- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.;
- Published Date: August 28, 2006
- Disks: 6
- ISBN-10: 1-4281-0551-4
- ISBN-13: 978-1-4281-0551-5
- Author: Cormac McCarthy
- Read by: Tom Stechshulte
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a dark, bleak exploration of a post-apocalyptic world. After an unidentified cataclysm has destroyed most life on Earth and wiped out most of humanity, an unnamed man and his son are on the road “south”. In a world where the sun does not shine through the ash in the atmosphere and no plant life or animal life seems to have survived, the man and the boy are trying to find a warmer place, and food. They hope to remain “good guys” and to avoid “the bad guys” who will steal from, kill and even eat anyone they meet.
This is not a happy book. The pair move from one hardship and tragedy to another. It is often more luck than skill or planning that keeps them alive, but they have learned skills to survive and to avoid ‘the bad guys”. It is never clear whether those skills and that luck will continue until the next day, or sometimes even the next few minutes. With little to no food, insufficient clothing and shelter, and roving bands of cannibals and criminals, they are continuously on the brink of starvation, exposure and death.
This is a powerful book. I can’t really say I ‘liked’ it, but I can say it will stay with me. The relationship between the man and his son felt genuine. The few people who populated this world seemed real in this unreal world. My only real complaint is that the state of the world itself did not seem completely internally consistent. Perhaps it is my lack of imagination, but I could not imagine an event or series of events that would have left even the few people who did remain, and yet every plant and every other animal seems to have perished.
That is really a small complaint, however. The point of the book is not the science behind the catastrophe, but rather the struggle to remain sane in an insane world. The struggle to remain alive in a dead world. The struggle to remain a ‘good guy’ in a world of ‘bad guys’. The struggle to remain human in an inhuman world. If you are looking for fun escapism, or heroes overthrowing evil in a dystopian world, or an uplifting story of the human spirit, this is probably NOT your book. This book is powerful and meaningful, but just about everything but happy.
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Read Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale by Matt Truxaw
Matt Truxaw is the author of the hard science fiction thriller “Plastiphobia: aka Plastivore” and his newest novel “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale” – released January 3, 2025.
They are both available on Amazon in Paperback, Kindle and are free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read either, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets most of his books out of the library so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
