Gaming and reality have blurred....
Claudia is a survivor in THE AFTERMATH. She and her small band stay alive by embarking on raids into the dens of flesh-eaters (cannibals) and stealing their supplies. Each mission gains her prestige, but is Claudia just a pawn of someone else? Claudia senses another world lurks just beyond her realm, one in which she is at the mercy of a gamer whose plans are unknown to Claudia. Will Claudia trust the stranger named Declan when he tells her he is a game moderator and can help her escape?
THE AFTERMATH is an intriguing glimpse into how the world would appear from the eyes of a character in a video game. Jen Alexander does a marvelous job at blending the two worlds together, as we see glimpses of reality as Claudia begins to awaken to the fact that more lurks just beyond the edges of THE AFTERMATH.
THE AFTERMATH is a very different type of dystopian novel and fans of video games in particular will enjoy THE AFTERMATH as it reads like a video game. I could easily envision the scenes as they would appear in a video game and would be intrigued if Jen Alexander were to translate this into an actual game. Kudos to Jen Alexander for the ingenuity of THE AFTERMATH!
Sometimes, I dream that I'm someone else. A girl with dark hair who doesn't worry about hunger or thirst or running from flesh-eaters. In her world, those sorts of things don't exist…. Since the spring of 2036, when the world changed forever, Claudia and a small clan of survivors have roamed the streets of a very altered Nashville—polluted and desolate, except for the ever-present threat of cannibals. Together they must undergo punishing tests of endurance and psychological challenge—sometimes with devastating consequences—all just to live another day. With food and water in dwindling supply, and with danger lurking around every corner, no one can be trusted. And as her world starts to make less and less sense, Claudia begins to realize something terrifying: she is just a pawn in some sort of game, and all of her actions are being controlled from afar by a mysterious gamer. So when she meets a maddening and fascinating outsider named Declan, who claims to be a game moderator, she must decide whether to join him in exchange for protection and access to the border. If they play the game right, they are each other's best hope for survival—and a life beyond the only world Claudia's ever known: the terrifying live-action game known as The Aftermath.
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