Review: Year One

Year One by Nora Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This series was recommended by SyFyWire here. Set in a dystopian near future, one new year's eve a series of events lets loose a terrible plague upon humanity which kills billions worldwide, a few are naturally immune and others either gain powers or enhance powers as witches, elves, fairies and the like, people they came to call the Uncanny. As civilisation crumbles we follow two groups of people who leave New York looking for a place to settle.

Lana and Max were a couple, he was a writer and she was a chef. Fred and Alysa were juniors at a TV news station. Jonah was a paramedic and Rachel was a doctor. Katie was the daughter of the original victim of the plague they came to call The Doom. But as civilisation crumbles and the Uncanny increase in numbers so do the religious fundamentalists and intolerance as well as gangs of raiders who just like to kill and torture and destroy. Among the disintegration of society one baby could herald salvation, The One.

I enjoyed this but I felt following two separate groups of people was distracting and there was too much of a distinction between good and evil, surely there should be some shades of grey? Instead people are either like Little House on The Prairie/Pollyanna or totally evil which also makes the baddies easier to spot. Overall, a good start to a new series (to me) but not nuanced enough. However, the gore level is high - think Supernatural style horror.




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