Exodus (Extinction Point Book 2)

I am really enjoying this series! I guess I probably don't reviews books the way everyone else does. I don't go into the main characters and their adventures because I'm afraid that I will give away the story. But I can say, this is a very interesting story and I do recommend it for anyone that is into alien invasion and the end of the world scenarios.

"Exodus (Extinction Point)" is the second book in a science fiction series about an alien red rain that is blanketing the earth, annihilating the human race. Up until this book only two survivors existed Emily Baxter who's escaped from New York City and Jacob, a climatologist stuck at a weather station near the Arctic Circle. As the story unfolds the alien menace is growing , strange alien pods are hatching and the spiderlike creatures have become a deadly menace as the red dust continues to rain down, terraforming the once blue and white planet earth. In this segment Emily encounters a family- father and two children- waiting for rescue in a valley with a microclimate that keeps the red menace at bay. When Ben and Rhia's father Simon confirms the horror of Emily's tale, it may be too late for any of them to escape.In space Commander Mulligan and her team who hold little hope of surviving for long on the space station have made contact with Jacob, giving him details about the storm's movement and its potential destructive capability which has been greatly underestimated. In the sequel to 'Extinction Point' the instinct to survive will force Emily to make callous decisions as the struggle to reach Jacob in the far north continues.I enjoyed this book much more than the first. The lengthy mundane descriptions decreased as did the swearing so the author must have taken the criticisms of his first book to heart. In this sequel spine-tingling adventure is ratcheted up a notch as more imaginative and unique alien creatures roam the landscape including a sinister shadow beast, a pod hatchling, that holds Simon hostage. And to add mystery to the turmoil Emily senses the existence of a human killer when she finds several murdered victims in a building. The plot in this book flowed more smoothly, and the timeline for Emily's journey north and the challenges she faces seemed more natural.As with the first book I continued to like Thor, the brave, obedient malamute who saved Emily during her escape from New York. Realistically, like many dogs he shows his vulnerability during an intense thunder storm, and even his sensitivity to five year old Ben is touching. I was impressed with Emily who showed strength of character in this story growing braver as she adapts to the hostile environment and even tackling new skills like haphazardly learning to drive. The Jacob character begins to become more than a voice; his scientific curiosity and insight increasing as he directs Emily north. Even the minor characters tug at the reader's heart; Simon the loving, protective father, Ben the trusting but fearful five year old, and Rhiannon,her self-absorption disappearing as she takes on a new maturity with each new challenge.Mixed in with the chaos, pain and suffering of the story is courage, friendship and most of all hope as the characters struggle to find a safe haven in the horror of a changing world. Even at the end of the story there are more questions than answers as the suspense continues. Although I enjoy science fiction not horror, I liked this book enough to look forward to reading the conclusion to the series.

The fast paced action and terror continues in the second book Exodus of the Extinction Point series. I enjoyed the tense roller coaster ride the author creates as Emily makes her cross country trek to Alaska.What I liked the most:1) I loved the opening of the book. What a “Ground Control to Major Tom” moment. It was very cool to see the attack on earth from the space station.2) I like the attempts the author has made at creating strong female characters. He does it with the commander of the space station, Emily, and I even saw it in Rhia. Could all of the characters use a little more polish-sure, but kudos at what’s there. It’s far better than others I’ve seen.3) I liked the mystery of “what attacked the seven frozen dead” near the end of the book. It really made meeting Jacob a little more eerie. I thought Emily was kinda crazy not taking a closer look at them, but they left a lot of open doors for book 3 which I liked.Things that bothered me:1) I don’t think it was necessary to come up with some mysterious weather impervious valley to create more survivors from the red rain. I think it would have been cooler for her to stumble across a clan of preppers living in a bunker. Simon asking if she was there to save them like she’s with the government, wow he’s dumb.2) She left all of her gear at the other house-how stupid is our protagonist Emily? Come on she was supposed to be getting better at this survival thing, not worse.It was a like a bad horror movie when Simon left his kids to go retrieve the Durango. I was irritated when this happened because it just did not fit the common sense test. Why is he leaving his kids with a stranger? A father abandoning his kids to go get a vehicle when he knows there is an unquantifiable danger lurking about-NO WAY. They didn’t stick together to save time-he gets car and stranger lady is going to pack the kids stuff? NO WAY. We knew what was going to happen when Simon left and it pissed me off. I think it would have been more dramatic to be ambushed by the creepy creature at the other house and have to watch the creature take over Simon and then come for the kids. No need to split up, the terror of it all would remain the same.And it was a little bizarre how little miss “I don’t know how to drive” magically figures it out enough to ram the creature not once but twice-without flipping or destroying the SUV. What happened to all the cool rifle skill’s Emily gave us in book one?3) I did not believe her character should have had so much unease at the drop in temperature. The woman did grow up in a small town in Iowa, she should be in her element. She’s from the Midwest, people from this part of the USA know all about winter-it starts in November and drags into late March. She should have been having flashbacks to her childhood. Not reminding herself of the cautions Jacob gave over the phone about the cold.4) If I’m not mistaken this is a kill or be killed scenario. If you are going to kill a kid-turned alien get it over with. Why was it more important to spare his sisters feelings than keep them all alive? Why did she not shoot the alien Ben when it was hunched over Rhia in the middle of the night? Emily’s dealt with enough creatures at this point to know the boy Ben is dead. Does she really need to overnight with an alien to spare his sisters feelings? And why are they burying him in a rose bush-without a shovel-when the red storm is raining on them? That’s one of those sorry dear-we need to leave him here and press on moments.5) Why is Emily freaking out on Jacob over the other people not being there? She broke into an apartment in book one because she was so desperate to find another living human. I don’t think she would have not gone to Alaska even if he did tell her what happened. Besides he’s basically saved her life dragging her there.I still look forward to reading book 3 and seeing how this series shakes out.

This book has lain dormant in my kindle for a bit but it proved quite enjoyable. While good fortune and outright luck of the main character is a bit hard to take, once you accept that Emily is both charmed and blessed with extraordinary foresight you can sit back and enjoy things. Hopefully in a coming installment we will learn the how and why of her extraordinary singular nature.

Emily struggles north, hopeful of finding a new safer life. She also meets up with Thor - a different Thor to the one you are thinking about - and he saves her life a few times. She finally realises learning to drive a car might help, after meeting up with a family that has also survived. Are they immune or just lucky to have escaped the red rain? We learn more about the alien creatures activities, but clearly there is still more to be revealed. After many misadventures and close shaves, her journey is completed. But this is not the end, as a voice calls out over the radio...If you liked the first book you will like this one more. Scary things keep happening, trouble and spider-aliens pop up at unexpected moments, but Emily struggles on. Not everything she tries is a success, of course, especially her first attempts at driving (as I predicted when talking about book one ;) .)It's still not clear how her story will end, which means I will be buying the next in the series.But Emily can't be the only person who is immune, so let's see what happens next.Yes, there are a few plot errors, but we read for fun, not to criticise. Just enjoy her adventures.

By-in-large a good read with a generally good story line. Good enough to lead me to read through the whole trilogy.However, I feel a touch irritated by the odd faux pas in this book. For example, the star of the show, Emily, somehow manages to be able to charge her sat-phone batteries with a solar-powered charger in the over the dead of night (wish I had one of those) and later on in the book when she was in Alaska, the same solar-charger failed to charge batteries because "the sun had not been shining" (solar chargers only require daylight and not necessarily direct sunlight).I also get peeved when people on boats refer to charts as maps!Oh yes, and my burning question is that there's never been a mention of how our Emily, and her alone it seems, has survived the initial alien pollution. Has she some weird blood-group or something, or maybe she aint human? Or have I missed some description way back?But getting away from these details and many other inconsistencies the overall story-line remains a trilogy worth the read.

Extinction Point was easily one of the best recent books published, which had the rare ability to be genuinely creepy. Exodus builds on this as well as throwing in a whole lot of new action and lots of little mysteries for us to ponder.The way the relentless red storms sweep the planet is unnerving to say the least, especially when you are aware of the effect on all indigenous life, not just us, and the way the central characters deal with it is very down to earth - no expert scientists or weapons experts - as so commonly seem to be the ones who survive such catastrophies, just a young woman whose knowledge of boats and sailing goes no further than the re-run of Titanic she watched!Without giving too much away Exodus can be upsetting, but in reality with what is going on around the planet earth of the story this should not come as too much of a surprise.There is a third and possibly fourth book coming next year, which I really look forward to. So far the first two have been a work of genius, I really hope this continues.

This book continues the human race's fight for survival in the guise of Emily trying to reach the mysterious Jacob. At the start of the book we know there are more survivors as we are introduced to the crew off the international space station. What you get from the ISS point of view is a top down commentary of the alien weather which has destroyed life on earth. What effect the crew can have remains a mystery but I have a feeling that more is to come from the ISS crew.For a book with half a dozen characters, the story is really well written. I always thought that building a story with so few characters must be extremely difficult but this remains a good solid story. The heroine of the story, Emily, is as sympathetic a character as you could wish to root for. She is plucky, strong, resilient and determined to survive against the odds.In summary, a brilliantly detailed and plotted story. Roll on book 3

Who would have thought the end of all things we know and love would be at the touch of a cloud of red dust with all the sentient charm of slime mould? Not I... but Paul Antony Jones has other ideas.These he lays before us as the story of the unfortunate Emily Baxter, last woman (or man) left standing (probably) unfolds. And it unfolds with all the speed and drama of the Grand National although with deeply nightmarish creatures from beyond in the place of your everyday sleek and friendly racehorse. You find yourself metaphorically lashed to the saddle as you take all the jumps the tale reveals as Emily's nightmare worsens, and you do so at a breakneck pace. Great stuff.And in spite of the improbable but acceptably freaky goings-on that take over the world as we know it, you find yourself caring about the character(s), a prerequisite for any decent read. And, assuming you like your reads to occasionally be post-apocalyptic, this is a very decent and inventive read and thoroughly recommended.Can't wait for the sequel... and btw, read the first book in the series before you read this one.