The Remaining

The Remaining by D.J. Molles

Most of my thoughts about this book can be simplified into one word: NO. The plot wasn't good. The writing was worse. The characters were not endearing. The protagonist is dumb and impossible for me to root for.

I feel that the author didn't really think everything through. The United States Army built a fortified bunker for Captain Lee Harden, but built it such that the only entrance was from inside the basement of Harden's home. And this bunker did not include any surveillance, which left Harden virtually blind any time he wanted to leave.

Here's another example: Harden felt that satellite phones would be useless because "it was likely that the satellites they used would fall out of orbit without human intervention." At the same time, however, his GPS device was "his bread and butter, the life blood of his mission."

I can't see Harden as a hero. I can deal with his naivety and his true believerism, but I cannot deal with his never ending stupidity. Digging graves was careless enough, but attempting to hole up for a night with a group of survivors in a house whose patio door had been destroyed was too ridiculous to take seriously. But then it got worse because Harden then led the survivors to spend a night sleeping in the cab of a pickup truck with a guy who had been bitten! Of this arrangement, the author wrote, "Their dreams were dark and hazy and filled with fear and hope. They slept unaware that fate would not allow all of them to reach Timber Creek alive." Of course not…one of them was already known to be infected! Come on, man. This book was too much.

Also, the author could have used a better editor. I understand that not everyone can afford a top-notch editor, but any author can have at least one friend who knows how to construct a sentence so that it actually conveys the author's intended idea or can let the author know that he failed to actually introduce two of his characters.

The premise was good, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Just not good.

F