AfterShock by dotB
The tale of Karl Larson, his family and friends after the area where they live is hit by a major earthquake, then a tsunami. Not simply a disastor tale, the story also contains a minor mystery. (Although this is the first story written about Karl Larson, it will eventually be one of the later tales in this universe.)
Size: 1536 KB (302,582 words)
Genre: Drama
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Fa/Fa, Consensual, Romantic, Rape, Lesbian, Heterosexual, Post Apocalypse, Interracial
Review by ausie-import [other reviews by ausie-import]
Reviewed:
This is one that poped up on the "Random Story" section of my SoL Home. I'd say that it's one of the better examples of the "post-apocolypse" genre on the site.
Living in Australia where we don't have the same obsession with firearms that some others do, I'm often put off by the loving descriptions of the arsenals accumulated by various survivors. In my opinion they detract from the interesting questions of human interactions and the problems caused by the disaster that the survivors are facing.
There is a bit of "shoot 'em up" and adventure, but it serves to drive the overall story line.
The main characters are well developed generally and their motivations and interactions are believable. They don't always respond in the obvious way that the reader might expect, and that's good because the story would be too predictable if they did. But, and this is important, their motivations are eventually explained in most cases. And the motivations are reasonable based on what the reader knows about the character.
I wish that I was more familiar with the locations in the story. My impression is that most, if not all of them actually exist and that the author has put considerable effort into plotting exactly how the disaster would have unfolded.
There's not a huge amount of sexual activity in the story and it's not particularly explicitly described, but that's OK. What sex there is contributes to the overall story and the development of the characters. In my mind, a detailed description of sexual activity in the midst of escaping a disaster just doesn't make a lot of sense. It is true that for a variety of reasons, people's desire seems to "ramp-up" after surviving a situation in which others die, so some sex is essential to the plot. But we're looking at more a case of _Swiss Family Robinson_, but R rated, rather than a stroke story.
The use of language in this story is generally good. There were a few flaws that I noticed occasionally, but not so many that they were an impediment to enjoying the story. And, having grown up with US spelling before I moved to Oz and learned British spelling, I believe that I tend to "auto-correct" spelling at least some of the time.
It's a good story, of novel length. I've paid for books that weren't as well written and engaging. Well worth the time to read it.
Review by 54vette [other reviews by 54vette]
Reviewed:
For those of you who are fans of Al Steiner's "Aftermath" this story is definitely for you. Luckily, I'm a BIG fan of Al's stories and love his style of writing.
As far as I know, the author of this story is fairly new or new to SOL. But, dotB's style smacks of an incredible imagination that's near genius.
I love a good "end of the world" suspense story and although this one wouldn't classify as your 'high tech' story it still hints of lots more to come. It's actually got so much potential that I would do it an injustice by speculating it's end.
The storyline is based around possible natural disasters that could occur in our time. Something has caused the world to experience massive earthquakes and Tsunamis and our 'hero' is just becoming aware of what's going on as the story begins.
He finds a stranded female boater amidst a shore of total destruction. He is concerned about his home and family and he and his "femme fatale" set out to help them return to his home.
The sex in this story is actually woven in very well and it's HOT! The characters are all plausible and have the kinds of personalities we've come to love in our erotic stories. They're also very well stated.
This whole story is awesome and it's not even finished yet.
I can't wait to see more from this author!
BRAVO!!!
