A Path to Utopia by Jacqueline Druga

👽Spoiler Alert👽

Oh, dystopian books, how I love you, and Jacqueline Druga is my go to dystopian dealer to feed my need for this genre in my life.

Druga resides in the realm amid my favorite authors, though occasionally there exists a modest dissatisfaction displayed in her writing--her characters may emit the feelings of meeting old friends, then the realization occurs--they may be a rehash of recycled individuals.
A Path To Utopia features Robi, a clone of Brett in Torn who's a clone of  Ellen in Beginnings. Druga should abandon this blueprint, and start over fresh--possibly the correct answer is quality instead of quantity.
Though there's one aspect I admire in her female characters--they posses strength, they fight hard and they never surrender to failure. In a disaster, I'd happily join their team to struggle through each hazardous day with them.

Twenty-five percent of the population survives a worldwide catastrophic event, in which the majority of people die, collapsing to the ground, leaving the survivors alone with their fears.
The concept of standing amid a dead populated planet isn't an original idea, though usually the populace finishes an illness to produce the same result as in The Stand by Stephen King. Autumn by David Moody also has the majority of the world drop to their deaths simultaneously, though they eventually rise as zombies. However it happens, the fear would intensify with the supplemented horrors of evil, zombies or aliens, pushing the sanest person to lunacy.

It's amusing to watch the progress of the characters, the clueless creatures struggling to detect the truth. We (the reader) initially perceived the accuracy of the story--patience is required while waiting for their eureka moment.
The same formula happens in horror movies, when a young woman decides to walk up the stairs (or a room, house or the woods) alone. The audience grasps the truth of imminent death, though the women are so young, so innocent and shortly so dead.
Obviously, aliens attacked the earth, yet our group believes it's world war III, though one person, an elderly doctor they travel with, has ascertained the truth. When they realize he's not senile, he relishes his "I told you so" moment.
Mas and Sam, are two unequaled beings in our diminutive group, who can create walkies out of baby jar lids, yet display extreme excitement for a trip to a mall. They're beings from a world that isn't our own, though they wish to assist in our fight. The Calvary travels from their planet to ours, though they will not arrive for one Earth year.

It's my belief that all stories may be enhanced with a few zombies thrown in, though it didn't fit in the story line, Druga threw in a scene with a mob of walkers which created a warm and fuzzy feeling inside my heart.
All in all, a satisfying book, though distinct components appear crude, rehashed, and predictable, I loved it, and recommend it to all dystopian lovers.

Cry by Jacqueline Druga

☆☆☆☆This review contains spoilers☆☆☆☆

Outer Limits meets War Of The Worlds meets The Twilight Zone in this novel of alien suspense.This book has elements of all three--Outer Limits for gore, War Of The Worlds for alien terra-forming the earth and Twilight Zone for the surprise finale.

In War Of The Worlds, it's the germy atmosphere that killed the aliens--human patience would be our greatest quality while waiting for the microbes to perform their job. In Day Of The Triffids, salt water killed the evil, poison plants, though plain water accomplished the trick in Signs. Numerous times exceptional old fashion warfare provides optimal results, though frequently we lose.

The people in Cry don't have a magic solution against the invaders, though they're able to find something the aliens avoid and that's liquor.
This makes a pleasant day for alcoholics! Drink and earn a pass over on one of the alien's drive by searches, stay sober and turn into a disgusting blob.

If aliens destroyed our world by terra-forming and changed the entire ecosystem where the world is imperceptible to humans  and there isn't a large amount of oxygen left for the few survivors--extreme sadness would permeate all humans. Then to find out that the aliens turned our bodies into a bloody mess to fertilize their plants--extreme agonizing anger would infuse our souls as we helplessly watched from hiding places.

The ending arranged a cruel shock for me as I held out hope the aliens demonstrated feelings of remorse. They started taking humans instead of killing them, and I hoped they'd realized too late we're sentient beings.
Correcting their mistake would establish a habitat where humanity could hope to augment an appearance of accustomed existence.
Yes, we would be in a large see-through dome, and yes the aliens would watch us from platforms....wait a minute, I observed this same set up at the zoo in a large gorilla habitat.

Parts of this book are slow and disjointed, occasionally copious amounts of  info appear that we don't need, and regularly there's not enough. I still highly recommend the book--since it took a lengthy amount of time for the entire story to become clear.
You may hear the Leave It To Beaver theme song in your mind while reading the end.

Torn by Jacqueline Druga

Snakes, giant roaches, giant ant piles so large a child could fall in and never recovered, rabid dogs, the black plague plus new viruses, planes falling from the sky, giant sunspots blasting the surface of the earth and a new ice age encroach upon the homo sapiens of the earth. That's the end of my review--enough said!

Perhaps there's a story, roaming around within all these catastrophes, though sadly the telling of this extensive adventure leaves an impressionable abyss of deficiencies. First the myth of the reversal of the poles, causing extreme harm to our ecosystem equals the myth of humans using a limited ten percent of our brains. Yes, there is a reversal of the poles towards the times of extreme millennia, though the damage will be minimum. This isn't the first time speculation of extreme devastation will occur, nor will it be the last, though if there was a remote possibility of this occurrence, Druga has covered all her bases.

Ellen Bret (Bret's character is a cheap knock off of Ellen) and Dare Dare are hardly likable as the leading love interests. Were there components of evident and legitimate feelings emanating from the characters? Me thinks not! Though each character speaks massive amounts of words, sentences and paragraphs-- an ample blank emits from their personalities.

Though her Beginning series can become rather tiresome, I love all of Druga's books. She has a way of showing the best of humanity through the most trying times. The people in this story are smart and witty, but not the compassionate beings they should be. When Darius and Bret are jumping off the plane (with parachutes) and he tells the flight attendant (who will momentarily die due to the plane crashing) a witty quip showing her near demise--I felt disgust for his lack of empathy.

The very ending, which occurs 1500 years into the future was quite funny. An artifact they believe was the ancient people's bible turned out to be The Stand by Stephen King. Through the humor presents the fact that bits and pieces of society from ancient times don't always tell the full story.
Plus there is a sadness that all the work completed to protect the future of humanity is lost, and no one will ever know the sadness and sacrifice the people in the book suffered through, it's all but a puff of smoke in the past.

When The Ashes Fall by Jacqueline Druga

If by chance a major disaster wipes out a massive percentage of the population--the evil in countless humans will run rampant. Warlords will seize power resulting in endless beings suffering at their hands. People who were rather decent before the catastrophe will become savage with greed for themselves or their families. Kindness and honesty may be just words from our past, and instead of helping each other, humans will turn back time to the dark ages.

Knowing all of these predictions could come true, the cruelty in some books becomes troublesome, that's one reason Druga's books and I get along famously. She writes often regarding the exemplary behavior of people during dark periods of humankind's worst nightmares.

The story centers on a woman named Abby and her two daughters who travel to the city to have an amusing day. On the way home, she drives into a large tunnel when suddenly a nuclear bomb hits the city they just left. Several survivors find a smaller tunnel into a mountain that keeps them away from the fallout, and for a brief while they're safe.

They must leave the tunnel eventually, plus their hearts are yearning to travel to a husband and son still at home. Along the way, each person met shows compassion (except one unknown assailant in the story for just a few lines), now that's the world I would love to be in if events turn to devastation.

Druga's books are always effortless to read, and the only problem I find with them--they eventually must come to a conclusion.

Beyond The Wall by Jacqueline Druga

This is the third book in the long series called "Beginnings." Our old favorites are back: Dean, Ellen, Frank, Joe, George and many more, but we find out that one of these people is a terrible traitor who never cared about anyone else in Beginnings.
I'm not going to say who it is, but it was a real shock when it happened, since I always want people to be good and kind, and turn from evil.

This is by no means as good as the first book called The Silent Victor, which I couldn't put down until I read the entire story. I love hate Ellen, actually I really dislike her a lot, while continuing to like her. I'm so confused!
In the real world, I have never respected anyone who sleeps with another person's spouse, or sleeps around while married, and this describes the person that Ellen is, at least part of the time.

Frank is really becoming more understanding and mellow, and I like him much more. I think characters in stories should grow and become wiser and more self-aware.
It rarely happens in the real world, so we should at least see in books. I'm starting to appreciate his character much more.

Dean and Joe are exactly the same, and George gets kidnaped by the enemy.
So which one of these people never cared, and always had a secret agenda? I guess you will need to read the book to find out.
I'm going to start the fourth book soon called Circle of Justice, and hopefully one day I will read all twenty plus books.

H5N1 Code Name: Greed by Jacqueline Druga
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love books containing apocalypses of the world--zombie, alien, contagions, meteors striking earth and massive earthquakes or volcanoes, and Jacqueline Druga is supplying my need for these types of books.
This is my third book to read from this author, and even though she will never be remembered as an outstanding author in the annals of time, her characters are likable and we feel great empathy for them. I can't wait to read all her extensive library of books.
The title of this book is a giveaway what the story is about, and it is told from the prospective of one woman who believes she may be the last woman on earth. As she fights loneliness and the crazies who are on the loose trying to kill her, she thinks back on how it all began and how she came to now.
Great book.

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