Wassermann Gardens

By: Milo Samardzija

Narrated by: Tom Pile

Wassermann Gardens is the story of a group of young soldiers who have contracted a wildly contagious and fatal disease. The disease is considered so dangerous to humanity that the soldiers are declared missing in action and quarantined on an unknown and unnamed island in the South Pacific, where they must live out their few remaining years.

As living conditions on the island deteriorate, the men plagued by madness, blindness, starvation, deadly violence, and relentless hurricanes, they realize they have only one chance for survival, one last desperate mission: escape.

Although the story touches on many elements - MIAs, ecology, the concept of individual interests versus humanity's general welfare - it is primarily a story about ordinary human beings struggling to survive in the most desperate of situations - and one soldier's irrational devotion to duty no matter the personal cost.

©2015 Milo Samardzija (P)2016 Milo Samardzija

Written well with good character development

Quarantined with an unknown virus on a remote island, several generations of soldiers try to survive with increasing instances of blindness, insanity and death. With conditions growing more desperate and the supplies running short, something must be done before all is lost.

I really enjoyed the slow reveal of the soldiers’ predicament and how the story had a definite sense of building desperation amongst the men. Written well with good character development and excellent narration from Tom Pile.

*I received a review edition audio book of this work from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Well written and narration great!

Well written and the narration was great but the story was looonnngg and plodding. Very repetitive though I realize that is important to the story but it was also very depressing. I received this for review because it sounded very interesting, which often means zombies! No zombies here, I wish! Hard to review because it was well done just very dark imho.

Unique.

Going by the cover of this, initially I thought Post Apocalyptic or Zombies or some such thing, but it's not! It's the story of a group of soldiers who were sent to an island because they caught a contagious virus. The virus causes them to become blind and lose their mind and is so contagious that the government leave them on the island. Once a moth they get a food delivery but what happens when that delivery gets later and later and the island isn't giving anything back to them? What happens when the islanders say, enough is enough and they want to go home?

It's kind of hard to review this because the plot is ..... odd but still good. If I go into too much detail I'll inadvertently spoil something, so all I'll say is that it's a story of human nature, the story of survival and the story of friendship. It's a story, while being quite slow, I still ended up enjoying. I liked how the men are slowly revealed and you can see the desperation and madness building in them. There was a real sense of anticipation throughout.

In all, this is a well written, well thought out and well developed read. I felt so sorry for the men and was rooting for them!! I will definitely check out more by this author when it comes out.

Tom Pile did a brilliant job portraying the men and their desperation. There are quite a lot of characters as well but the narrator has enough different tones to separate each.

*I received a copy of this for review. This in no way affected my thoughts.*

Good historical fiction (drama)

The story was enjoyable though odd. Great urban military myth. The characters were well developed, good imagery a few interesting twists. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not for young listeners due to the nature of why they are marooned on the island. I received this audiobook from the author narrator or publisher for free via audiobookblast in exchange for an unbiased review