Customer Reviews

The New Madrid Run

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The New Madrid Run

The post-apocalypse genre of novels has always been one of my guilty pleasures. (My wife kids me that it's a "sure sign of a sick mind.") While this novel doesn't rank with "Lucifer's Hammer," "The Stand," "Alas, Babylon," or "Warday," I enjoyed it nevertheless.

I noted in some previous reviews that some readers found cause to savage Mr. Reisig's writing abilities. To a degree, I concur with some of them. (Although certainly not to the extent that I'd agree with one reviewer that his writing is "amateurish.") The sentence structure is awkward at times, the dialog doesn't always flow so well, and character development is a little sketchy.

However, those limitations notwithstanding, the story line of this novel has loads of punch, and Mr. Reisig's spare, direct, journalist's style fairly careens the reader through the plot. The author seems much less infatuated with the thesaurus than most new novelists, and that's refreshing in itself.

All in all, I found "The New Madrid Run" pretty doggone engrossing, and for readers who enjoy this genre, that's recommendation enough. HJ

This book held my attention from the very beginning of the story. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for what would happen next. I put myself in the book as I was reading and found that the possibility of the diaster that happened was very probable. Realizing this made the book much more real. What would we do if this happened and how would we prepare ourself for the event that all that we knew was gone. The book made me do a lot of thinking about what could happen. I could not put this book down until it was finished, then wanted more. Highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a great story.

While some reviewers tend to focus on the negative aspects of a book, I would prefer to look at a work's positive points. Michael Reisig's first major novel, The New Madrid Run, published by an independent press in Arkansas, is an interesting experiment not only in post-apocalyptic literature but in publishing itself.

The premise of the novel is a little far-fetched: a violent shift in the Earth's magnetic poles causes massive earthquakes and tidal waves, and the main character, a pilot and sailor in the Florida Keys, makes for some property he bought a long time ago in Arkansas for this express purpose. On the way, he picks up some characters, meets some other characters, and eventually heads to a showdown with the main bad guy, a kind of survivalist general who has commandeered much of the local National Guard supplies.

So the story isn't original (even if the disaster premise is), it ends too quickly, the characters don't show much real development, and the villain is a cutout stereotype. So what? Reisig breaks post-apocalyptic convention on two important counts: first, New Madrid Run, like The Postman (from which it obviously draws inspiration), does not revel in the downfall of civilization. It isn't some big free-for-all, where extreme libertarians don't have to pay taxes to the Evil Gub'ment ™ no more, and might makes right (although the bad guys are dispersed by guns). Second, like The Postman, the survivalists are the bad guys. In an overmined genre, it's refreshing to see at least a semi-sane take on the realities of a post-disaster America.

All in all, Reisig has created an interesting read. The prose, while not Nabokov, flows nicely, and there are only a few times where the reader thinks that an experienced editor might have helped the novel. For that is the other means by which Reisig defied convention; going through a small, on-demand press, he circumvented normal publishing routes and created a book and successfully marketed it both on the Internet and in his area. No mean feat, that, and it beats having to pay an agent to sell your manuscript (although another editing eye is always helpful). Certainly not a method for every writer, but one that is to be admired. The product of these endeavors, while entirely satisfying, belongs on any post-apocalyptic aficionado's shelf, if only for the premise alone. For those who enjoy a decent action romp, there are worse ways to spend your time.

When the poles of the earth suddenly shift, Vietnam vet turned pilot Travis Christian finds his whole world turned upside down. With the destruction of the Florida Keys and the death of his girlfriend he struggles to make sense of the new world order with the assistance of a rather cliche group of friends.

I found I enjoyed the beginning of this story, but soon I found myself groaning inwardly with the eyeball-rollingly bad cliche characters. From the Sensei (a Japanese swordwielding martial-arts expert), to the beautiful woman he rescues and whose husband conveniently dies. Of course the woman never really loved her husband (bonus cliche points), the drunk preacher, oh and shall I mention the crazed blood-thirsty Hillbillies? Ooookay.

This novel read like a videogame. I admit I was disappointed. It started out great but rapidly devolved into extremly silly cornball action devoid of any realism.

2 stars.

I was terribly dissapointed with this book. Although the scenario Reisig creates is intriguing , I found his writing style to be among the worst I have read in a long time. Flat, obvious, and poorly constructed all around-I WANT MY MONEY BACK. Mr Reisig, please read some of the competition; Gibson, Stephenson, Williams, wood...try and measure up!

This book is great fun to read, hard to put down, and comes to a predictable but satisfying end. Those with a background in science or aviation will be a little annoyed by inaccuracies in the beginning, but fans of fiction will enjoy it overall. For a five-star, end of the world novel however, "Lucifer's Hammer" has no equal.

There have probably been worse books I've started but this is one of the worst books I've ever read cover to cover (and I tend to read a couple of books a week). This is the only work of fiction I've reviewed here because what a person enjoys in fiction is a personal and subjective judgement. If you don't like horror, no matter how good a job Steven King does you are probably not going to enjoy it; but as I do enjoy this genre, I felt I could review it relative to other apocalyptic novels. I recently decided to read/reread a bunch of these novels in a row: Fail-safe, earth abides, alas babylon, the last ship, a canticle for leibowitz, the stand and the new madrid run. This is by far the worst of the bunch - its all cliches, unbelievable dialogue and even less believable characters. You never get even a hint of honest emotion about what it might feel like to have the world as we know it disappear overnight. I still wouldn't have been so annoyed except for the fact that the blurb on the back of the book: "Adventure to make Clive Cussler envious! Riveting description and emotion. This one has it all. " - The Mena Star, is the same paper that the author of this book writes for and is an editior. I'm guessing that the Mena Arkansas Star is a small enough operation that using this review is pretty incestuous and by my way of thinking not particularly ethical.

one star.
Since there are already over 50 reviews of this book, I'm chiming in to help lower the overall average.

This book seems to be drawing two kinds of reviews: Glowing, wonderful, exciting romp reviews, and stereotyped, carboard, predictable, unrealistic reviews.

If you have very well developed suspension of disbelief, or if you really don't know much about culture and science, then this book, like an action adventure movie, could be a lot of fun. But it has the intellectual rigor of League of Extrodinary Gentlemen. (I.E., none.) If you expect well devleoped consistant science ang culture, go read something else.

I enjoyed reading the story, however it felt a little as though the author started off really relishing the tale, but got increasingly tired of telling it as he went on. It seemed to me that just as soon as we settled in and got comfortable with the characters and world, the author wrapped it up with a sudden, rushed, conclusion. Would I recommend buying and reading it? yes. Could it have been a lot more than it was? yes.

I'm astounded that anyone could think this was a good book. The writing is poor, the plot hackneyed, and its stereotypes border on the offensive. Don't waste your money on this book or this author.