ordered this book based on Amazon connecting the dots: I like apocalyptic fiction and this book obviously qualifies, so they recommended it to me. Often I prefer a darker vision than the author had here, but the author's vision of the future did not disappoint. I was very glad I took a chance on this one. You know the story if you have read the description above and the other reviews. We are introduced to Eric, both the boy and the man, who has experienced two book end journeys through the apoc

A pleasant surprise. A much quieter look at post-apocalyptic life than usual; Van Pelt mostly avoids the roving-gangs-of-cannibals and brilliant-few-trying-to-bring-back-technology tropes. Instead, his main character - an old man who also flashes back to his younger self during the breakdown of society - is left questioning if preserving pre-fall knowledge is even worth it.

A passable post-apocalypse book. What I found interesting was that this was the first post-apocalypse story I have read where not a enough truly competent people survived to at least start rebuilding civilization. (possible spoiler alert) What disturbed me about this post-apocalypse was that 60+ years down the road, the parts of civilization that were left behind have started to poison the environment and who the people who were left. Things like buried oil and gas tanks finally giving way and s...

Another book I quite enjoyed. In some ways it reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road in that it was an older man walking with a child (or in this case, children) across a post apocalyptic America. There were some major differences, this apocalypse was caused by plague, not nuclear bombs, and in this book there are actually other people for the characters to interact with and the author doesn't try to be new and exciting by ignoring rules of grammar and never giving the characters names (than...

Satisfying read about a teenaged boy coming of age in the aftermath of a plague that wipes out 99% of humans. Very realistic on how various sectors would react and not overly dramatic on the horrors. The focus is on the resilience and heart of the boy as the epitome of what is worth preserving. A journey to look for his father is paralleled by another journey of him as an old man 70 years later to seek out books from the University of Colorado library. As civilization reverts to primitive agricu...

This was a very good addition to the apocalyptic genre with some original ideas which kept me reading. Set 60 years after a plague has devastated the world, Eric, an old man who was fifteen when the plague hit, one of the Old Timers, sets out to try and reach the remains of Colorado State University to access its horde of books. The world has divided into those who revere the old times and want to bring them back through study of the books and knowledge of science and technology and those who em...

“That’s the way it should be,” he said. “Nothing ought to look like a grave.”Apocalypse stories -- at least the good ones -- are more about people than the apocalypse. And this apocalypse story is more about people than most.I’ve read quite a few apocalypse tales so far, but never one told from the point of view of a seventy-year-old man, or one told from an angsty 15-year-old boy … let alone BOTH … and the SAME PERSON at that!It is an odd tale -- not focused on the usual apocalypse-book stuff a...

This novel is well written and is more literature at some points that post-apocalyptic "thriller." That said, it has plenty of compelling, action-oriented moments, but it's not bubble-gum like other titles in the genre. The manner in which the book alternates back and forth between the main character as a teen just when pandemic hits to him as a 75-year-old trying to help the living with the knowledge of the "Gone Times" made this almost like two separate by related short stories, told at the sa...

Although it is a post-apocalyptic story of a man searching for books sixty years after the plague nearly wipes out mankind, to me it is more about the survival of knowledge and coming to understand the love and bonds of family (especially father-son relationships). Told in two timelines (one that of a fifteen-year old boy struggling to survive, and finding his love; the other, a seventy-five year old man trying to convince his son and others of the importance of books and technology). I enjoyed

One of the best post-apocalyptic novels I have ever read. Accurate, believable, somber and adventurous at the same time. I loved the dual time-line and the focus on the generation of people born after the plague. Brilliant

Very competent fall-of-the-civilization novel. It's structured into two parallel stories told in alternating chapters, one during the fall of human civilization due to a devastating epidemic, and another sixty years later, when stories about the civilization seem myths. The main character is the same in both threads: in the first as a teenager and in the second as an old man. Well-written, but I found it a bit depressing and joyless. I still enjoyed it, but I was just not in the right mood for i...

James Van Pelt's Summer of the Apocalypse is a compelling read. Unlike some of the reviewers here, I found the dual timelines not only refreshing--since I tend to tire of unceasingly long linear plots--but I also found they were masterfully constructed to comment on each other. One chapter might end just as the same topic is raised in the next, or one might provide the answer to a question just posed in the other, or the outcome of a situation in one affects the action in the other. I believe th...

I detested Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It was bland and boring and not particularly entertaining. I don't mind books that are the mental equivalent of junk food, but something that dresses itself up as LITERATURE and turns out to be hollow just pisses me off. Particularly, when it's in one of my favorite sub-genre's of scifi.This book is nothing like that.This book is the first one that made me think that there may not be a happy ending. There was....something revealed...in the last few pages of...

My most recent apocalyptic read during the Time of Covid.Summer of the Apocalypse is a post-apocalypse novel that borrows from The Stand, Earth Abides and The Scarlet Plague; all classics of the genre. As stated in the synopsis the story covers two timelines in Eric's (the protagonist) lifetime. At the age of fifteen ,when he survives the death of the modern world, and sixty years later as he embarks on a journey to what might be one of the last intact libraries on the University of Colorado's (...

Kinda disappointing. Some of the prose is wonderfully evocative and the story starts out with plenty of promise, but it really peters out about halfway through. The parallel timelines structure is interesting, but the arc of young Eric's story of survival in the immediate aftermath of the plague goes nowhere. Old Eric's journey sixty years later works much better, but starts chucking one after another deus ex machina at the reader by the end.Also, there were a few weird teases at some kind of ti...

I very much enjoyed reading this book. Eric is a wonderful character and showing him as a boy and an old man really makes this book work for me. Do not expect a great epic story a world collapsing, that is not what the book aims for. Van Pelt describes the apocalypse on a personal level if you will. It's one of the better books I have read this year. Summer of the Apocalypse has been on my wishlist for a while. After having read it, I regret not getting it sooner.Full Random Comments review

excellent bookReally enjoyed this one. A real page turner that pretty much refuses to be put down. The character of Eric is fascinating when you imagine all the events if his life. Very enjoyable read.

The blurb on the book is pretty accurate - the book is essentially two journeys made by the same man: one as a 15 year old boy and the other as one of the older people left alive at 75. The first is in the immediate aftermath of a plague that kills 98% (I think) of the population. The second is a trip to prove to his son and grandson, and their peers, that knowledge from the 'Gone Time' is worth preserving, to try and halt mankind's slip into barbarism before it's too late. The other members of

From the very first page I knew I'd found a great story. And I could NOT stop reading it! Every spare moment I had I found myself picking this up to continue with the story.Very well written, great characters, what seemed to be a very accurate description of what it might be like it in America if a plague truly did wipe out a very large portion of the population. I got the feeling the man who wrote the story was a wise individual indeed.I'll seek out more of his books.