Midlist Writer: Book Review: Barricade by Jon Wallace

Monday 27 April 2015

Book Review: Barricade by Jon Wallace

Barricade

Barricade by Jon Wallace
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The publisher had a heap of these on the free table at the 2015 Eastercon and so I grabbed one. I was attracted by the blurb and the fact that it was post-apocalyptic, a genre I love.
The book, however, was only OK. The protagonist is a Ficial, an artificial life form who along with his fellow Ficials is trying to destroy the human race in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Ficials have no emotions and a set task they have trouble thinking beyond, and while this could make for a boring character, John Wallace's engaging writing style kept me interested. There's an action-packed road trip across a blighted landscape that was full of thrills, but after a while became a bit wearing. In a few spots the author lost my suspension of disbelief. There wasn't much purpose to a lot of the action and the ending was poorly done. It simply ended. I don't know if a sequel is planned, but the final page felt more like a chapter ending than the conclusion of a novel.
Barricade was a fun, fast read that didn't quite satisfy. Wallace has lots of potential, however. Here's hoping he does better with his next book.

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