Blood Honor (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - The Day After Never

An intriguing apocalyptic tale - an exciting and creative story. Fast reading. Finished first book and immediately ordered the 2nd; now ready for the 3rd. The protagonist is a "good guy," but not goody-goody. I will surely read more Russell Blake.

Russell Blake takes the post-apocalyptic genre by storm with The Day After Never – Blood Honor, a relentlessly paced, exquisitely crafted story of survival and redemption in a hellacious landscape forged after the fall of mankind. Blake hits the right dystopian notes from the very start, catapulting the reader into an unforgiving world: part Mad Max, part Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and part Magnificent Seven.

Each superhero has a moment that defines them. Batman has his parents deaths for example, as does Superman and so on. One moment so emotional that they become defined by that moment which sets their story and actions. This book simply has that. It's not an easy one, as such moments must be to set a character on their journey to revenge, or atonement among other possible reactions. A moment made more poignant by the fact that the hero of the book is but a simple man just trying to endure in the 5 years after the end of his world as he and the rest of the surviving world once knew it. His awakening is just one part of what makes this thought provoking, adventurous beginning to a trilogy a most worthy read. The world building grabs your attention and doesn't let you go, to the point where questions of the fragility of our own society starts to make you wonder.

Definitely a switch from Mr. Blake's previous works. At times, I had to remind myself that I was reading a story set in the future and not a Wild Wild West story set in the 19th Century. I enjoyed the characters and the setting, and the story flowed well. Mr. Blake is, indeed, a master storyteller.
The down side was the length. The book was way too short and the ending was disappointing.

Renee Benzaim, Writer
Det. Annie Avants, KCSO series

Having read a couple of Russell Blake's books referred by another author, David Van Dyke I didn't hesitate to buy this one. I was not disappointed. What a read, very fast but covering a seemingly impossible amount of information so quickly that I had to re-read to make sure of it. My only disappointment was the end, I'll have to buy another book. Oh well, I've pre-ordered Book II . When I finished it last night on my tablet while going to sleep, I simply started another book that I had been saving for a treat. Great author, excellent writing!

Wow! Fantastic! Thrilling, engaging, page turning! I am not a big apocalyptic fan but am a big Russell Blake fan. This was realistic (scarily so) and engaging! Can't wait for the next one and the one after that! Glad that we don't have to wait too long! Great story, fantastically written and leaves you wanting more. Well done!

Russell Blake is a born storyteller with a keen imagination...on that score, you'll get no argument from me. The fact that I am not a fan of the western-type apocolyptic yarn and read Blake's version, says a lot. However, a couple of things began to bother me. Some of it Blake's fault, some of it his editor's lack of attention.

The major decline, in my experience, came when the villain was introduced. The fact that we have waited half the story to get a glimpse of the head honcho in charge of the cartel makes his late appearance rather important. We've waited for this moment. Then the story suddenly stopped while Blake "told" the audience a lot of details instead of "showing" them about the bad guy in the form of actual scenes. I can be forgiving, but as the story progressed, the hero taking out several more of the bad guy's men, we come back to the villain once again, only to have Blake "tell" us that when the hero did this (recapping what just happened), the villain became annoyed, and when the hero did that, the villain really got angry. The villain then turns to the guy sitting at his table and says they really need to kill this guy--in so many words. And I wondered why the recap couldn't have been talked about in actual conversation between these two...the lackey catching the villain up on what the hero did, visibly "showing" the building up of anger in the villain...rather than being told about it. Or just skip the recap altogether, since we know what happened and show the villain's reaction to these events through an action. It left me with a feeling that Blake didn't clearly see his own villain. And if he could, he failed to give the reader much in terms of a character development, just a cardboard despot who headed up a gang that did terrible things and considered himself their Messiah...or so we are told.

The other disappointing area, coming under the heading of poor editing, was in the form of lousy sentence structure that should have been spotted with several pairs of eyes reading the story. For example: the hero "walks into the room and hears a faint cry from the other side of the room." And, "Looks at the building that has burn marks from where raiders torched the building." Using the subject of the sentence twice in a single sentence might well happen to any writer in a hurry to crank out a first draft, might even escape their notice in a read through--but where is the editor's eyes here? I fear this editor is one of those grammarical types who is not very strong in craft. And if they are claiming to understand it, while not pointing out these errors--well, I just don't believe their craft or vocabulary skills are very formidable.

I will not continue with this series. I will also hope, for Blake's sake, that it gets better because he's a fairly imaginative guy on the whole. This one just got a bit too sloppy and cliched for my liking. And yet, all those five star ratings...wow!

Well - the author can spin a yarn but the telling was a tad drawn out in parts, as he seemed to keep thinking up new angles just to make the book longer. BUT - the most annoying part is that the story has no ending: it just stops as though the author was tired of it all and gave up.....

The story seemed to have potential, but the main characters constant lecturing on preparedness and the author's apparent belief that horses can carry unlimited weight for hours proved so distracting that I quickly stopped caring. I mean, a grown man in full body armor, an automatic weapon, another rifle, five gallon buckets of water (that's plural multiple 5 gallon buckets), food, a tent, and a crossbow that's in a saddlebag. Apparently the smallest crossbow in the world, or the biggest saddlebag, one of the two. Add in an unconscious woman and multiple captured rifles and ammo being pulled behind and it's completely unrealistic.

Slow, and formula based. . There was a forced ending to make a new book or so I am guessing, money over a story. , It stopped after a final shoot out, without a true end. . This book was very unsatisfying. The advance read from book two was not tied to the story line easily. I will not be buying the next book.

Slow, and formula based. . There was a forced ending to make a new book or so I am guessing, money over a story. , It stopped after a final shoot out, without a true end. . This book was very unsatisfying. The advance read from book two was not tied to the story line easily. I will not be buying the next book.

I'm a very picky dystopian consumer and knowing that this was a Russell Blake book which is typically action and thriller I was skeptical. I'm glad that I didn't listen to myself and went on the recommendation of two authors I really like, Hugh Howey and Steven Konkoly and tried this book. It was an interesting mix of a western, dystopian and thriller which I enjoyed. I couldn't put the book down and think I must have read it in 2 days.
I did have a little trouble keeping up with the bad guys, who is who and who belongs to which gang, but that's possibly because I was reading too fast to focus on that information. I also don't like a lot of gun descriptions, I know enough about guns to know which ones are big and little and sometimes some novels go into way too much detail about weapons used. I liked that this story makes note of which guns are being used but doesn't beat us over the head with a virtual manual of weapons thrown into a fiction book.
The characters are well developed, I didn't see the twist coming which I really appreciate, and I was invested in the secondary characters to grieve when things went bad.
Overall, while I borrowed this book from my KU account I will be buying the second book because I can't wait to find out what happens to Lucas, Ruby, Sierra and Eve.

I read this through the Kindle Unlimited program. The Author is Russell Blake. I will cross post this to MobileRead.com.

This is a very good post apocalyptic novel with a twist. The apocalypse doesn't happen because of nuclear war or alien invasion. Instead it's a series of events that by themselves don't mean very much and would be quite survivable as a single event.

Instead the apocalypse is triggered by two things occurring at the same time, first a pandemic hits, which was survivable. But it happens at the same time as a severe global economic recession, limiting the world's ability to respond. This, in turn, triggers other minor failures in our global civilization. The world as we know it, doesn't end because of a catastrophe, it ends because it runs out of physical and spiritual energy.

The story takes place in Texas and eastern New Mexico. The cities are run by vicious gangs who tolerate no opposition; while smaller communities and the rural people try to carry on as best they can by paying tribute to the gangs and fighting off bandits who make inter-community commerce all but impossible.

Our Hero,Lucas Shaw, is a former Texas Ranger living with his grandfather on a ranch outside a small rural village. He earns his living by capturing wild horses and scavenging what he can out in the wild and selling what he finds to either a heavily armed trading post or the people of the village.

The story opens when the Lucas, comes across the remains of a travelling party clearly set upon by bandits. Apparently, the party was trained well enough, and armed well enough that they killed or chased off the bandits, but at the cost their own lives.

As Lucas sets about scavenging the weapons, ammunition, water and food, he encounters a lone survivor who is severely wounded. A young woman in her early twenties who is very close to death.

This sets off a chain of events, for the first half of the book at least, that sort of mirrors the apocalypse itself. Individually, the events are not noteworthy, but they lead to an interesting revelation about mid way through the book.

Since it is part apocalyptic novel, part western, and part a 'warning' to the rest of us about the nature of civilization, I was a bit reluctant to download the book. I was afraid that the author wouldn't be able to adequately keep the focus of the book.

But in a frenzy of needing something to read, I did download it, and I'm glad I did. The author very skillfully weaves the three genres together into a very satisfying whole.

It ain't great art, but it IS a very satisfying read. I most definitely will read the rest of the volumes in the series.

The Day After Never: Blood Honor is the first Russell Blake book that I've read and if this is the quality of literature he's putting out, I'll be back for more. In this dystopian novel that never lets up, we meet a man, a hard man, five years after the collapse of civil society following a world wide sickness and financial collapse. What we find is that the worst of humanity is spreading like a locust, eating up the light, the pieces of humanity who are fighting to come back.

Taking place in the southern United States and Mexico, the book is like a modern western, only not. Gone are the days of vehicles, gasoline, and the niceties of life we have all come to expect. Plopped in the middle of a desolate land, people barter and trade for survival. Into that landscape we find Lucas, an honorable man who has known both pain, and sorrow, and now finds himself smack in the middle between warring gangs. It's the story of a long ride from his own demons, to a place where he can see redemption on the horizon.

There is never a time when the plot lags or is predictable. The pace if fast, and the characters keep up with the movement. Mr. Blake builds in suspense like few others as everyone faces the horrible underside of humanity again and again. There are scenes where we see the man Lucas used to be, his regrets, and his developing need to do it right for once. There are supporting characters who help him on the way. The cast of support is a broad spectrum of the types of people you would expect in this situation, and some you wouldn't. There is an air of mystery surrounding the final scenes that actually caught me off guard, but were brilliantly crafted.

Overall, this is an excellent book, and I'm so glad that there is one that is post apocalyptic that is both raw and gritty, while telling a good tale. Highly recommend this book. If you love westerns; if you love good characters; if you love a great story...this is the book for you!

Another great start to a new series by the author of the awesome 'JET' series! This was a new adventure that showed a brutal and unforgivable world after the devastating effects of a wicked pandemic and a total economic/financial collapse.

Lucas, a former Texas Ranger now lives a life of simplicity with his grandfather on a ranch in New Mexico. The country has reverted to bartering and trading and he spends his time tracking and rounding up the wild mustangs that roam the desolate land. Always cautious and ever vigilant, he is careful to avoid the attention of gangs and Raiders. When he discovers the remnants of a battle and only a single wounded survivor, he makes the decision to help her. What doesn't occur to him is that a small good deed will quickly bring chaos to his life. Who exactly is this survivor? And who is relentlessly looking for her? And why?.....

Mr. Blake continue with his wild and non-stop pace of action in this story. It is invigorating, heart-wrenching, and addictive! It's extremely hard to put it down, even for a second! An amazing story and I'm eager for the second book, 'Purgatory Road'. Well done!

Why equip the crew with AKs after they've captured armories stocked with ARs plus ammo for same. We purchase and stockpile ammo for OUR weapons not other countries. Where did you plan to get all that ammo for the AKs? I'm sure all those men in both the Army and Marine Corps are really disappointed at all that time they spent learning to lay, align and fire their mortars could have been learned with a five minute brief. Of course if our hero is a Texan then that explains everything.Oh and I love his horse you should have named him BULLETPROOF. There were several times where you used the words CLIP and MAGAZINE interchangeably. They really are not the same thing. I'm sure some will find me picky but you really need someone to proof read this stuff better. With that all said I will admit you are a gifted storyteller and that is a rare talent. For all my griping I'll still continue to read and buy your books.

Russell Blake won my heart with "Jet". I read ALL of those installments and was not disappointed. This new venture, is just as action packed, with outstanding descriptions of local, methods, equipment, and faults. Damn, I love this writer!!!! His descriptions of the action reminds me a lot of Louis L'Amour, as his descriptive prose is so good it gives your mind's-eye a visual picture of all the circumstance. Great stuff and I will be reading the rest of the installments. Russell -- you are the best, my friend!! B|

Post-apocalyptic fiction with a believable and interesting premise that takes place in the southwestern united states. Good world building, fair character development especially of the silent alpha hero and some of the secondary characters. The story flowed well, although a bit slowly due to the need to not only world build but develop the back story. Some twists and turns but nothing outstanding. Did not appreciate the cliff hanger at the end.

The brief intro book to a new series with cliff hanger ending seems to be the new trend, with the next book in the series about 6 weeks away. Each book in the series will not be a full length feature and will be almost $4.00 or $5.00. I find this new trend to be a real turn off to wanting to continue the series. I feel like authors are finding ways to stick it to their readers and I for one do not appreciate it at all. Shame on you Mr. Blake and shame on any number of your more well known colleagues who have apparently jumped on this band wagon before you. Not sure I will continue buying either your books or some of the other authors who have recently "dipped their toes" into this new pool! For all of these reasons I rated the book at 3.

Blake has an interesting approach to a possible "end time" scenario, His story picks up after the event has taken place. The story begins after a large amount people have died. The survivors are now settled in or regrouped in some type of environment that suits their skill set. As always you have the cartel and power hunger men taking away the little folks have accumulated. Blake the hero in the book has a romance that is skillfuly woven through the story that causes more trouble than I think it was worth. It was interesting read and as always I picked up a few ideas of how to be prepared.