Winter World (The Long Winter) Paperback – June 9, 2019

Winter World (The Long Winter Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Editionby A.G. Riddle (Author) No one does TEOTWAWKI better than AG Riddle. And this is particularly true with the first book of the Long Winter trilogy.As with his other apocalyptic series, Winter World starts with the microcosm. In this case, the stories of James, a scientist who has been wrongly convicted and sent to prison, and Emma, an American astronaut on the ISS when the worst happens. The story builds out from there, and hitting with THE BIG IDEA that isn't explained until the very last 15% of the book. It reminds me of the best Dean Koontz!The story is told in rotating third party points of view, between Emma and James. There are plenty of other characters, from Russian cosmonauts, to sisters of our narrators. The only issue I have is, that despite how well Riddle writes female characters, he fails the Bechdel test. Even when women are the talking to each other on a spaceship, they only talk about James for any length of time. I hope this changes in the next two books!Riddle does an excellent job with the science, giving the feel of a Michael Crichton science thriller. He also manages to explain it on a level for an English/History major like myself to understand.Emma and James are very well-written and their relationship evolves organically. Riddle does a great job ratcheting up the tension between them while keeping them apart, not by environmental factors, but because they are humans who can't see what's right before them. This is also seen in the way they handle the Big Idea.Aliens exist in this series, in fact they are the driving source of how the Long Winter begins. They are stealing our solar energy. And they are truly alien. There is nothing human about them. Well done, sir well done. I've read and watched too many sci-fi stories where the aliens are just humans in lizard skin or some such. This is a totally different alien species with completely un-human drives and reasoning.This is a great TEOTAWKI (The End of the World as We Know it) story that works on all levels – microcosm and macrocosm, on the earth and in space. The characters are well done. The writing and story flow. The secrets of the characters play out at just the right speed. The aliens are delightfully alien.All in all, a fun, tense, exciting read.5 out of 5 – recommend highlyhttps://www.amazon.com/Winter-World-Long-Book-ebook/dp/B07N32K12H/

This was difficult to read, technical skills of the astronauts was off the charts. Of course I'm sure the author didn't expect readers to understand any of it, but managed to keep us interested throughout the story. The end of the world was a pretty compelling reason to keep reading. Won't give any spoilers here, will definitely read the next story.

This review if for all three in the series. Winter World is the first and pretty much stands on its own, but you would be missing a lot if you stop with just one. After reading the first one, I kind of had an idea what the secret was, and as they say 'close but no cigar.' Good character development, actual science here and there, and I especially liked that there were two points of view. The chapters would alternate between each character. This seemed to both answer and pose questions, at least for me. The will for humanity to survive was the core message. The second book teased with the sense of surviving the threat but that was just a teaser. It introduced the need to trust the villain while knowing you cannot trust the villain. The third book basically draws on something that started the first book and revealed there were multiple episodes of the same thing in different times and were not linear. Sort of like time travel or 'Groundhog Day' but not really. With all the hoopla about AI, it gives you something to think about and making machines that are smarter than we are with zero compassion.

Great, apocalyptic sci if. Very timely. Just finished the trilogy.

This book had an interesting premis and a good plot. His characters were engaging. I enjoy this type of science fiction end-of-the world books and this didn't disappoint.

I really enjoyed this story. The story begins with the Earth as we know it in chaos. The international space station is destroyed by an anomaly. Astronauts were on the station to analyze probe data that were sent out in the solar system to detect the causes of, the rapidly increasing frigid temperatures on earth.One of the probes returns data of an artifact near our son that is potentially causing the problem.On earth, NASA and partnering agencies are scrambling to launch a spacecraft to investigate this alien artifact. I really like this story. There’s a lot of excitement, action and mysterious forces that keeps you reading to learn more.I very happy the other two books in this trilogy are already written so I can continue on with this saga tonight.SPOILER ALERT:Although we learn on that, there’s alien technology involved. We don’t learn until later the extent of the Aliens in the Solar System. We know that they are intelligent because they are able to respond to a Fibonacci sequence. And near the closing of the book, the alien communicates with our spacecraft, detailing its reason for being in our solar system the alien being described itself as a grid and says that is the best way to describe themselves in our rudimentary language.I am really excited to read more of this trilogy to learn more about this alien grid.