It All Began With The Sound Of Thunder.A Thunder That Came In The Night.A Thunder That Changed The World.In a post-apocalyptic future, the only thing left is the Storm. It destroyed humanity, leaving a handful of survivors to cling to life in the last habitable place on Earth: the Eye of the Storm. Within the Eye, tribes of humans scrounge for scraps and fight for temporary land.Aiden is a member … for scraps and fight for temporary land.
Aiden is a member of the Pathfinder tribe–the tribe which has discovered the Eye may not be habitable for much longer. When Aiden finds a mysterious young woman in the wreckage of an impossibly-flown plane, he realizes she doesn’t speak any known language, but her message is clear: there is a safe place out there, somewhere.
To find it, Aiden will need to go into the Storm. The expedition will need the help of the Stormwalkers, a strange group of nomads who may not be quite what they seem. But while Aiden and his crew venture into the wasteland, war is brewing within the Eye.
Even children are taught never to leave the Eye of the Storm. For it’s not just the Storm itself they need to be afraid of. It’s the things waiting inside the Storm…
Eye of the Storm is the first book in the Storm Cycle, an instant sci-fi post-apocalyptic hit that redefines the genre and sets you on an emotional roller-coaster with one ultimate goal: survival.
Don’t miss this dystopian action-adventure that readers call “compelling”, “inventive”, “fast-paced” and “awesome”.
★★★★★ – “Dune meets Mad Max…”
★★★★★” – This story held me captive. Eerily descriptive of a world that could easily be a post apocalyptic reality… an emotional roller coaster.”
★★★★★” – If you are a fan of Mad Max … I would highly recommend this book”
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Read for 2021 SPSFC.
3.5 stars for this one.
Overall Thoughts
No one is safe in this dystopian sci-fi! A quick note that if you’re sensitive to character death, this may not be the book for you, however the story does take you along with it, like the winds of a storm. I had a little trouble getting into it because of some editing and prose issues, but I was intrigued by looks into the character backstories. King has a way of bringing villains and antagonists into a sympathetic light, showing everyone to be in the gray, rather than in black and white. However, I have to say the goodwill that generated was not quite enough in the end to keep my interest up around overwritten description and a lack of empathy for all the character deaths that happened. I think a good editing pass on this to remove some of the extraneous material and really shine up the story would go a long way.
Plot
Digging into this more, the plot was good, if a little short. I think this book might be one of those rare ones that would actually benefit by being a bit longer, taking the time to set up some of the larger arcs and taking the characters a little further here before the second book. Especially near the end, several battles felt rushed, and so the resolution with the characters was not quite as rewarding as I hoped. It was left a little unclear who exactly was alive, as well. The book is written in a close omniscient, so headhopping allows us to see from many perspectives, but also makes some of the blocking confusing during action scenes.
Setting
This is where Eye of the Storm really shines. I’m not much for dystopian stories in general, but there was something about the way this is brought to life, with a small number of people living in the constantly-moving eye of a superstorm, that piqued my interest. A nomadic people constantly struggling for survival, but also continually unearthing new relics, stores, and monsters as the storm moves, makes the world an interesting and large place to explore. Early in the plot, it’s stated that the eye will move over the ocean soon, which I thought was an awesome consequence for a world storm, and made me wonder how the characters would respond and adapt.
Character
There’s both some pretty strong pros and cons to this section. The characters were what made me keep reading over some of the technical prose problems in the beginning, but the character arcs are also a bit uneven toward the end. There are several romance threads in the story, but while some were surprising and inevitable, the one including the main character never really felt deserved to me. While there were a couple moving send-offs for characters who died, a lot of the time, most losses were more in the vein of “oh no, well, let’s keep moving.”
Score out of 10 (My personal score, not the final contest score)
Temporary score until more books in the contest are read: There’s a good concept with this story, but it’s weighed down by the prose and lack of editing. I would have liked a little more to the plot and more consistent character reactions. 4/10.
This is an excellent story! I really enjoyed it! Like the plot, characters & ideas! I will look for more by this writer & do recommend!