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Justin Woolley

Auteur van A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1

13+ Werken 90 Leden 4 Besprekingen

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Bevat de naam: Woolley, Justin.

Fotografie: Justin Woolley, photo credit: Holly Kate Photography

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Werken van Justin Woolley

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As the blurb suggests, this is a humorous SF adventure. It's a fast-paced romp where Franklin and his team play a game of cat and mouse in space with what we might see as a souped-up dog.

The prose was straightforward and easy to read, and I didn't notice any typos. The SF elements, plot logic and discoveries weren't massively plausible, but I don't think that's a handicap for this style of book.

The team members were as described on the tin: snarky but talented, brilliant but buckles under stress, a killing machine with a soft heart and so on. They felt more like types than people, but again that goes with the territory. Despite wholesale destruction going on in the background, the characters never seemed to act as if they were worried about the perils they faced.

Of course, humour is a very subjective thing. My sense of humour isn't strong. The banter and fourth wall breaking didn't appeal to me, but I'm sure many readers will appreciate it. I wonder if it might work better on screen than on page.
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Gemarkeerd
MHThaung | Oct 16, 2021 |
My original A Town Called Dust audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

If I was a warrior, I would want to go to Dust for the holidays and knock some heads off of some thirsty ghouls. The setting really drew me in. These are not your average reanimated dead. They seek moisture, preferably of the human blood variety. They shamble and jerk through the Australian wastelands, consuming people wherever they find them. A recently satiated ghoul can be quick and quite deadly. A single bite can turn a person to the dead, mindless, dark side.

These kids are growing up this world, having not known a time without the ghouls. Fences and patrols and experienced, trained fighters (called Diggers) do their best to keep people safe. Young Lynette isn't interested in joining the Sisterhood but her prestigious family can't keep her out of their clutches. So she comes up with the brilliant plan to head off on her own and join the military under an assumed name (Max). Women aren't allowed to serve in the military (and that is my one quibble with this book - it's fiction and a fight to save humanity - let's get some women on horses with swords!).

While in training, Lynn/Max meets young, small Squib. His parents are long dead but his aunt and uncle raised him on their dirt farm but forgot to use love and tenderness and instead went for the verbal abuse and head-slapping routine. Squib wasn't sad to be conscripted into the military. The two bond over shared harassment from Darius and his gang. Things come to blows and there's namecalling, blood, and punishment.

I totally fell in love with Squib and Lynn. I was rooting for them through the whole book. Later when the stakes are raised, I even come to understand Darius a bit and want him to succeed, because, hey, even jerks can be great at lopping off ghoul heads.

To follow up with the lack of women in the military, there are only a few female characters in the book but they are written well and most of the time they add something to the plot. I do wish there were a few more ladies to balance things out a little but I also like the intrigue we glimpse from the Sisterhood. Overall, this is a gripping dystopian with engaging characters. 4.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Hannah Engel gave a really good performance. She had the perfect voice for Lynn/Max, sounding like a young boy and then softening the same voice a little when she speaks as Lynn. I also liked her voice for Squib, another young boy. She also made a really good gruff older man for the training instructor (beard ponytails rock!). Her voice for the 70-year-old Sister, who is full of intrigue, was also very well done. She kept all her character voices distinct. There were no technical issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.
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Gemarkeerd
audiobibliophile | 1 andere bespreking | Feb 20, 2018 |
A fantastic finish to a great trilogy, one that I was not ready to have end. I would love to read more Territory adventures in the future.
 
Gemarkeerd
Shell26 | Jan 25, 2018 |
4.5 stars

I won a Kindle version of Dust over at the wonderful Escape Club YA Bookclub – their first giveaway since moving to Goodreads.

This book is written by Justin Woolley, a graphic novelist venturing forth with A Town Called Dust as his debut novel. Nicely done. The story is rich with complex politics and religious structures, but the heart of it centers around two youths. One is a boy named Squid, a timid, maltreated orphan who’s taken in by his aunt and uncle. They have a remote dirt farm (they literally farm dirt!) near the post apocalyptic outback town called Dust. The other half of this heart belongs to Lynn, a girl raised in the comparative comforts and privilege of Alice, the capital of the known world (that we’ve seen so far).

The genre is Speculative Fiction, the sub-category YA Dystopia, the big bad, zombie- like ghouls. These ‘night of the living dead’ creatures lumber around in hordes and the only thing keeping them from devouring the remainder of the human population is the ‘ghoul proof fence’ that runs forever through the territory, and the Diggers, men (only men) trained to keep the threat back should a breach occur. Which it does. At the start of the story, ghouls break through in plague proportions. The narrative hits the ground running from there, and barely pauses to catch its breath.

It’s a page turning, but that’s not all I love about this book. The world building is strong, the mythology intriguing. Woolley very subtly brings up issues of gender, race, privilege, education and religion without distracting the eye from the story itself. It’s not just Rabbit Proof Fence meets World War Z, though there are actually elements of both, and they work. A Town Called Dust has an emotive core, fueled by our heroes Squid and Lynn, whose responses remain consistently believable, as do their growth arcs.

On critique, two things. One is *POV changes, a hallmark in Fantasy that can be a bit jolting. I know I’m forever looking for ways to make these feel seamless so I acutely watch how others do it. There were times I didn’t want to leave the POV I was in; other times the shift felt absolutely natural. Two, a story world where the ultimate threat is a horde of mindless-flesh-eating-machines posses its own problems. Unless you go the way of Isaac Marion, there’s not a lot of room for a growth arc, change or surprise. Because I like my baddies with a touch of good, and my goodies with a touch of bad, it will be interesting to see if the human antagonists become more complex and unpredictable as the series unfolds. Woolley gives us a taste of this in a minor character we meet along the way, and it’s brilliant.

Published by Momentum of Pan Macmillan Australia, this is a fabulous debut novel. I will definitely be reading Woolley’s next installment in the series!
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Gemarkeerd
KimFalconer | 1 andere bespreking | Jan 29, 2017 |

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Statistieken

Werken
13
Ook door
3
Leden
90
Populariteit
#205,795
Waardering
3.9
Besprekingen
4
ISBNs
16

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