Shattered Hourglass

The third installment of J. L. Bourne's Day by Day Armageddon series manages to bring our story to an international world, and tie off some loose threads which we have been dealing with since the dead first walked. In a story that provides the best of Robert Kirkman, George A. Romero and Tom Clancy, we see the end of the world from the Arctic to Honolulu in Shattered Hourglass. 

Minor SPOILERS for the last two installments follow.

In this next installment of the series we have a new look at the world ravaged by the zombies created by the "anomaly" which causes the dead to rise and seek to devour the living. This story switches from previous first person narrative as journal style to a multi-POV, third person style novel which has more in common with fiction usually found in this genre. The main protagonist is still Kilroy, but now we have Special Operators, some of the original Hotel 23 survivors like John and Tara and scientists trapped in an Antarctic Research outpost. It's a dizzying array of characters providing a greater look at the global zombie outbreak. We get hints of what happened in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. 

Our focus though does remain on Kil and his drafting into Operation Hourglass, which is a mission charged with finding out what the Chinese government was working on prior to the dead rising. Inside a secret facility on the Chinese mainland, there may be a way to cure humanity and prevent the dead from continuing to rise. Meanwhile, special operators working in support of the remaining US government are working to both sustain Operation Hourglass, and to deal with the shadowy organization known as Remote Six, which may put our embattled protagonist in mortal peril. Finally, his former Hotel 23 family lives onboard the USS George Washington while trying to aid the remaining US military command and keep the American Dream from fading into undeath. 

I will admit that beginning the third installment was a bit jarring, as I had immensely enjoyed the original journal style entries and the intense focus on our single protagonist. However, the sheer scope of this tale and the many complex moving parts did necessitate an expanded cast to keep things going. It did add some freshness to the story which kept my expectations high, and allowed for more varied and scary plots. From the isolation of the Antarctic research team, to the constant running and gunning the Special Operators had engage in, I found that this story never had a dull moment.

The final twist to the story though, in my opinion, made this really worth it. There was a great set up, and an answer, to why the world suddenly became the way it did. I won't spoil it, but if you want something that works as a zombie virus story, and perhaps helps keep you in the world and a high stakes international mission, this was a great way to do it. It honestly combined everything good about Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six novel and Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead for an exciting high stakes plot.

While I didn't enjoy it as much as the original two installments, I will admit I had a great time reading this book again for Halloween!

I will be discussing some spoilers below the cut, so if you haven't read the first two novels, I highly recommend checking them out and you can find my reviews for each, here and here. SPOILERS below! 

One reason that this book didn't pay off as much for me was because the villainous group established in Beyond Exile, Remote Six, was very badly fleshed out. In maybe several paragraphs their location, intentions, and establishment was revealed, and we only got a bare bones establishment of why they're doing what they're doing. It needed more meat on its bones, and the scant few paragraphs we got made the whole shadowy conspiracy and advanced tech possessed by the group feel, well, extremely underwhelming. That there was some fairly convoluted AI sub-plot was also mildly annoying because it came from nowhere.

That aside, like I said, the ultimate twist did feel like it paid off. For those of you who have heard the news about Robert Kirkman revealing his own mild spoiler for how things started in the Walking Dead, well, this is probably a more satisfying version of that. It makes it very much worth reading.