The Cleansing: Earth Haven, Book 1

The entire novel is an intriguing conundrum of plot hooks! Great tie-ins, superb concepts.
Kept me guessing until the end, and then I headed straight over to Amazon. Yep, I already purchased the next book in the series. Warning, what follows may contain hints at spoilers…Because Sam Kates is a master storyteller. So, it’s difficult not to hint at spoilers—when the entire novel is an intriguing conundrum of plot hooks! I found myself desperately wanting to know “the truth.” The why, the what in the world… especially the, “Did it have to go down like that?” Why, why? Every single human!Well, just about. The Cleansing wrenched my guts, shocked me with saga-sized scope, and incited compassion, and rage. Then it boggled my mind—after cleansing this damn planet. Yep. Think Superman, but with a more detailed, maybe even possible—who knows?—explanation of alien worlds. Great tie-ins, superb concepts. And the author laid out the breadcrumbs cleverly along each step of the way, tantalizingly so. So, I could hardly put it down. Because I just had to find out. I read this book in only a few days.A misanthrope would revel in what happened. But the story maintained its engaging, disturbing series of events while… Well, let’s just say there were some depressing moments for humanity. The plot was rock solid, humanity was not. Include deep character development, varied characters with in-your-head, down-to-earth or across-the-universe points of view, and what you’ll experience is a full-circle jumpstart to a pretty amazing series. I’m glad I stumbled onto this novel (found it on Twitter). There’s good, honest folks, characters I loved. And sinister, misanthropic ones, who inflicted the unthinkable—characters I loved to hate. And I sure got to…Serious without a lot of humor, the Cleansing had clean, well-edited prose that flowed from captivating beginning, to blockbuster finale, with plenty of shocking realizations—as well as dead corpses—in between. From the get-go I found myself sucked right into this first book of the Earth Haven series. A terrifying, stomach-turning, punch-to-the-gut, full-of-frisson kind of muahahaha goodness. (Think, Bishop—you’ll see what I mean when you read it). The cleansing really performed. It performed unspeakably, indifferently against humanity with tsunami-like efficiency. And the aftermath was haunting, appalling. But that was not the end, not by far.Following the “wipe of epic proportions,” were the wake-up calls, for only the tiniest few. A new story in and of itself! Living the quiet life, ahhh… No bills, no emails or mailbox litter—and no one to love… Then, survival. The only human left on the planet, perhaps. Loneliness setting in, depression next, followed up with suicidal tendencies, and then—the calling. And this is where the novel really opened up. The scoop, the why, was eerily mind-blowing. And the bowling pins were set up as though a team of Leonardo da Vinci poltergeists had managed to make a chandelier out of them. The beginning of more hardcore science fiction to follow! Set way up for the sequel! Five stars for this epic. And I’m already 24% into the next book.

Inventive invasion
One thing we Earthlings could always say to the aliens invading us was, “Hey, it’s our planet. Back off.” But what if it’s not?That’s just one of the inventive premises in this book, which I devoured in a day. Aliens have lived hidden among us for a long time, and now it’s time to strike. The order is, “No mercy.” Soon humans are dying by the billions.This is a scary book and a gripping story. Do the handful of humans who survive the first attack stand a chance? Their one hope is the alien whose joined their side. But does he even have a plan? You’re going to have to read the sequel to find out.Normally, that would tick me off, but this book was so good I’m going to buy the sequel instead. Well worth a read.

I bought this book as an Amazon recommendation. Apocalyptic science fiction isn’t usually my thing, but “look inside” was gripping enough to convince me to buy it. The story is different from the other few end-of-the world stories I’ve read. The viewpoint characters include both perpetrators and victims. The characters are well-drawn, the writing is skillful, the story moves along unrelentingly. Despite the theme of apocalypse, the tone of the book avoids being totally bleak and dark. The heroes are ordinary, decent people who manage to stay alive without having to resort to guns and violence – yes! I have bought the other two books in the series. This is an author I will be following for sure.

I actually picked this one up while it was free. Now there are two things you’d expect of a free book, for them to be not very long or not very good. However, this is both LONG and GOOD.It also felt like a story in its own right, yes you can tell the plot is going to progress in the sequel, but it has a satisfying ending to the story of this book. I deliberated for a long time, over how to get the balance ‘just right’ of cliff-hangar vs satisfying conclusion with my own first novel ‘Deathsworn Arc: The Last Dragon Slayer’ I think Kates got it just right here. You want to read on, but you feel like you’ve read a story at the end.Okay, so what story? How can I describe this?Without going into spoiler territory, this is rather like a very British take on ‘The Stand’ by ‘Stephen King’ It starts before the outbreak and slowly guides you through a meticulously described viral apocalypse. There are some very human, emotional stories in this account. Kates doesn’t shy away from death or loss of loved ones. The outbreak has a real sense of futility about it. The characters seem very real and react realistically I think, often in very difficult circumstances. There is a LOT of setup in this book, you have to read a good chunk of the first half before you’re out of the setup. However, the setup is very good as a story in its own right. I knew Tom would meet Peter, I could see their stories intertwining and they do to very good effect. What I didn’t expect was the fourth passenger in the car at the end. However, now I’ve read it, it makes sense and balances out the party a bit. I feel like we’ve got the barbarian, elf, dwarf and wizard now.Obviously, this isn’t a fantasy book, it’s a dystopian survival thingie… Or is it? It isn’t really, it’s really a science fiction novel. It takes a long time to introduce you to extraterrestrials in this book, but that’s a good thing. The premise, the concept of the book is clever and well-executed. However, it’s incredulous. You’re eased into the reality of what’s going on by Peter slowly explaining in bits, drip-feeding and saying, ‘Well you won’t believe it, but…’ or something to that effect. The actual plot line to me is pretty out there, but the way Kates writes it makes it seem plausible. The way he eases you into considering the outlandish overall plot plausible is very well done.I enjoyed ‘The Stand’ but I think I enjoyed this more. Mainly because of its Britishness. It’s a great story, and the production quality is very high. It reads like a well put together trad-pub book, not an indie one.Overall a great book, I’m definitely interested in reading on to find out what happens at some point!(Even though it’s not really my genre!)Martyn Stanley

Well written interesting premise.