three erupted and so brought about the end of the world as known.

David Robbins cleverly intersperses the first part of the book with news reports that don’t just tell of the destruction of parts of America but also places around the world, thus showing how fast this global terror escalates and allows him to illustrate the growing fear in his characters and make the reader realise how close to the terrifying truth this could be – particularly when you look at what is happening around the world today it could prove to be horrifically prophetic.

And what of the lead characters? Kurt Carpenter really comes across well as a man able to put on a calm front whilst beneath he’s full of fear and doubt that he’s done enough to ensure the survival of those he’s trying to protect.

Carpenter is the only character who readers of the previous Endworld books will recognise as the series is set one hundred years after this book, and just as those books were filled with memorable characters so is this, who will ever be able to forget the man who becomes known as Thor?

And it’s not just strong male characters that David Robbins includes, there’s the ladies too, women such as Diana Trevor and Space. All fascinating characters who once met you will want to know more about.

As I’ve said the first part of the book deals with the nuclear holocaust, swiftly moving from one set of characters to another as they all race desperately against time to reach the safety of what will become known as The Home. And it’s once here that past readers of the Endworld series will find more detailed explanations to how The Home and life there developed.

The final section of the book deals with the first run of the newly formed warriors – the handpicked people who defend the home from outside threats – as they attempt to find the lost SEAL, a vehicle that is very important to the future of the survivors and as well as providing a gripping climax to the story proves to be the part most reminiscent of the past books.

Overall Doomsday is an exciting and thought provoking read that should satisfy Endworld fans of old and for those new to the series will certainly have them eager for more.

This book will be released in April 2009 and hopefully there will be more to come. Leisure will also be republishing the old Endworld series with the first book – The Fox Run - appearing in July 2009.