Testimonials
As I have mentioned on my writing blog, I love to get feedback. Below is some of the feedback I have received on the Apocalypse Blog. Thank you to all of you who have sent me comments!
17th December 2009:
28th September 2009:
10th August 2009:
Wow I can’t believe you’re giving this story away for free! I consider myself a connoisseur of PA literature and your work is some of the best I have ever read.
Have you read ‘The Road’? It is critically acclaimed as being a very dismal story. I found ‘The Road’ to be more monotonous than bleak. I could not relate to the characters or the setting.
Your story on the other hand captures the despair and anguish of a PA world in a way few authors can. I felt more for the characters in your tale than I have in anything I have read in quite some time.
My only concern is your characters seemed a little too good at hand to hand combat when they first entered into battle with the Pride and their first encounters with ‘the others’.
Keep up the great work, I am looking forward to your next installments.
–Tony
30th July 2009:
Wow.
I have just been pulled into the story and absolutely swept away. I love all your characters and how you’ve captured them so brilliantly. They are each their own entities, tied together by a common thread of survival. They need each other and they know it, even as they bicker and tear one another down. I love the way there are up moments and down moments, despair followed by hope, like truly walking (surviving?) in a post-apocalyptic world.
I am a huge, huge fan of post-apocalyptic fiction. Not because of the devastation or because it’s “fun” to see the end of the world. I like post-apocalyptic fiction because it’s at the end of the world, when things are at their worse and everything stable and “known” is gone that we see people for who and what they really are. The darkness and lightness of humanity comes out as you have shown via the Pride (and the other ruffian gangs) and the Seekers. You’ve shown that even the “good” people who wear the white hats have their moments of darkness, of guilt, or bitterness. You’ve captured and put to “paper” the human survival aspect of it and how humans will either cope and evolve or not cope and devolve into animalistic brutality.
There are times when I stand by Faith and times I want to smack her upside the head. That’s a good thing. A real character should have depths and flaws and shining moments that make them human and Faith has those. All your characters do, truly.
From the somber reunion with Matt to the horror of sacrifice and self-sacrifice of Ben’s nephew and sister (I’m a mom, and I felt her pain and struggles and could understand it all), it’s a well written story and a delightful ride. I was hooked from day one (I only found the story this weekend), and have devoured it. Now I’m eagerly awaiting the daily update.
(Though the cat lover in me is pining for Jones. Will he ever find his way back or is he gone for good?)
Keep writing, keep up the wonderful work. You have a new reader and a new fan.
Thanks for the story,
–Vanessa
4th July 2009:
Just wanted you to know you have a new reader – I haven’t been able to stop reading your apocalypse blog – I am just about to read the “Bree” entry now and I’m expecting it to be a good one.
But yeah, I think your story is great. I can’t wait to find out why the sky has turned orange and is spitting acid rain! I must say I teared up when Sax died (the first time, on the couch) and I’m hoping that Ben will make it through his sickness and that nothing will happen to little Nugget – I have a 3 1/2 year old daughter and it keeps me up at night thinking what might happen to us if there were ever any sort of disaster situation like this one. Perhaps I am so interested in zombie apocalypses because there is nothing that I am more afraid of.
I just wanted to say hello and let you know I was reading and that I will continue to.
3rd July 2009:
I just wanted to shoot you a quick note to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your Apocalypse Blog. Your style is engaging, personal and very brave in terms of self-examination. I am a writer myself, for US television, and I find it fascinating to see just how effective the daily blog platform can be as a compelling episodic narrative, similar to television. You have a real page-turner on your hands, with all of us out here in cyberspace ever anxious to turn the next daily page.
I have found myself trying to play around with your pescribed delivery format – waiting until every third day and reading three entries at a time, and so on. Curiously, I keep returning to the daily read, which undoubtedly is the most satisfying way to consume the story. Post-apocalyptic stories usually focus on the horror and trauma, but yours also offers a look at how a person can reinvent themselves and their lives. It’s a fascinating read, and I encourage you to keep going for all our sakes as well as yours!
Best of luck, and thank you for sharing your work.
–Michael G. Stern
27th June 2009:
I am wore out…completely exhausted. I have been on an emotional rollercoaster brought on by having read the entirety of the Apocalypse Blog over the span of the past four days (while I am supposed to be working mind you). I commend you for your wonderful writing and veracity in keeping this blog updated on such a regular basis. Today I caught up to the real-time world you have constructed. I am now a devoted fan that eagerly anticipates each entry you so brilliantly create. I dread the day that your blog will come to an end.
–Mary
16th June 2009:
I love the Apocalypse Blog. No, really. It is everything I adore about post-apocalypse/dystopic anything. Zombies, post-nuclear urban wastelands, ragtag bunches of survivors trying their hands at survivalism – it is my bread and butter. I adore it.
And your story is pretty damned awesome in all three respects.
So, basically, thank you for writing it, and please keep doing so. Please don’t let the battery on the laptop run out! Please!
Thank you for bringing something so enjoyable to the Internet.
–Typhoid
7th June 2009:
Just wanted to let you know that I really enjoy reading the Apocalypse Blog–I’m a newcomer to web fiction, tried reading a few, but this one’s the only one that was well-written and interesting enough to hold my attention. I’m a writer myself, so I can appreciate how hard it must be to update it daily–kudos to you for that! I always pay most attention to characters and I love yours; they’re so complex, and their interactions are always interesting. You bring Faith to life so well, it seems like she’s a real person blogging from a parallel universe or something where this is actually happening. Your writing is great, it’s really easy to just get into and absorbed in, which is a real feat considering this is the thrill-a-minute internet. 😉
I also love how you bring your setting to life. It’s all very dark and desolate, but there’s these glimmers of humanity and hope sometimes, and you bring all of that across so well. You ought to look into getting stuff published, if you haven’t yet!
I’ve never liked zombies–can’t stand them, in fact–but I really like this story and I hope you stick to it.
–Svenja
