A Spoiler Free Review
Wow this year is flying by for me! As I mentioned in my last post, I’m in the middle of a nostalgic summer reading list. Find it here. But if you’ll recall, early this year, I named 2024 the Year of the Apocalypse and gave you a list of some of my favorite apocalyptic books as a suggested reading list. (That post is here.) Today I wanted to review one of these books – actually a series of books – that I really enjoyed: Kyla Stone’s Edge of Collapse series.
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a month or two because Kyla Stone impressed me. I believe that Ms. Stone is a self-published author. She writes under Paper Moon Press publishing, but as far as I can tell, it’s her own publishing arm. Normally I’m not a fan of self-published books (despite my own publishing preferences) due to the quality…or lack thereof in so many of these books. However, this series reads as if it’s traditionally published. Hence why I’m doubly impressed with Ms. Stone’s writing.
Overview
Global Perspective
If you’ve read much apocalyptic fiction, you know that each author takes a slightly different approach to the sub-genre. Some authors such as Robert McCammon in Swan Song or Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy portray a very global view of the crisis. They move from character to character, presenting the overall story from successive viewpoints. However, the story’s focus is on the national landscape and how the catalytic event has affected the country and its people as a whole. In stories such as these, individual characters come and go more frequently as we follow their stories and then see many of them meet an untimely demise in the wake of the destruction.
Local Perspective
Other author such as William Forstchen in his One Second After/ John Matherson trilogy (a fourth book is coming in February 2025) take a closer, community focus. In his books, John Matherson, a retired U.S. Army Colonel-turned-college professor of military history, takes the leadership role of a small community in the mountains of North Carolina after an EMP shuts down the U.S. power grid. Though the story is generally told from John’s perspective, the focus is on the local community and the many struggles they face and the means that they employ to survive.
Deeply Personal Perspective
In contrast, Kyla Stone’s novels come in much closer. In this series, she does something I’ve never seen: she pairs a national EMP event with a very intimate thriller. The effect is a series that’s both deeply personal and brimming with suspense.
In the story, Hannah Sheridan, who for the last five years has been held as a prisoner deep in Manistee National Forest in Michigan, walks free when the EMP unlocks the doors of her prison. But she has many things to face before she can even begin to consider the national crisis. First, she’s trying to make it home on foot in the heart of a brutally cold winter. Second, she’s pregnant. And third, the psychopath who kept her a prisoner, is hunting her.
What’s Great
Character
The story itself is riveting, but the thing that stands out even more is Ms. Stone’s ability to craft characters. Her characters are so real and larger than life. They each have very distinct voices and make choices that are consistent with their individual worldviews.
Many of them also change throughout the series. Some change in large ways, others in more subtle ones, but always in a very believable progression as they battle with their circumstances and their inner demons.
Pacing
These stories are never boring. The pacing is neither too fast nor too slow. Rather, the story moves at a gripping level of constant engagement. Readers will find the hair-raising clip of a thriller combined with pauses for reflection, moments of difficult emotion and opportunities for character interaction. Combined with these, Ms. Stone peppers in a fair number of ways in which the citizens of Hannah’s hometown, Fall Creek, learn to live off the grid. Despite that, she maintains the suspense and overall tension throughout the series.
Writing
The Edge of Collapse series isn’t written in a literary style, which may be a relief to some readers or a disappointment to others. That said, this is solid genre fiction. It reads very smoothly and has more character depth and growth than I see in the average thriller. I’d place it somewhere between good genre fiction and upmarket/ literary genre fiction.
That said, it’s very immersive. Ms. Stone has an effortless writing style that grips the reader and asks her to care in such a way that it’s really no question or difficulty at all.
What’s Not So Great
There isn’t much that isn’t great about this series and the only two that I can think of are simply a matter of preference.
The first is that, as I mentioned above, Ms. Stone’s writing style isn’t literary such as that of Justin Cronin’s Passage trilogy or Dan Simmons’s novels (esp. Summer of Night, Carrion Comfort, The Terror). For some readers, that’s a must-have or at least a strong preference. I can’t speak for everyone but I will say that I’m usually one of those people. I strongly prefer literary-quality genre fiction and generally avoid anything else. Still, I really enjoyed this series. It has so much going for it that I’d recommend it even to the literary lovers.
The second is that, again mentioned above, this is a very close/ personal perspective of a national incident. There will be readers who really only enjoy an apocalyptic story that’s portrayed on a larger scale. If that’s you, this isn’t the series for you. However, I’d wager to guess that most apocalyptic readers don’t feel quite as strongly about this one.
Conclusion
I would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys apocalyptic storytelling or thrillers. I was extremely surprised and impressed with Ms. Stone’s ability to hold my attention over seven books.