FINALLY! I’ve been waiting for this book to come out for a long time. So far the Day by Day series has been my favorite Zombie/ Post Apocalyptic series. Shattered Hourglass is the third and final(?) in the series. Possibly the best as well. I realized that starting my review of the series with the third might be a bit odd so I’ll include overall impressions of the series with the major focus on Shattered Hourglass. In any case if you haven’t read any of them you can go grab them all right now and not have to wait YEARS like I had to. I basically walked around work last night like a zombie reading the book from my Kindle app trying to finish in time to review for today. I needed something positive after my ranting and cussing from yesterdays. So lets dive into the world of Day by Day Armageddon by author J.L. Bourne.
About the Author
J.L. Bourne is an active duty military officer and currently resides in the Washington D.C. area. He has completed numerous tours of duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, logging more than sixty combat missions over Iraq, earning three Air Medal Strike/Flight awards. Despite the ongoing war efforts, he somehow finds the time to put pen to paper in order to bring to you the fall of humanity in the Day by Day Armageddon universe.
I found out about J.L and the DBDA series from the Zombiesquad forums. J.L has been a member since 2004. So when I saw some other member’s mention he had written a Zombie novel I looked it up. The talk on the forums and the reviews on the internet were amazing. With reviews like that I had to get it.
The Premise
The Book follows Naval officer “Kilroy” as he tried to survive in a world where the undead are taking over. The first two books were told from the perspective of Kilroys journal he decided to start before the outbreak began. I really enjoyed the diary like story form. It gave a real personal feel to the story. The first book shows Kilroy see that trouble was coming and took some prepper measures for his planned bug in. This part is filled with great basic prepper info without beating you over the head nor sounding like a survival manual. Kilroy makes friends with a neighbor and eventually have to flee. Kilroy and his neighbor John keep on the run for a while holding out where they can and picking up more survivors as they go. Until they eventually, literally stumble onto an abandoned missile silo. The book series is filled with this running and hiding theme. Which gives good examples of both bugging in and bugging out.
Shattered Hourglass
The last book mostly centers around Kilroy and his companion from the second book Sayien on a submarine heading to china to investigate the origins of the anomaly. With the third book brings a new format, no longer is the book told in Journal style. It also jumps around to focus on several characters as the events unfold. While I was at first disappointed I quickly realized that the scope of this book would not work well with the journal entry format. Too many characters with stories going on at the same time for Kilroy to report. There were a few journal entries that were nice to have in there.
The Good
This book and it’s prequels are packed with greatness. This volume was no exception. Bourne knows how to write a realistic and exciting fight scenes. He really knows his weapons and characteristics. No bodies flew through the air when shot. He gave good descriptions of weapons. Even using the very well known name of La Rue on some of the high end weapons. The characters all had very unique personalities. You were never confused as who was talking. I highly enjoyed his characters spoke like real humans and like they should. The special forces operators in this book used adult language and were constantly ribbing each other. In fact there was plenty of humor in this book. I laughed out loud several times in the book. I like that Bourne doesn’t kill everyone off like some zombie fiction. I can’t stand reading a book and being filled with hopelessness. The Road was so depressions I stopped reading it half way through. This probably has one of the better explanations for how the dead rise.
The Bad?
Not much with this book is bad. I thought some parts of the book, the trip to Hawaii, were not needed. There were a few I felt needed to be fleshed out more. Parts that got glossed over and I wanted more detail to how they happened. Probably just because I wanted this book to keep going. When I was getting towards the end though I saw how few pages were left and I thought there would be no way to wrap things up. I was thinking it would require another book. I wish it had taken one more volume to finish up the end was on the anticlimactic side. The end seemed too rushed for me and should have been drawn out. Things were tidied up and the ending was satisfying. In the end I may have just been sad to see the series end and no ending would have satisfied me.
Conclusion
Not only is this the best in it’s genre it’s one of the best book series I’ve read. I highly enjoyed seeing the characters develop and grow. The books focus on the impact of the zombies on a few survivors as they struggle to make it in this new world where the dead walk. I can’t recommend these books highly enough. They are not survival manuals but great books about surviving. Check them out if your looking for a good read to cure your cabin fever.
Have you read the DBDA series? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!
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