Stranded

A Novel

By: Bracken MacLeod

Narrated by: PJ Ochlan

Badly battered by an apocalyptic storm, the crew of the Arctic Promise find themselves in increasingly dire circumstances as they sail blindly into unfamiliar waters and an ominously thickening fog. Without functioning navigation or communication equipment, they are lost and completely alone. One by one the men fall prey to a mysterious illness. Deckhand Noah Cabot is the only person unaffected by the strange force plaguing the ship and her crew, which does little to ease their growing distrust of him.

Dismissing Noah's warnings of worsening conditions, the captain of the ship presses on until the sea freezes into ice and they can go no farther. When the men are ordered overboard in an attempt to break the ship free by hand, the fog clears, revealing a faint shape in the distance that may or may not be their destination. Noah leads the last of the able-bodied crew on a journey across the ice and into an uncertain future where they must fight for their lives against the elements, the ghosts of the past, and, ultimately, themselves.

©2016 Tom Doherty Associates LLC (P)2016 Macmillan Audio

Great idea but just couldn't develop it

It took awhile for the story to get going. When it finally did, I thought this turning out to be a great story. I was disappointed that it never really went anywhere after the big reveal. The captain and first mate characters weren't believable to the point of distraction. Having said all that, I found the setting to be engaging. The premise of the story was fresh and compelling albeit under utilized. It kept my interest until the end.

Invest in this story!

Great plot, great characters, I found myself waiting in my car at the end of my day to hear more of this story.

Great Story, just incomplete

Loved the characters, not a perfect book, but it will hold your interest. The ending needs re-work; it is incomplete and we are left with so many questions that should be answered after spending 11 hours with these characters.

I liked it so much. I had to write a review.

Any additional comments?

I took a chance on this book and was greatly rewarded for it. The author does a really great job of making you care about the protagonist. I found myself wanting to slap around some of his fellow crew members for him. Not too many books can cause me to become emotionally invested in them. Great job of writing and story telling.

should have been better.

Good story. Good characters. Badly needed an editor. for length, repetitiveness and internal consistency. Also plot resolution incomplete.

The pace never lets up!

Excellent adventure story with a touch of the supernatural. I appreciate that the twists are not fully explained, leaving it to the imagination of the reader. The narration was superb. Highly recommend.

Stranded review

A brutally cold tale about a supply ship running into an earth shattering storm that sends the crew into a very claustrophobic and violent episode of the Twilight Zone. There is a lot of action and suspense. I felt like I had some questions about the plot right after I finished it but the more I thought about it I grew to appreciate the unknowns more. I would recommend this book to PKD fans as well. Parts of it reminded me of some of his work like Time Out Of Joint.

If you like high action and intense end of the world type stuff then you will like Stranded. This is my first Macleod book and I intend to read more. I see he has a book coming out with ChiZine. Any author that puts out a book with ChiZine will likely be read by me at some point. Also, I did listen to the audiobook through some of Stranded and it was well read by the narrator named PJ Ochlan. You can't go wrong in any form.

The ending absolutely ruined this book for me.

The narrator was good. The storyline was interesting. The characters? Well, I absolutely hated Brewster and Boucher right away. Noah really bothered me too. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut to make things easier for himself. The ending ruined this book. It doesn't make any sense at all. I will say that the writer did a good job writing the characters because I had very strong emotions about several of them. Too bad the ending was so dumb.

Expert writing - Developed Characters - Scary

This is so well written, it's refreshing. Don't know anything about the author, but he's good. The narration is wonderful. Touching in parts, very scary in others. Human nature at its best and worst. Left me with some plot questions but that didn't seem to matter in the end. Wonderful look at the many facets of each life and the mystery of our existence. Going to go see if MacLeod has anything else out there.

what's it feel like to be a ghost?

I enjoyed this audio book which is read by the fabulous PJ Ochlan. I really liked that your thrown right into the chaos with this one. There is chaos, tons of dread and gloom and a constant fight for survival. Some of the characters are really awful, some are just there. If you like your endings in neat boxes with bows, this is not the book for you.