Hot Zone, Andromeda Strain, 28 Days Later, Legend, World War Z, all great #scifi, apocalyptic stories with one thing in common: the bastards tearing up the world are in their face! Some are microscopic little turds, others humans who turned zombie and tearing up the homeland. Winter World is a different kind of apocalyptic story; the enemy is completely unknown and nowhere on Earth. The planet is being frozen, but no one knows how or why; humans are facing a new extinction.
Winter World is A.G. Riddle's seventh novel. Having read three of his previous novels from the Origin Mystery series (The Atlantis Gene, The Atlantis Plague, and the Atlantis World), I couldn't wait to jump into this novel.
Emma, an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS), can see that most of North America, Europe, China, Russia and most major continents are completely frozen over. She tries to ignore news reports that estimate hundreds of millions have people have probably died, but she can't. Her and the team on the ISS are trying to find out what happened!
James, a doctor in robotics and probably the smartest guy on the planet is in jail and trying to find a way to escape and make it back to his family. Devising a plan to escape, his plan is instantly thrown awry as inmates begin rioting and hold prison guards hostage. After every rioting inmate is killed, can't tell you why . . . i'd give too much away, James is sprung out of jail as long as he's willing to help NASA find out how and why the Earth is being destroyed.
Before Emma and her team on the ISS can do something about what they've learned, the ISS is destroyed. Emma escapes the destruction, but her fate with death is sealed if she can't find a way to an escape pod that's floating away from her position. With James executing a plan that's propelling him and a team of astronauts to space, they learn about the ISS being destroyed. On their way, they begin looking for the black box with all the science the ISS was trying to pass to Earth before it was destroyed.
Finding the black box in a debris field, they also find a capsule with an astronaut in it. Assuming they're dead, the team is surprised when they find Emma alive. With the team learning everything that Emma and her team found out about the threat, they begin pushing to the cosmos to study the threat.
After developing robot drones to reconnoiter what they believe may be the threat, they encounter something thy never expected. A highly intelligent and unusual entity purposely blocking radiation from Earth. After a beleaguered attempt to destroy the entity, they're immediately forced to retreat and go back to Earth for more equipment, weapons and support as the new team is dessimated.
Returning to Earth almost a year later, they encounter a much more grim situation than they left. Emma and James are forced into a reality they accelerated by attacking the entity. The story doesn't end hear, but it can.
Pulling together a new plan with a much broader team, they return to space with a much larger and aggressive plan: to attack and destroy the enemy.
Check out the novel and dive into a darkness you rarely encounter. Hard science, drama, politics, and all out action make this story hard to put down. The characters are developed so phenomenally that you struggle not to feel their every thought, and begin advancing your own story plot. When was the last time you felt like this about a story, and hated yourself for putting the book down to go to bed.
Check out A.G. Riddle's book page for more on this novel, and others: https://www.agriddle.com/books
Here's a trailer for the novel: https://youtu.be/8PVVR7d3zFs