|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 12 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Fantastic Book ! Oct 02, 2009
By A. P. Alberda
This book is an awesome read. My wife and I read it both and were very pleasantly surprised. We couldn't put it down; it is the kind of book that is so intriguing, you simply have to finish it right away. The story takes the reader through a frightful scenario of a world depopulated by an epidemic, splendidly told. The narration is highly realistic, I can only hope that it will never take place, especially in these days with so many dangerous viruses (Mexican flu, swine flu, H1N1, SARS, ...) - I do not want to think what would happen if such a pandemic would become reality. The story is a perfect blend of last-man-on-earth psychogram, adventure story and a deep view on mankind. The ending is very satisfying. Great settings! A very skillful novel, read it!
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Great book, wild adventure Sep 01, 2009
By Patrice Deware
Tremendously enjoyed reading "Two Journeys". The story starts full blast like a rocket, humanity eradicated in chapter one. Over the next 600 pages the reader follows the single survivor, on his way back from Tokyo to Berlin. The result is a wild travelogue. The hero has several chance meetings that keep the book moving: danger lurks from all directions, dark tunnels and blocked roads, failing nuclear reactors and wild animals (the two-legged variety included): his encounter with a pack of lions (ironically in China!) is definitely one of the highlights. The book changes direction halfway through and picks up more speed and drama. So hang in there. The novel is full of surprises, but never straying from the single purpose, an adventure story, but not of the cheap kind... and it is as lone-wolfish as any book can get. Short-coming is that the title, with its reference to two journeys is not explained. What was the second journey then, I wondered. The novel offers deep insight into the main character, and also into humanity, I liked that aspect as it provides more depth. The ending is perfect, I re-read the last chapter at least five times. Brings tears to the eyes of even the biggest man! But even lone wolves cry (when nobody is watching naturally ;). As it is, I'm looking forward to the sequel! Tremedous book, highly recommended.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Difficult journey but worth it Dec 27, 2010
By broiderqueen
"army mama"
Some of the books I have read lately, very much including this one, have made me feel like a high school (or sometimes junior high school) English teacher reading sample stories submitted for grading. And let me tell you a lot of "my students" are failing my class. Are spelling and basic grammar not taught in our schools any more?
"Two Journeys" had MANY distracting and sometimes conflicting errors that would have been taken care of by a thorough editing. One thing I would like to point out, though, in Suter's favor, is that I believe English is a second language for him. Some of the passages read a little differently than they would have from a primary English speaker. And considering this, I think Suter did a very credible job with this story if it is basically a self-published novel.
This was a unique story idea, with the protaganist being stranded in Japan by a pandemic and then doing his best to try to reach his family in Germany to ascertain whether any of them survived. Some parts of the book I really enjoyed; some not as much. But the book held my interest to the very end; I don't regret the time or money I spent on it; and I will be keeping an eye out for future books by this author. What more could I ask for? Well, other than a good editing before a second printing.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Obviously Self-Published, Very Annoying Read Aug 07, 2011
By Kevin E. Ready
"BigOne"
While I am a friend of the self-published novel, this book gives self-publishing a bad name. Lack of editing, total lack of characterization and improbable and unexplained story elements make this a difficult book to read. After reading it I would have to say that most of the other Amazon reviewers must be relatives or alter-egos of the author, because there is little positive one can say about Two Journeys. Even the title is nonsense, the authors never explains what the two journeys are, one is the post-apocalyptic journey across Asia is a disease-emptied Earth, but the other journey never gets addressed, it certainly cannot be an inner journey of the protagonist, since the reader never gets to know the flat, personality-free main character.
Starting with editing, there are inumerable pure errors, like not knowing the difference between the words "sieze" and "cease." The primitive first person narration is a dead give-away that no knowledgeable book editor has touched this project. There are dozens of interludes and odd snippets that have nothing to do with the protagonist's journey, nor his characterization nor anyone else's. None of the characters are fleshed out, most are merely rudimentary first names (only) attached to the protagonists journey with little thought as to why they act as they do. The first person narrative makes the characterization of both the protagonist and anyone he meets nigh impossible since he rarely soul searches himself and never gets to know anyone else beyond mere acquaintance.
The worst part of this novel is the story line, hence my doubt about those reviewers who raved abou the story line. Indeed, the "concept" may be good and intriguing, but as soon as the author tries to mold the concept into a story it falls apart. Almost all plot points are inexplicable and many totally improbable. The author delves into the International Space station without doing enough research to make that digression relevant or believable, such as not knowing the difference between the Soyuz craft the Space Station uses for an escape pod and a space shuttle. The author inserts the supposedly alien "brown balloons" into the story, without ever explaining them, without ever truly involving them in the story and, obviously, without any good idea of why the brown balloons managed to get into this book in the first place. The whole brown balloon concept leaves the reader confused and annoyed at the author. If the author is not going to explain the source of the brown balloons, explain whether they caused the disease apocalypse and what the hell they are doing floating around everywhere, they should be left out of the story. Another particularly annoying habit of the author (he does it twice) is to introduce a new character or event with a grandiose "this [person] changed the rest of my life" and then the character is a nobody, who is quickly killed off after a boring confrontation and never causes any change to the main character and certainly not the rest of his life. The author obviously has grandiose ideas about his own ability to craft a story and create an important character/event. Some remaining questions that will never get answered and remain behind to annoy us readers; why does a Korean scientist write his diary in English?, why did the protagonist's entire family survive when billions of other humans all died?, why are most of the survivors shallow morons with personality disorders?, and, why does the inside of a brown ballon stink, why are they brown, where are they going, ad infinitum?
Following my writing mentor's advice that if you cannot say something good when you criticize then you are not being objective, I guess I have to add that the author obviously is a dog lover. The two Japanese German Shapherd dogs who accompany the "hero" on his improbably journey are the only likeable, fully explained characters in the book. They act the way dogs should act, they don't do inexplicable things and the reader does not wish bad things to happen to them.
If you are intrigued by a universal disease cataclysm story, go re-read Earth Abides by George R Stewart, it is better to re-read the classic of the genre than be totally annoyed at an amateur author trying to pretend.
6 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 Good story line; not as good execution Mar 27, 2010
By JEA
I enjoyed the story line quite a bit, but unfortunately it suffers the usual pitfalls of a self-published novel. There are many basic typographic errors and it screams for some decent editing, which is unfortunate. I understand hiring a good editor is pretty expensive, but given the length and obvious effort put into this book, it would have been worth it. I'm a sucker for 'last man on earth' scenarios and this book offers plenty of post-apoc "eye candy", so I didn't have a problem getting through it and, for the most part, enjoyed the story. But, due to the lack of editing and some basic inconsistencies, the writing comes across as pretty amateurish.
Tough call... I've read much better written novels that I've enjoyed less and had a harder time getting through than this book, but the typos and inconsistencies do slap you in the face pretty often. I guess I can just chalk it up as a guilty pleasure. 5 stars for effort; 2 stars for execution; 3 stars, overall.
See all 12 customer reviews on Amazon.com
|
| | |
|
|
