Three Paperback – July 30, 2013

Three is an excellent debut novel by Jay Posey, a local author down here in the southeast. It is a post-apocalyptic story without a dystopian theme, which is unusual these days. It is action-packed, thrilling, and well-written. It took a while to finish and left a few questions unanswered in the end, but overall is an excellent debut.The novel is set in the not too distant future. In this dark post-apocalyptic world, humanity is barely scraping by. Some sort of cataclysm has left civilization in ruins and created a wasteland full of dangerous zombie-like creatures called Weir. Three (yep, that’s his name) is a bounty hunter just trying to get by. He gets involved helping a woman and boy escape some dangerous gangsters, throwing him into the middle of a deadly chase across the wastelands. The two carry a secret many are willing to kill for.The trek from one post-apocalyptic shanty town to another is both exciting and depressing. It gives also gives you an idea how people are coping with the new world. There is plenty of action and you get to read about the many skills of Three. He is essentially a ninja. However, the trek is long, well over 400 pages. I started to get a little numb to it by the end, particularly the numerous physical injuries suffered during the journey.Unlike most speculative fiction writers, Posey doesn’t provide much background in his novel. He doesn’t explain what happened to the world and what the Weir are. Usually infodumping slows a story down and can distract readers, but in this case a bit more background info would’ve been helpful.Posey built some interesting characters a well. Three is a typical anti-hero turned hero (e.g. Han Solo). He starts out as a dark loner but soon starts to care about others. Cass is the protective mother desperately trying to shield her son from the entire world, something that is nearly impossible. You get the impression she has had a rough life and is running from her past, in addition to running from the murderous gangsters.Wren is innocent and sweet, but doesn’t seem to change much throughout all the different experiences. He faces each trauma as if it is the first he’s witnessed. In such a dismal world, that is hard to believe.The secondary characters were compelling as well, but a couple didn’t seem to belong. Nearly all of Three’s friends are genuinely good and loyal people, which clashes with his loner, bounty hunter reputation The characters and their relationship with Three felt too good to be true.Three sees himself as a loner mercenary, who is only interested in getting by. That every man for himself mentality isn’t one that wins a lot of friends. Yet Three has several extremely loyal friends.The technological innovations are mostly digital in nature, giving it a cyberpunk element but it isn’t really cyberpunk. The protagonists are all good people, who are mainly working with hand-me-down technology and anything left over from the apocalypse.Science fiction has recently moved in the direction of blending post-apocalyptic and dystopian themes. People get the impression that if there is great cataclysm civilization will take a dramatic turn towards totalitarianism, oppression, and violence. From a historical standpoint, this is often true. However, I think some authors don’t do a good job blending the two themes.Three doesn’t have this problem. It does not delve into political systems, transformation, or the nature of the downward spiral. It stays focused on the post-apocalyptic setting without trying to complicate or confuse themes by adding a poorly conceived dystopian theme. Some authors can do one of these well, but few can do both. An obvious exception is Suzanne Collins, but in general it was nice to see a writer commit to the core story rather than trying to blend too many themes.

***WARNING: SPOILERS!!!***This book falls into what I loosely refer to as the "Lone Wolf and Cub" genre: stoic, mysterious warriors protecting small children as they wade through deadly danger in search of some seemingly unattainable goal. When handled poorly, books of this type come across as meandering, sappy, and cutesy-pukey. But when done well, these books can really shine. Fortunately, 'Three' is one of the latter.As another reviewer mentioned, we are treated to only enough background info to allow us to follow the action. There is next to nothing about exactly how the world came to fall into its current post-apocalyptic state. There is really nothing to tell us if the setting is future-Earth, or some other planet. There is a bit location description about three-quarters of the way in where the protagonists cross an area called the Strand, which at first led me to assume we were in London. Not the case though, at least I don't think so. This is why I say the book was frustrating - holding stuff back for the next novels in the series is all well and good, but I felt that TOO much was held back. The descriptions of the sprawling urban wasteland were pretty cool, but they seemed more like generic video game backdrops rather than living, breathing settings.Not much detail is given about the main characters' back-stories either. At the end, we know next to nothing about Three, which is especially galling considering the book bears his name, and in light of the book's end. I have no real idea of what the Weir really were either, though I have a couple of guesses.Given all of that, you may wonder why I still gave it four stars. That's based solidly on Posey's writing. He really knows how to write an action scene (which isn't surprising, given his video game design background), and the pacing of the book was frenetic - I finished reading this in less than two days. Another thing Posey does VERY well is writing convincing dialogue, character motivation, and emotional responses. Everything done by the protagonists felt real and authentic in a way that I didn't expect. Our three heroes just felt 'right'. Wren, the kid, was especially well-portrayed; it's not often you see a young child character that doesn't come across as too mature and/or snarky. Wren felt like a six year old, and had a great dignity that played very well. The only thing that irked me about Posey's style was his constant need to tell us how tiny Wren's hands were; sometimes I felt like every time Wren was mentioned, we needed to know that 'Three took Wren's tiny hand in his own'.All in all though, GREAT book. I eagerly await the next one, and hopefully there we'll find out some actual background on this fascinating setting.

An excellent read which I found difficult to put down, and found myself reading late into the night.The story takes place in a dystopian future earth after some (so-far) unexplained war or catastrophe.Mankind is much reduced in number and forced to live underground or in heavily defended towns and cities. No-one ventures out at night due to the ravaging hordes of zombie-like creatures. Sound familiar, like its been done so many times before?However, this is not just a standard zombie-versus-survivor story. There are tantalizing glimpses what human kind may have become in the near future - genetic modifications to allow wifi access to the equivalent of the 'net (strangely still running), designer drugs that can boost mental and physical prowess and even genetic manipulation to near super-power levels. Even the zombie "weir" seem to be electronically animated, perhaps the result of so much electronic grafting and connection?One of the strength of the novel is that none of these questions are answered in this first book, and don't distract from the story. This is the tale of a lone, dangerous and mysterious traveler 'Three' who is one of the few who will brave the outside and the Weir. After a spontaneous act of charity he finds himself responsible for a young woman and her mysterious child. What follows is a long trip of danger and discovery with them running from her jacked-up pursuers, and discovering each others secrets and hidden past.I suspect that this is the start of a series (It seems to be compulsory these days when every new sci-fi/fantasy is a trilogy or more), but without spoilers won't say any more. As stated in the title this seems to be the Author's debut novel so is all the more impressive for that. There is much space for expansion of the world and characters.I will certainly be buying the next novel from this author, whether it is part 2 of 'Legends...' or stand-alone.

An interesting story, well written and keeps up the pace but relentlessly grim. By about half-way through I was interested enough to keep going and slogged on through grim, grim, grim. I can enjoy grim like Joe Abercrombie’s but this increasingly weighed on me. Finally I skimmed through to the end in about 10 minutes then read the last 2 chapters. A good enough ending but nothing changed. I won’t be reading more of this series and will hesitate to read more by this author. But if you like grim …

I skipped past this book several times, believing from the synopsis that this would be another typical zombie horror. I was wrong! Awesome characters, awesome story line. This is the first book that made me genuinely sad when characters died! The best book I've ever ridden. I would love to see this as an epic movie or series thriller! Can't wait to read the second book!

Reminded me of a futuristic "wild west cowboy" plot. Mad Max meets Josey Wales! Some inconsistent and unexplained elements in the story but with an interesting mixture of characters, some better developed than others. Although the plot as a whole follows a well used thread there are many interesting and original ideas

This is a brilliant and well written book. Loved the main characters. The setting is sufficiently mysterious, not much detail is supplied to indicate what caused the apocalypse, but it doesn't matter. Great story line which gradually unfolds, with enough suspense to make this a real pageturner. If you like fantasy books this is a perfect example.