Immortality

By: Kevin Bohacz

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 26 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Without warning, something has gone terribly awry. In the remote and unnoticed places of the world, small pockets of death begin occurring. As the initially isolated extinctions spread, the world's eyes focus on this unimaginable horror and chaos. Out of the ecological imbalance, something new and extraordinary is evolving and surviving to fill the voids left by these extinctions. Evolution is operating in ways no one could have expected, and environmental damage may be the catalyst. Once discovered, this knowledge changes everything...

©2003, 2007, 2011 Kevin Bohacz (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Critic reviews

"Bohacz's vision of a humanity that faces the need to evolve profoundly or face certain destruction is as timely as today's news and as chilling a doomsday scenario as any ecological catastrophe can suggest." ( Publisher's Weekly Starred Review)

"There is enough power in the premise to leave readers reeling. A novel that will surprise fans of science-fiction and doomsday scenarios." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"Immortality is a fine, tense, scientific mystery adventure that puts mankind in a challenge of survival with a short time limit. This is the way the world could end." (Piers Anthony, author of 21 New York Times best-selling novels)

An Epic Journey

This book was sent to me from Audible.com for a review of the story, the narrator and the overall audiobook experience. First let me say that I was shocked the audiobook was 24 hours long. Holly cow! That is a chunky book!
Immortality is the epic story of the days and weeks leading up to the end of known humanity and the beginning of the end of our modern day civilization. Once people start noticing the unusual death zones around the world Mark Freedman, a famous paleontologist, is called to the CDC to help them unearth more information about the Chromatium Omri bacteria, the oldest known life form on Earth. And the killer of us all. This audiobook is filled with chapters from various people and their perspectives on the coming Armageddon.
I loved the deep research and the approach the author took to get the whole thing to make sense (in the beginning). Then something happen. Around the time in the book the author had one of the strong female characters sitting at a campfire with a Indian Chief popping pills I was confused. Is this the same book I started with? It was like another complete person took over and starting writing. The bacteria goes from something killing humanity to something that is selecting a few to restart a better human race and you can communicate with it once you take a TON of LDS. Hmmmm? Well?? I’m not sure that was a good route to take. There was one more issue I had with the book. The science of it all was a bit overwhelming at times. If I was a paleontologist or a genetic researcher then I might ne interested in all of that detail but I am a regular reader and at times I wanted to just skip all of that to get back to the story.
The narrator Kevin T. Collins was … intense. That is the first and only word I could use for him. There was intensity in his voice the whole time. I mean strong “T” in intense. Yes. Every single T was pronounced. I liked his voice but there were times in the audiobook were he didn’t need the intensity and he could have relaxed a bit. I also would have been nice to have the female parts in the book read by a female narrator.
Overall, I am ok with the audiobook, no love not hate and I am a bit curious to see what will happen in book 2. P.S. There is a snippet of book 2 at the end of this audiobook.

The best yet of it's genre!

What made the experience of listening to Immortality the most enjoyable?

This book is very realistic, it starts out a bit slow, which ends up being a good thing as it sets up the realism for the rest of the story. Make sure you have plenty of time, because once you get into this book there will be no sleep until it's over!

What did you like best about this story?

The characters grow on you, you feel their pain.

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Many!

Unbelievable

I appreciate the effort, but it smacked of a sophomoric effort. The story was slow to warm up, and when it did, I was't sure if it was geared for Science/Thriller fans, or PA fans, but suspect that neither will be truly happy.

Too Long!!

The story might have been good if it weren't as technical, scattered, and long winded!

Unbelievably Well Done!!!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Immortality?

The narrator did such a fabulous job, in both this book, and Ghost of the Gods, of bringing each character to life through different voices. The emotional range he put behind the voice of each character made it almost impossible to stop listening when I had to go to work, to sleep or meet other life requirements,

Which scene was your favorite?

The emotional depth of the primary characters was enrapturing. It made the story and the feelings they were going through so real, you almost would think it was a real story and not fiction.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

There was a great deal of detail in both books of this series that another listen will probably bring additional levels of understanding and depth to my emotional experiences with both books in this series. I was very emotionally invested and wrapped up in the events of the story, not only because it was well written, but also because the narrator's emotional attachment to each character was absolutely captivating.

Good End of World Thriller

I like this genre, but after reading so many they get sort of repetitious. This one had a different slant and I found it interesting. THe basic theme is that there is a plague that is slowly wiping out the world's population. However, this one is different in that it is not actually transmitted from person to person but is triggered by a different method, resulting in what are called dead zones. People within a certain radius of just a few hundred yards almost instantly drop dead. Obviously this can cause mayhem if people are operating cars or other heavy machinery. So we have a thriller that involves the typical chaos when lots of people start to die, the world taken over by gangs bent on murder and mayhem, and a science thriller of tracking down the cause of the deaths.

It's a long book (26 hours) and the author has a tendency to add too many unneeded details, but it holds your interest. The narration is fairly good with the single narrator able to have a rather large range of voices. So if you like books like Stephen King's The Stand, or "plague" books you will like this. No zombies however, (Not sure I can take another Zombie Book) The length of the book makes it a good "bang for your audible buck." . You need a little patience in the beginning as the author introduces the major characters, a CDC doctor and a Nobel Prize winning Scientist.

Brilliant.

I love end-of-world stories, and this one is extremely creative! Well-written and thoughtfully crafted. No zombies, but Recommended!

Story Alright, Flaws Reported Below

This writer has some great ideas that develop okay over the course of the book but I really wish it had been done without all the sophomoric interpersonal "relationship" drama that not only were superfluous but were poorly done and reflected badly on the author. Eg. all the young "girls" in their 20's were hot for the old guys in their 40's, 50's etc. Really Kevin? And one main character, a female cop, had an inordinate amount of blatant sexual harassment perpetrated upon her person which for the most part she handled like a scared 12 year old girl.

Another issue I had was the constant reference of the bacteria as an animal. If you are going to write a book with as much "scientific" content as this book attempts ( I didn't find it overly scientific but a good attempt was made) please use appropriate nomenclature. Bacteria should be referred to as bacteria, bacterium (plural) or as an organism. It does not in life, or even in this book, represent what is commonly referred to as an animal. Although secondary definitions of the word animal could include bacteria, in the scientific community no one would use that terminology. (Nit picking I know but it was so OFTEN it irritated me--kinda like those people that say "HIV virus" Duh.)

And what was probably worst of all was the READER. Dear GOD. Kevin T. Collins OVER annunciates EVERYTHING. His diction is ridiculous, tedious and annoying. Worse yet, he is overly melodramatic and worst of all? At least once in every single paragraph (I'm being generous here) he raises his voice in an interrogative (higher as in a question) in the middle of a statement sentence or at the end of a statement sentence like an annoying teenage "dumb girl" as though he is questioning the veracity of what he is saying. Stab me in the ear please. It would be less annoying. I mean does this guy even go back and LISTEN to himself? Seriously I would think he would be embarrassed. I can almost guarantee a better reader would have made the book less tedious, and maybe smoothed over some of the bad relationship drama but since he reads it like an annoying teenage girl it sounds like annoying teenage girl stuff. Yuck.

That being said I didn't hate the book, and I didn't hate the reader but I did spend way more time thinking about the problems than I did about the story which sort of takes all the fun away. I would have enjoyed it more if I read it to myself but I still would have had issues with character and nomenclature.

1/5th interesting/ 4/5ths awful

What would have made Immortality better?

The basic idea behind Immortality was intriguing enough to attract my attention initially. The official description of the book deals with this, so I won't- but the underlying key concept never disappointed me.

But what the description leaves out is just how fantastically tedious the many many hours of worthless filler turn out to be. Despite an intriguing premise, the book mainly revolves around the fatally tiresome internal dialogue of childish stick figures passing for characters.
We are supposed to enjoy listening to a cast of stereotypical cartoons, whose inner lives (and most of this very long book) consist of endless hours of emoticon-level "thinking". It was so bad it became a kind of mesmerizing experience in sheer listener endurance.

What could Kevin Bohacz have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

As David Brin says- the only way a writer learns how to write is to expose the work to a circle of trusted critics.
What he means by "trusted critics" are friends who are not swayed by personal relationships, but understand what good writing is and speak solely on its behalf.
Since this book could very easily have been saved from itself by a few good critics advising the author, it is clear that the writer didn't bother.
If he had, he would have saved strangers the trouble of mentioning his glaring defect.

What didn’t you like about Kevin T. Collins’s performance?

For reasons beyond imagining, the normally competent Kevin T. Collins emphasizes this dreadful torturous unfolding. He speaks each word of the worn cardboard dialogue with great precision, equal emphasis and perfect clarity.
This has the effect of listening to doggerel imbued with the same measured solemnity Milton's verses require. It is a memorably horrible audio experience.
If you are the type of listener who resonates with what I am trying to express: you have been warned. I am only here to save your credit. As for those who liked this book, they can and do speak for themselves perfectly well.

What character would you cut from Immortality?

This book did not have anyone I could think of as a distinct character- and I patiently tried. It consists instead of crude sketches of characters, each one entirely devoid of interesting personal content in their own special way.

Any additional comments?

I was very sorry to see such a fundamentally good idea drowned in portentous drivel. The author needs professional writing help and I hope he gets it.

if you don't love science walk away

I wanted so badly to like this book. The premise is extremely fascinating and so I pushed through to the end but the first 10 hours could have been condensed into two hours. And then every hour after that probably could have just been about 20 minutes. if you're looking for a really long book to play as some background noise that you only mildly pay attention to and can still keep up with, then this is the book for you! Or if you absolutely love very long scientific explanations for everything this book is for you too.