Any additional comments?
First, another stellar narration by Kevin Pierce. He has a perfect style for books in this genre and I’m consistently pleased.

On to the book…I wasn’t expecting to pick up another Bobby Andrews novel so soon after the last one (which just didn’t quite cut it for me), but because an opportunity to listen to Omnibus 4-6 in this series came up I wanted to listen to the first Omnibus beforehand. I’m glad I did, I was pleasantly surprised.

Although I did find some of the mediocre chemistry I was expecting based on my last Andrews experience, it wasn’t as evident through most of this book. Furthermore, Prepper’s Crucible hit an itch I have for descriptive, day to day life in the aftermath of the EOTWAWKI event. I like to hear details about the homestead, the procedures, the gear, the garden, etc – not necessarily TOO much detail though. I really enjoyed both One Second After and the Founders Series (Patriots, Survivors, etc) and I felt like Prepper’s Crucible fell comfortably somewhere between these with a good balanced detail without going over every glistening nook and cranny of every single piece of survival gear coupled with plenty of community development.

There were some editing issues, but nothing bad enough to deter from the enjoyment of the book. Also, some of that lack of motivation or completeness in decision making I found with Andrews previously is still showing up here, just not as badly. I would definitely have liked to see more development and more content in some scenarios. For example key conflict/battle scenes lasting only a few sentences, warranting even less or similar detail as warming up and sharing beef stew. Why? Also some of the decision making or discussions that should have elicited much thought-provoking conversation or at least inner turmoil and emotion were written with a level of stoicism that didn’t really match the characters or the groups. Another case where, without a doubt, this would have been pushing a 5 star listen for me if the content was more developed.

All in all this was a fun listen however and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. I notice that Pierce is no longer narrating though, it’s Mark Shumka; he will definitely have his work cut out for him!