Thursday, November 8, 2012

Chasers (Alone #1) by James Phelan

First let me thank Netgalley and I'd like to thank the publisher, but for some reason I can no longer find this book on Netgalley, not even just to post my feedback.  I'm still having some issues with the new Netgalley I guess.  This is actually a book that was first published a couple years ago.  I never heard of it, but it fits in well with a lot of the popular apocalyptic/zombie craze that is going on right now.  In this book though, the zombies are not the main part of the story.  And it's still not quite sure what is the cause of the end of the world situation.  
Our main character is Jesse.  He is in the US from Australia as part of a junior UN kind of thing.  The story starts out with them on the subway in NYC headed back with the group.  Jesse and his 3 friends, Anna, Dave, and Mini, are separated from the rest of the group in one car back from the others.  In their car are some guys who look like gang members, and so Jesse is a little nervous about that.  All of a sudden there is a big explosion that shakes the subway car and they see a huge fireball chasing them down the tunnel.  When Jesse wakes up, it seems as if everyone else is dead on the subway train.  He does walk past one of the gang members and sees that he has a gun laying on the floor by his hand, fortunately the guy is dying, so unable to use it.  Jesse and his friends seem to have made it and so they get out of the train, worried that another car may be coming along and slam into them.  But once they make it to the station, they find it's worse than they thought.  They see their teacher, only to see him drinking from puddles of water on the ground.  And soon they see other people doing this.  And then these people start drinking from bleeding people lying around after the catastrophe.  Dave is from NYC, and so he suggests after seeing all the buildings that are just falling, and the cars just piled up in the streets, that they should go to the 30 Rock building, because it is tall enough they can get a good view around the city to see what is happening.  They're hoping that at some point they'll run into other survivors camped out with help.  Unfortunately this doesn't happen.  All they see are more of these messed up people, that they decide to call Chasers, since that is what they do when they see you.
They stay camped out very high up for awhile.  They get quite comfortable.  Going through the apartments below the restaurant they're staying in.  While they are there they try to make plans on what to do.  At one point Jesse goes out exploring to see where they might be able to escape to.  Finally, they decide they must leave, and look for others.  This happens one night when Jesse sees lights over in New Jersey.  When Dave went exploring, he supposedly saw that they could get to the Boat Basin and get out on a boat.  So they set out.  But still must brave the dangers of the Chasers, and the winter weather.  Not to mention buildings just falling, seemingly for no reason whatsoever.  I won't give away the ending, but man, a big shocker, reminds me in a way of The Raft by S.A. Bodeen.   Glad to know it's a series, as I need to know what happens next!  We don't find out what caused all of this, so I'm hoping that will be in the next books.
I have to admit one thing that I really enjoyed was all the stuff about NYC.  As I spent two weeks there this past summer when I went to BEA and to visit my sister, I love reading about places I've been.  Really good book.  Glad they're bringing it back out to make it more publicized with all the interest in this area these days.