My original Sunfall audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
In a near future one day the sun light becomes lethal and starts burning people to the core, churning them until they become unrecognizable. Sam and his two daughters and son are able to survive and seek refuge in Sam’s mall, where other people appear looking for a safe place to stay. The problems start again when one of the people living in the mall disappears and another one starts talking about the horrors they have seen outside when looking for supplies at night.
This book is written as a TV series, in which each chapter could be an episode. I could see it working on the screen if some aspects were polished.
I expected a dystopian novel, but I would file this book more properly under horror. The story’s construction and rhythm are compelling, and the unknown evil hidden in the night makes you want to continue listening just to know more. It is a useful resource to keep the reader interested, but unfortunately that made me not understand the leader’s decisions. Why would you want to hide a real danger from your people if you are all together fighting to survive? After a while the danger gets revealed and what it was felt a bit anticlimactic. I will not spoil it for you but I just wanted to mention that it felt a bit unrealistic how that band came together and how they were convinced to follow their leader. Many times in this book I did not completely understand the characters actions and change of heart. I think a deeper development of characters was needed here.
I also had issues with some of the dialogs, especially with the bad ones’ words, explaining how everything started. I consider this a forced and artificial way of delivering information that could have been done in a more subtle way.
Steven Barnett’s narration was very well done, with a compelling tone and different voices for the characters, and he knows how to keep you interested in the story. I think it was a good choice for this book.
I enjoyed the first third of the book, when we were kept in the dark and trying to guess what the terrible danger was. The development was a bit subpar, and I also missed some scientists trying to guess why the sun beams became suddenly lethal. It was also not clear if animals were affected or not, but I guess horror novels do not focus on this kind of details, and dystopian or science fiction books do, which is what I expected this time.
If you are into regular dystopian worlds, this book may not be for you, but if you prefer horror without too many questions, you will enjoy this one.
Available at Amazon/Audible
My name is Elena. Since I was a little child I loved science fiction and fantasy, and I can’t resist a good novel. In 2015, while wait I started to listen to audiobooks and I discovered the pleasure in being able to read while doing my daily tasks, so there’s always an audiobook playing on my phone. If you see me with my Bluetooth headphones on, please be gentle, I get easily startled.
I live with my boyfriend, which I met during my six-year stay in Belgium, four cockatiels, eight lovebirds, and a hamster in Madrid, Spain; and I like to spend my free time knitting and sewing while listening to audiobooks.
