A review
The Last Ship by William Brinkley
614 pages. Published by Plume in 2014.
Science Fiction – Post Apocalyptic – War
Synopsis:
The unimaginable has happened. The world has been plunged into all-out nuclear war. Sailing near the Arctic Circle, the U.S.S. Nathan James is relatively unscathed, but the future is grim and Captain Thomas is facing mutiny from the tattered remnants of his crew. With civilization in ruins, he urges those that remain–one-hundred-and-fifty-two men and twenty-six women–to pull together in search of land. Once they reach safety, however, the men and women on board realize that they are earth’s last remaining survivors–and they’ve all been exposed to radiation. When none of the women seems able to conceive, fear sets in. Will this be the end of humankind?
My thoughts:
This sounded like it had so much potential. Rebuilding after an apocalyptic event, yes please… but it was just a slog. There was very little of the rebuilding aspect of the story. I ended up having to skim the majority of the book while listening to the audiobook to get through it, and I only did that (would have DNFed) because I chose it as a double prompt for the Reindeer Readathon and due to mo big did not have any other choices that would have coved both to switch to.
It wasn’t all bad. The first 100 or so pages kept my attention, this is where they found and started farming an island that was able to sustain human life, but quickly went down from there. There was a mystery that was buried in the slog, but all said it lasted maybe for a chapter and was pretty predictable once you realized that it was there.
So, no, not a recommendation.
My rating: 2⭐️
Sarah Overbooked 