Review: Three by Jay Posey

Title: Three
Author: Jay Posey
Series: N/A
Genre: Post Apocalyptic?
Release Date: 30 July 2013

The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more.

But when a lone gunman reluctantly accepts the mantel of protector to a young boy and his dying mother against the forces that pursue them, a hero may yet arise.

DNF at 21%.

I just can't anymore.

Some reasons I quit:

1. I have no idea what's going on. What kind of world this is, how it got this way; what kind of people these are, how they got this way. Where it is, when it is, how it is....I've got nothing. This is best as I can figure it.

We're in some vague science-fiction world; maybe earth, maybe some place else. Weirs populate the outside (and it took until 18%ish to get a name/idea of what they were). FYI: They're zombie like creatures with glowing blue eyes that track based on a multitude of things, including characters 'linking (I'll get to that). I have no idea how they came about though. Because of the weirs, humanity has closed themselves up in cities that are locked up tight after dark - apparently the weirs only come out at night? And it's got to be full dark, none of this partial-dusk, mostly dark crap. Also, they apparently communicate with screams and/or screeches.

The characters have some sort of 'link to a central 'net? They can link and find out their global positioning, have access to internal time, get information, and track based on use of this. I don't know why, or how this came about.

There are weird drugs (chems) that people can take to become super strong/fast/smart - but they become addictive to the point where you need them to function later.

2. Characters act in ways that are inconsistent with the world-building.

Enter Three. He's a mercenary? I guess. That was what I imagined him to be considering he was claiming a bounty on someone when we first meet him (unless that's him in the prologue - but I don't really know who that was to be honest). Then he randomly decides to save this woman and child. Next, he continues to help them for a really long time, protecting them despite the woman being an ungrateful person who berates and yells at him for not doing enough (apparently). Also, I have no idea why the mother was in the bar with her son when she first meets Three, and asks him for help. Obvious authorial hand here.

Additionally, Three can kick weir ass. Yet, the rest of humanity can't band together to find the weir and fight them or eliminate them. They're all weak cowards, I guess.

3. Characters that piss me off.

Enter Cass. Previously mentioned mother. She's a quint (the previously mentioned chem) addict with a special son (you know the type - the ONE). She alternates between helpless, bitchy, ungrateful and downright mean. Not to mention that she apparently can't really do anything for herself, and allowed herself AND HER SON to get into a very shady dealing. Though now she is on the run, so at least I can give her that for getting her kid out of it - though he is SEVEN so it took her long enough.

About the time she slapped her son because he wasn't able to find the way out to save them, yes, she needed her son to save himself and her, I lost all interest in her as a character and pretty much came to hate her.

And that pretty much ended my ability to read this. I was going to keep trying to go, but when my whole weekend went by without me picking up my Kindle because I just couldn't make myself. Time to just stop.

I do think this has potential, and that it's probably going to work great for others. It just isn't working for me.

Perhaps I'll come back to it at some point. Right now I doubt it, though.



Grade: DNF