Donna Sirianni's Review of One Last Autumn
Last updated: August 15, 2008
Science fiction with zombies.
At least that’s what I think they were. I’ll say, right off the bat, I’m not a science fiction fan. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just not my cup of tea. That being said, neither was this story. Being someone that doesn’t read science fiction, you’d think that reading any of it would seem new and interesting to me but that wasn’t the case here. I found it pretty standard science fiction fodder. It’s futuristic, deals with human/computer implantations and subsequent mind control, not to mention world destruction. I just didn’t see anything that stood out as really original.
The first four chapters, pretty much right until they get into the field, I felt like I was reading a military status report. I understand that that’s what these characters do but it made for a hard read, for me anyway. I wasn’t getting much emotion from it and once they started seeing some action, I didn’t really care what happened to the main character because I hadn’t connected with him.
By the end of the fifth chapter it started reading like a sort of Manchurian candidate with zombie antagonists. Interesting but not enough for me to keep reading. Plus, by that point I was jonsing for a more prominent antagonist instead of the insinuations that we had up until that point. The line certainly blurred at the end of the fifth chapter and it definitely made me question just who was the bad guy here but again, I wasn’t interested enough to keep reading.
The writing itself is good, nothing really to complain about there. I would have liked to see more of a connection to the MC and more reason for me to want to care about him but other than that, the stage and the tone of the story was pretty well set. I kept getting a real video game feel about it, and not in a bad way. Maybe it was all of the military lingo and then the blind action, I don’t know. I just got a video game vibe to it.
What I liked the best were the news snippets is I guess what you’d call them, at the top of each chapter. I could read an entire story comprised of just those snippets. The author was able to convey the tone of the chapter and the world in such a short amount of space that I wish he’d written the entire thing like that. I loved those pieces and I think they were the best written out of everything.
As for the font color I’m going to have to go eek a little. I like the whole autumn theme (the title of the serial was what drew me to it) but my eyes weren’t digging the yellow and orange colors on the black background. They were definitely strained by the end.
I could see this being interesting enough for someone that likes the genre and likes the military element but it’s just not for me. I like military stories but my tastes lean more towards Band of Brothers and The Things They Carried. If you like sci-fi with some zombie elements, I’m sure you’ll like this. It’s definitely not bad and it’s certainly not poorly written at all. I would never deny a writer the nod that their writing is good simply because I’m not a fan of the genre. Good writing is undeniable. This story’s just not my thing.
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