Soft Apocalypse
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Narrated by:
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Erik Davies
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By:
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Will McIntosh
About this listen
What happens when resources become scarce and society starts to crumble? As the competition for resources pulls America's previously stable society apart, the "New Normal" is a Soft Apocalypse. This is how our world ends; with a whimper instead of a bang.
"It's so hard to believe," Colin said as we crossed the steaming, empty parking lot toward the bowling alley. "What?" "That we're poor. That we're homeless." "I know." "I mean, we have college degrees," he said. "I know," I said.
There was an ancient miniature golf course choked in weeds alongside the bowling alley. The astroturf had completely rotted away in places. The windmill had one spoke. We looked it over for a minute (both of us had once been avid mini golfers), then continued toward the door. "By the way," I added. "We're not homeless, we're nomads. Keep your labels straight."
New social structures and tribal connections spring up across America, as the previous social structures begin to dissolve. Soft Apocalypse follows the journey across the Southeast of a tribe of formerly middle-class Americans as they struggle to find a place for themselves and their children in a new, dangerous world that still carries the ghostly echoes of their previous lives.
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The fight for water in a drought fueled apocalypse
- By Lore on 09-24-15
By: Paolo Bacigalupi
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The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
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My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
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Bleeding Violet
- By: Dia Reeves
- Narrated by: Suzy Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna's tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas, in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. She discovers secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she's far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen, and no one is safe.
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Didn't like it. Sorry, not sorry
- By Cii'Em on 02-15-16
By: Dia Reeves
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Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse
- By: Victor Gischler
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Edgar Award nominee Victor Gischler “specializes in morbid humor, dark sarcasm, and comic noir, complete with violence and mayhem” ( Library Journal). Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse picks up 10 years after the end of the world. Former insurance salesman Mortimer Tate leaves his secluded cabin and discovers a desolate landscape complete with cowboys, bandits, and cannibals, where the only traces of civilization are found at Joey Armageddon’s Sassy-a-Go-Go club.
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Post-apocalypse with a touch of old west thrown in
- By Michelle on 04-17-12
By: Victor Gischler
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Black Marks
- By: Pete Aldin
- Narrated by: Travis Baldree
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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No good deed goes unpunished. Detroit is a hole where even a werewolf's sins can be buried. Or so Jake Brennan hopes. Hiding from his hunters, shooting heroin to negate the effect of the full moon, he is beginning to turn things around. And the day he is witness to a brutal attack on ER doctor Gwen Cheevey, Jake is forced to transform into something new: a hero. But when a clip of his good deed goes viral, Jake's days of hiding are over. To keep Gwen safe, Jake will need to embrace the beast within.
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Black Marks Absolved
- By Spooky Mike on 05-16-18
By: Pete Aldin
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The New Hunger
- A Warm Bodies Novella
- By: Isaac Marion
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The end of the world didn't happen overnight. After years of war, societal breakdown, freak storms, and rising tides, humanity already hovered near the edge. Then came the most unexpected threat of all: the world's corpses rising up to deliver the final blow.
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Not worth more than $1.00 or so
- By cristina on 11-20-15
By: Isaac Marion
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The Unnoticeables: A Novel
- The Vicious Circuit, Book 1
- By: Robert Brockway
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl, Emily Foster, Scott Merriman
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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There are angels, and they are not beneficent or loving. But they do watch over us. They watch our lives unfold, analyzing us for repeating patterns and redundancies. When they find them, the angels simplify those patterns and remove the redundancies, and the problem that is "you" gets solved.
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Left wanting
- By Michelle L. Baron on 08-08-15
By: Robert Brockway
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Gone
- Gone Series, Book 1
- By: Michael Grant
- Narrated by: Kyle McCarley
- Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents - unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers - that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world.
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Please rerelease this book w new narration
- By Kim on 02-12-17
By: Michael Grant
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The Breakers Omnibus
- Books 1-3 and Prequel Novella
- By: Edward W. Robertson
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 42 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Books 1-3 and the prequel novella of the Breakers series.
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So glad I downloaded this one.
- By Stevie Havoc on 11-16-15
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I Am Not a Serial Killer
- John Cleaver, Book 1
- By: Dan Wells
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. He's obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn't want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he's written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation. Dead bodies are normal to John. They don't demand or expect the empathy he's unable to offer. Perhaps that's what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there's something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat - and to appreciate what that difference means.
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WRONG CATEGORY - THIS IS NOT A MYSTERY
- By guy on 02-27-19
By: Dan Wells
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Cold City
- Repairman Jack: Early Years Trilogy, Book 1
- By: F. Paul Wilson
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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If you've never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It's 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan's rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he'll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.
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Fun, as long you don't think too much
- By Andrew Pollack on 01-17-14
By: F. Paul Wilson
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The Beast of Barcroft
- By: Bill Schweigart
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Ben McKelvie believes he's moving up in the world when he and his fiancée buy a house in the cushy Washington, DC, suburb of Barcroft. Instead he's moving down - way down - thanks to Madeleine Roux, the crazy neighbor whose vermin-infested property is a permanent eyesore and looming hazard to public health. First Ben's fiancée leaves him; then his dog dies, apparently killed by a predator drawn into Barcroft by Madeleine's noxious menagerie. But the worst is yet to come for Ben.
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Just Bearable
- By Nancy Chilton-Kendrick on 06-18-17
By: Bill Schweigart
What listeners say about Soft Apocalypse
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sarda
- 09-06-11
Very good story
This is a coming of age story, set in a possible future, one where none of us would like to visit. The author puts us inside the narrator and we see the world he sees. Since it is his world, he feels no need to fully explain it or try to tell how it came about. I think anyone who is aware of the problems we now have and what is coming slowly to us, will not need to have things explained. We see these things happening all around us.
The story is simple, but effective. And frightening. It comes to us, as all things do, one step at a time.
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5 people found this helpful
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- cgstitcher
- 08-18-15
Takes Lots of Chances
One thing that took me a while to get used to was the deliberate use of an unlikeable protagonist. It always felt like he should step up to the plate and be a better friend, a more authentic person, someone with values, but he just didn't have it in him.
I listened to this quite a while ago, though, and a lot of weird, vivid scenes are flooding back to me as I recall the bizarre hero's journey. So it obviously made an impression.
There was an instance of animal violence that went too far for me, to the point of sullying my overall enjoyment of the book. (And this was not even the grossest part of the story, when the protagonist gets mugged by some insurgents. That, I actually admired in its nastiness.)
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- serialnumber55
- 02-17-13
If only the bamboo were edible!
Any additional comments?
The end of the world, according to this novel, is not a whimper, but a long series of whimpers punctuated with occasional hope and a final resigned leap. As the ordinary expectations of life slowly drain away into drawn-out misery, revolutionary geniuses construct a scenario that may not be much better. Highly recommended.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Roger
- 04-02-13
Refreshing take
A different view on how society could deteriorate. An easy listen that's not really too far fetched. Sure this book had a few corny parts, but the girlfriend thing wasn't as bad as some reviews make it out to be. It's a decent non-violent (for the most part) apocalyptic story.
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5 people found this helpful
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- R. Hilton
- 07-02-17
Not your typical dystopian story.
This tale revolves around interpersonal relationships more than most stories of the genre. Can an art major learn to recognize threats and deal with them? Does love matter if you live without an expectation of a life together? What does hope look like in a hopeless world? A good read.
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- Pam
- 07-18-12
What happens when the money runs out
This story is sad, violent, realistic, sad, and sad. In a future where society collapses not because of zombies, or a terrible disease, or a war, but because of economic ruin -- there's not much to be cheery about. But I found "Soft Apocalypse" to be an intriguing take on the sci-fi dystopia. People do things to survive that they are not proud of. Yet they try to cling to the sense of self they had before the collapse, and they strive to find a "normal" life... Somewhere.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Mike
- 10-09-12
Still thinking about it...
What made the experience of listening to Soft Apocalypse the most enjoyable?
I think that listening to this book as the Presidential Election draws nearer really seems to make the storyline plausible... Following the daily news I felt the story actually was pertinent as a warning on the choices we make today...
Who was your favorite character and why?
I did enjoy the Main Character because he wasn't a "Superman" but seems average. I enjoyed the "believability" of his actions and consequences as they related to this story.
What does Erik Davies bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Erik Davies helped the story along by not over-doing the different voices... which can really detract from a great book if not done right.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
"Not with a Bang...but with a whimper..."
Any additional comments?
Its not the Best Book, its not the Best Story...its not even the most plausible storyline. But it is a GOOD book, well written, with solid Characters and more than enough thought provocation on the subjects it touched upon that I still find myself thinking about this book almost daily. To me, that's money well spent.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-16-23
Interesting concept
This is more of a societal collapse and it’s compelling for sure. How would you live if all the rules changed in a short amount of time?
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- Michelle
- 01-20-15
Apocalypse is gradual, not sudden.
When you have read as many post-apocalypse books as I have, you begin to look for books that do something different. Most apocalyptic events depicted are sudden. EMP, nuclear war, asteroid impact, zombie virus, pandemic that gets out of hand. In this book we get a "soft apocalypse." In other words, it is gradual. A combination of malnutrition, and related viruses, environmental degradation, economic collapse, rising unemployment, and Genetic engineerring gone wrong, cause the eventual apocalypse. Over a period of several years, a group of ordinary people learn to adapt and survive in a gradually declining world. I highly recommend this book to all of my fellow apocalypse fans out there.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jeff Koeppen
- 08-18-24
Believable Dystopian Adventure
Soft Apocalypse is a good dystopian novel set over a number of years in which a world economic crisis and ensuing depression results in a slow, gradual collapse of civilization. Throw the introduction of some engineered viruses which cause disfigurement, polio-like symptoms, and death, and you have a full-fledged disaster.
The story centers around protagonist Jasper who loses his job and home, and with no income joins with others in his predicament to form a band who try to procure food by selling power from solar power generating gadgets they have. Eventually, the still-employed-with money "haves" turn on the "have-nots" and Jasper and his ilk are shunned and become societal outcasts, even though they are educated, have professional skills, and were previously gainfully employed.
The story takes place in Georgia, mostly Savannah, but also between Savannah and Athens as Jasper and others who are homeless have to keep moving to stay alive as society breaks down and violence and lawlessness settle in, and as the government and law enforcement lose their grip on society. Despite all that is going on around them, Jasper and his band maintain their decency and humanity in as we watch their part of the US collapse.
I thought this was a really believable near-future dystopian novels, more so than many others I've read. I think part of that is how well the author explains how the economy, the energy grid, and social structures collapsed; and, having gone through COVID, us modern folks could buy in to how fast moving viruses more potent than what we dealt with could cause mass casualties and general fear or even hysteria.
Between chapters the novel skips in time, sometimes by months and sometimes by years. I didn't mind this so much but wondered sometimes how Jasper and friends survived over the intervening periods of time with the way things were going out in the world. What caused me to knock my rating of this book down a notch were the hard-to-fathom coincidental bumping in to and rejoining with characters that Jasper was separated or broke up with from earlier in the book, despite having years and (you would think) many miles between them as people were on the move. I won't give any details but one meeting in particular was particularly eye-rolling.
Overall, though, I thought this was a good read. It has a believable plot for the most part, was increasingly dark, and the ending was interesting.
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