The author prefaces this series with a reasonable interpretation of the five books and the purpose of his approach to it. The books are well-written, the narration serves the story in a good way, though you do have to pay attention to know who is speaking at times, and the overall story is intriguing, but requires that you suspend a little bit of reality to make it work. I will say that losing main characters and being prepared for a lot of stressful and harrowing situations that are close-up views of an apocalypse, is essential. That is not a spoiler alert since the author tells us, upfront, that this will happen. I would strongly suggest that reading just one of these books is not the best approach. All or none makes more sense.