You may well get your introduction to this series via an email offering you a free copy. Take it. It will be a PDF but you can mail it to yourself on Kindle. You’ll receive Volume 1 in the series, the China Pandemic. Settle down, all you over-politicized junkies, what is most remarkable about this book is that it was written in 2013, long before the COVID-19 virus ever made its way out Wuhan (however that may have occurred), and its plot unwinds the doomsday scenario that could have been – but was not – one of the forks in the road that may have occurred if the virus had been even more deadly than it was.
The hero is a university professor somewhat in the mold of Robert a (Da Vinci Code) who is more practical and stronger than he thinks. His wife has died in the pandemic and on his way to what he hopes will be a refuge until they can sort things out he acquires a small group of new almost-family members who have to decide whether they can trust each other while facing a brutal environment.
The writing and editing are sound. The style is matter-of-fact, with the horrific nature of this virulent disease spelling itself out without the author trying to explain what you should be thinking. For much the same reason, the characters are not fully developed in Volume 1. There isn’t a lot of room for emoting when you’re trying to figure out how to survive feral animal packs, random human survivors who have gone equally feral, and even other well-intentioned humans who may or may not have been infected or be asymptomatic carriers.
As with any apocalyptic work, there are always practical issues that may nag at you. For me, I kept wondering how it was that with everything else falling apart and every business and most homes abandoned, how is it that the electricity and cell phone service continue to work? Maybe we’ll find out in books 3 through N. As of now, the series stands at 6, presumably with more to come as long as they keep selling, as they deserve to do. The price of getting volume 1 for free on PDF is that you get on the mailing list, which will include weekly offers to buy the rest of the set or other sets with a discount coupon. I have no doubt that you’ll opt for the first step, which is a 4-book “boxed” set which if you wait for the right moment will come in at maybe $7.99 (as of 2021).
Aside from the email trail, Ms. Shaw sells the books direct to you (here’s the link: https://www.authorarshaw.com/books), although you can also buy the books on Amazon at twice the price if you want.
The second of Jack Forsithe’s books is a fast-moving read that combines the genres of thriller and alien-type fantasy. It is an easier story to follow than the first volume, Heart in the Clouds, because the four original separate story-lines have merged into two at the book’s opening and quickly becomes a single plot. Naturally that would be easier to follow, although it is hard for me to assess that since I did read the first volume first, so I had already become familiar with the whole other-creature setup (and their tongue-twister moniker, the Zighorottiz). Although Forsithe does provide enough back story to pick up on the ideas, it would definitely be worth your while to read Heart also (
The back cover promises a “fantasy thriller” and it delivers. This is Jack Forsithe’s first novel and the highest tribute one can pay to any such work is that I am looking forward to the sequel even though I am not usually into this genre. If you’re not immersed in science-fiction, you may be put off by the complexity of the other-worlders’ species name (Zighorottiz), but don’t let that scare you off: it’s about the only bit of irregular verbiage in the book.