Book Review: Until Nothing Remains by C.A. Rudolph

Image taken from the book’s Amazon buy page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.

Spoiler Free Summary:  Until Nothing Remains by C.A. Rudolph is the first volume in the Gunplay series. After married duo assassinates someone they thought was a terrorist, the U.S. experiences a number of terrorist attacks that brings the country to its knees. Two families strive to survive in a world gone mad.

Character:  The characters are fairly proactive, but I’m not sure how sympathetic or competent they are. To be honest, I think these characters are pretty cool, but another issue (see below) really dragged away from these characters.

Exposition: There was simply far too much of this. There isn’t a lot of gunplay (or any sort of action) in this book. We’re told a lot happened. We’re told it was epic and scary. However, we don’t see but a few snippets of any of these incredible events. It almost felt like the author pointedly cut away from the action just as it was starting. Every time I thought I was going to see a fight scene, the author cut to a different character or simply jumped forward in time. At one point, one of the main characters is injured and bleeding, and we only get a summary of how the injury happened, and we’re given that in a summary of exposition. This book at far too much tell and not nearly enough show. What should have been a great action book full of evasion, espionage, carnage, and action was instead full of monologues about guy laws and life histories that were also interesting, but we only get to hear about it rather than see (let alone experience).

Image of Rudolph was taken from is Amazon author page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.

Dialogue: This wasn’t too bad. There were a lot of “let me explain how this happened” conversations, which admittedly happens in most books, but there were also solid character driven conversations. Honestly, with all the exposition, it just dragged everything else down. If you try to filter through that exposition, the character and dialogue starts to stand out.

Description:  I will say this, when we do get to see things, they’re well-described. Rudolph does a great job of dropping in descriptive beats that really give depth to an environment and fill out the characters in my mind.

World Building: Given that this is based in the modern U.S. and (so far) doesn’t have a ton of fantasy elements or large scifi aspects, this category doesn’t really apply.  If I were going to read more from the series (which I won’t), I’d expect this world to evolve as society and other parts of the world change given the events in this story.

Overall: This book is based on a really cool concept, but the story is dragged down in exposition of what happened rather than showing the events. It didn’t have the action I expected, and that left me a bit disappointed. 

Thanks for reading

Matt

The 2018 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Bracket Starts Now!

Hello all!

I’ve been building to this for quite some time, and I’m so excited to kick things off. This is it! Twelve Book Covers of the Month join four Wild Card Book Covers to comprise a sixteen-book tournament to determine which one will rule them all!

If you like, you can take a look at each book cover’s winning announcement: December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November.

365 book covers. 53,047 votes. All leading to this tournament! The covers were ranked 1-16 by the number of total votes each received. That means the cover that received the most votes (Until Nothing Remains) is going up against the Wild Card that received the fewest votes. (Age of War), and so on and so forth.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

It’s been fun! I’d like to end this tournament on a high note. I’m trying to get 10,000 total votes. Please, tell everyone. Get people to vote. I want this trophy to mean something, and it’ll frankly mean more as more people vote.

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Announcing the October Book Cover of the Month

Hello everyone,

We’ve just wrapped up another month. We’re now one bracket away from the Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Round!

We had 4,983 votes this month. This was one of the stronger months, and that was because one author came out with a much stronger following. It’s still great to see anyone get so much support. It was a run-away month to be honest, but that just means the bracket for the Book Cover of the Year should be amazing!

The October Book Cover of the Month is…

 

Until Nothing Remains by C.A. Rudolph! If you’re curious about how I felt about the book, check out the Facebook post that I posted when this book first landed on the bracket, here.

Let’s look at the stats!

Rudolph  received 786 total votes!

As runners up, Unrelenting Tide by Alexa Dare and Into the Fire by K. Gorman get a second chance to claim the title in November’s bracket.

But for now, let’s look at this month’s winner!

Amazon:

(START BLURB)

The United States has experienced its share of turmoil over the years.

Although not particularly war-torn or stricken with genocide and violent crime as other nations, over time, gun violence and terror attacks have become commonplace on American soil.

Never before has the United States been subjected to widespread, coordinated terrorist attacks, devastating enough to bring the entire nation to its knees. Until now.

In this first volume of his Gun Play series, post-apocalyptic author C.A. Rudolph will engage you with the tale of two families from wholly diverse walks of life: a husband and wife immersed in a clandestine existence of murder-for-hire, espionage, and intrigue, and a mainstream middle-class family of six.

Each will find themselves affected by an onslaught of terror attacks the likes of which the world has never seen. Each must learn to survive…or succumb.

A silent enemy lurks among them, and no one knows when they plan to strike. When they do, it will only be a matter of time Until Nothing Remains.

(END BLURB)

I’ve added Until Nothing Remains to my TBR. (For those who are new to the deal, I buy the Book Cover of the Month to read and review in the future. I buy all the winning covers. I’ve already bought September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, January, and December’s book.

Here’s Rudolph’s Facebook page. Give it a like if you’re curious about her and her work.

The October Book Cover of the Month is coming along, and that contest will launch Nov. 1.

I will continue to identify and select covers for each day from Amazon’s New Release section for fantasy and science fiction. If you follow and like my Facebook page, you can see what covers will make the bracket.

Thanks for reading

Matt

An October Book Cover of the Month Update

Greetings all,

With just seven days left in this month’s bracket, it’s time to update you all on how things have been progressing.

As I type this, we have 3,988 votes so far. The fact is one author brought the full support of his following, and it shows. It’s staggering to see, and, frankly, intimidating.

Until Nothing Remains by C.A. Rudolph has a strangle hold on the lead

Most Voted on so far: Rudolph has a staggering 752 votes, mostly because 84 people have voted him all the way to the winner’s circle.  It would take the rest of the top five combined to catch him.

Least Voted for:  Dawn of War by Aaron Hodges has 26 votes each. Maybe it isn’t the best cover this month, but dragons alone should be worth 30 votes, shouldn’t they?

Honestly, Rudolph looks untouchable, but that’s what would make a great come-from-behind victory so amazing!

There’s still a week left, and we can at least see if the runners up can get interesting. After all, the first two runners up get another crack in November’s bracket, which is the next to last chance to get into the Book Cover of the Year bracket.

This is currently the first runner up. If voters keep supporting this cover, it’ll get another shot in November’s bracket!

A quick reminder of how the tournament works. The easiest way to win is to have the most people vote for you in every round. The trick is you have to have the most people vote you through in each round, all the way to the final.  As an example, 100 people could vote someone through to the finals, but that doesn’t do a cover any good if he doesn’t win the first round. It’s not total votes. It’s not simple championship votes. The winning cover has to have the most votes in each round of the competition.

This will be the only update for this type of bracket. I hope the record does get broken and that I see voters lining up to support their authors by voting, liking, and sharing the bracket with as many people as possible.  You can vote at this address!

I’ll announce the winner is just seven days!

Thanks for reading,

Matt