A powerful story that stays with you!

This book is incredibly well written and researched.

It is a hypothetical look at the cessation of death on the planet.
A truly frank and reflective look at how humanity may deal with such a phenomenon if it were to happen.
The story has good characters that give you mind to real world figures. There struggles with the decisions that each and every individual must make in order to deal with the new reality. The government implements measures that when thought about would be logical if still questionable given the series of events.

The narration is powerful and helps lead you through the story while conveying sentiment and importance throughout.

In summation this book is a very true reflection of the world at large and the human need to survive at any cost. It is a blend of science fiction, post apocalyptic and thriller.

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The downsides of immortality

The final enemy is the story of a meteor falling to earth that causes people to stop dying from natural causes and the unexpected downsides that come from this 'gift', it is predominantly told from the perspective of an initially young reporter called Jack Amato. He witnessed the initial impact and his role as obituary writer for a local Iowa newspaper helped him to be the first to spot the effects it was having on humanity.

The book makes frequent time jumps forwards from the initial impact, to when it was still considered to be a blessing and then onwards as the negative implications of an ever increasing population become more and more dire. Some of the stages of progression in the problems seemed quite outlandish, but others were very plausible and made those parts of the book much more compelling.

The narrator of the book did a good job with the main characters and the general narration of the story, but some of the secondary characters such as Jack's grandmother had needlessly over the top vocal performances that were a little jarring and detracted from the overall performance.

Overall this was an enjoyable premise for a book with a good performance.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

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Fantastic

The Final Enemy.
A fantastic piece of science fiction writing. Imagine natural death is vanquished , then everyone would celebrate, until the problems start to surface.
It becomes a look at how much we can accept.
A little dark in places but with that tongue in cheek underlay.
I highly recommend this audio book.
I received a free copy of this audio book at my own request and voluntarily leave this honest review.

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wow

what a wonderfully written and narrated book, I truly was engrossed in it. It fantastically shown how fragile the balance in the world is xxxx

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One scary enemry

This was quite a different book for me, I tend to choose murder mysteries but thought I would give this book ago as the plot sounded interesting. I enjoyed it even if it did tug on the heart strings (yes I needed a tissue) and it is a book that gets you thinking "what if?" especially with the world like it is. It is obvious the author did a lot of research before writing this book and it shows.
Jack is the first reporter to notice the strange quinces between a meteorite crashing down on earth and tha lack of deaths in the surrounding area. As he breaks the story he has no idea what this means to the planet if everybody stopped dying. First is the problem of controlling who gets to visit the rock but as the worlds population begins to grow others problems start to arise like where is everyone going to live but the biggest and by far scariest one (I hope I don't get nightmares) is what is everybody is going to eat and the solutions the Country's different grovements come up with to solve the problem.
The narrator was very good and I really liked his accents especially the Scottish one.

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The final Enemy

Any additional comments?

This audiobook is a very fast read and good plot. Thought the dialogue was natural and believable. It was a thought provoking exploration of what would happen if we all lived forever.

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3 people found this helpful

Wow this was amazing whilst also terrifying!

Firstly wow. It's incredible. It starts at a really relaxed pace. Not slow but just sort of building. A curious guy in the right place putting a jigsaw together although granted a smart guy to do it. It's nice to have a story where the reporter isn't a bad guy with dodgy morals or twisted in some way.

I really enjoyed it from start to finish. Really good pace to the book and the narration is excellent.

It is however terrifying. It feels so real. Like this could be the way that the world, that the government react to the cessation of death and overpopulation. They are inept, self-serving and all corrupt. The things that happen to the characters as the story spirals out of control also feel real. Which is what's so scary because if you get this book and you should then there are some really messed up things that people get bought into.

I once read that MI5’s (Britains security agency) has a statement that society is “four meals away from anarchy”. Or to put some flesh on that they believe that Britain could be quickly reduced to large-scale disorder maybe even rioting and looting in the event that the supply of food stops. Well we certainly see that here with the morals.

I also like how everyone's morality becomes sightly more flexible once they are immortal and then with time they slip further and further. One little evil makes the next so much easier.

Really good!

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

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