Customer Reviews

The Afterblight Chronicles: School's Out

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While the first installments (from Si Spurrier and Rebecca Levene) in the Afterblight Chronicles are more epic in nature, Scott Andrews' book - School's Out - is much more personal. Instead of exploring how the virus has wiped out 98% of the world, he looks at the repercussions from the point of view of Lee Keegan, a survivor & a schoolboy.

I've got a soft-spot for Toy Soldiers-style storylines, and this is no exception. I think every adolescent and teen has escapist fantasies on 'what would they do if it all fell apart?' (save the cheerleaders, punch out the bullies). School's Out reads like one of those. But as far as escapism goes, I should hope that most kids don't have an imagination this wild or morbid. Lee's world is an awful one: cannibals, cultists, and psychopaths of all ages abound. Even our hero isn't all 'there', and has to resort to some fairly grim behaviour in order to survive.

This is a terrific installment in the Afterblight series. It doesn't further the 'metaplot' any, but it does show how the changes in this horrible, post-apocalyptic world impact everyone - no matter how small. I highly recommend it. Scott Andrews has done an excellent job thinking through his plot, adding fantastic twists and telling the whole story through the eyes of an enjoyable and (oddly) empathetic protagonist. It may be gory teen escapism, but that doesn't make it any less fun...

I really enjoyed this book a whole hell of alot.It's the best of the series that I've read so far.Theses books are a quick entertaining read for me.I like how the author faced up to human reality before writing it.Because the reality is;it's the end of the world as we know it-well the you can just forget all that one for all and all for one balony-it's we've got ours and there's none for you!The protaganist in this story was awesome. The author captured that age perfectly.A great book,to be highly reccomended!

In a post-apocalyptic world what's a kid to do? This UK based tale offers a frightening glimpse of the world after the fall. This poor kid has to deal with all kinds of crap and grows up really fast. The story was relatively fast paced and filled with demented twists. The twisted religion that rises in the aftermath was a truly terrifying treat.

Boah, what a cruel book. After THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and LORD OF THE FLIES I thought nothing in the "kids vs. kids" department could put me off. Along comes SCHOOL'S OUT and damn, that's pretty tough fiction...

AFTER the Cull virus has decimated earth's population, Lee is left all alone whilst his fater is fighting in the Iraq war. His dad is about to return, so Lee should just try to stay alive in the meantime. How and where? Well, at his school at best... maybe there's a military there, maybe some teachers. Most probably some hateful bullies from the old days, like Mac. A cruel, stonecold text-book bully. Who fortunatly likes our protagonist who on the other hand has only one plan in mind: kick this guy off the throne. After all, this guy is cruzifying the older ones, torturing and raping the school matron and getting mentally worse and worse. Lee has never killed, but that's only a matter of time. The killing, the traiting, the dying, the cruelty, all seems to be eating Lee up (as well as it did me). Then some uncompromisingly brutal neighbours from the near town and a totally crazy blood cult lead by a total madman also come in play. And man, how the blood will flow, the children skulls will be hacked open with machetes, versus each other as well as adults. Some pictures I won't forget I fear...

This book hurts on several levels. Also does it contain high speed action and tension alike. In a way, the tone is pretty Tarantino-like in that there's some painful jokes in here, or some humerous pain, however you look at it. In an interview, Mister Scott says he believes his book is more of a anti-violence book. I'm sorry, but that's (to me) is pure nonsense. I understand that if you create a work of anti-violence, you tend to put a lot of violence, or off-putting violence into it. As with this case, the sometimes tarantinoesque vibe of his writing surely indicates rather some guilty pleasure - zero social critique or whatever. It's a guilty pleasure. And a good one at that. But I gotta admit, he goes pretty deep in the psychological analysis of the protagonist - how he refuses to kill and all, and the effects of watching and committing violence, mentally and physically (enjoy yer meal...)

This book is different from the first two books in the series, but I thought it was good in a different way! All of the books in this series are written from the perspective of people who survived a plague that wiped out most of humanity. This book takes place in England and follows a group of children who survived the plague. They live at their old boarding school. One of my favorite of the series so far.

The story kinda went off the original story line of the 1st books?! I like how different people are writing the storys...........but stick with the story line and write more abourt whats happening with the rest of the world!