The Extinction Cycle Boxed Set

Extinction Horizon, Extinction Edge, and Extinction Age (The Extinction Cycle, Books 1 - 3)

By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Here are the first three books of the best-selling, award-winning, and top-rated Extinction Cycle series.

Extinction Horizon

The worst of nature and the worst of science will bring the human race to the brink of extinction.

Master Sergeant Reed Beckham has led his Delta Force team, code named Ghost, through every kind of hell imaginable and never lost a man. When a top secret medical corps research facility goes dark, Team Ghost is called in to face their deadliest enemy yet - a variant strain of Ebola that turns men into monsters.

After barely escaping with his life, Beckham returns to Fort Bragg in the midst of a new type of war. The virus is already spreading. As cities fall, Team Ghost is ordered to keep CDC virologist Dr. Kate Lovato alive long enough to find a cure. What she uncovers will change everything.

Total extinction is just on the horizon, but will the cure be worse than the virus?

Extinction Edge

A new threat that will bring humanity to the edge of extinction.

The dust from Dr. Kate Lovato's bioweapon has settled. Projections put death counts in the billions. Her weapon was supposed to be the endgame, but it turned a small percentage of those infected with the hemorrhage virus into something even worse.

Survivors call them Variants. Irreversible epigenetic changes have transformed them into predators unlike any the human race has ever seen. And they are evolving.

With the doomsday clock ticking, the fractured military plans Operation Liberty - a desperate mission designed to take back the cities and destroy the Variant threat. Master Sergeant Reed Beckham agrees to lead a strike team into New York City, but first he must return to Fort Bragg to search for the only family he has left.

At Plum Island, Kate discovers Central Command may have considerably underestimated the Variant population in New York. As Operation Liberty draws closer, Kate warns Beckham that Team Ghost won't just face their deadliest adversary yet, they may be heading into a trap.

Extinction Age

On the eve of extinction, all seems to be lost, but there is still one final hope.

Operation Liberty has failed. Humans are losing the war. With no other option, General Kennor decides to pull back the troops and give science a second chance.

Trapped in the extensive sewer system beneath New York, Master Sergeant Reed Beckham and the survivors of 1st Platoon must battle through the tunnels - where they make a grisly discovery in their attempt to escape.

At Plum Island, Dr. Kate Lovato is working on a new bioweapon to destroy the Variants. But when a derelict Navy destroyer crashes into the Connecticut shoreline, she is forced to deal with a nightmare she thought had ended.

As the doomsday clock ticks down and military bases fall across the country, the human race enters the age of extinction.

©2016 Nicholas Sansbury Smith (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A great twist on the zombie genre - Well worth it!

These reviews were written for Amazon.com and have been consolidated here for the first Audible omnibus. Great works all around!

EXTINCTION HORIZON

Where to begin with this fantastic story. As someone who grown to be addicted to Nick's writing, I can say that, without a doubt, this story kept up the tradition of drawing me in and leaving me wanting more. I am writing this review based on the audible omnibus edition (which included books 1 through 3, but my review for this portion only includes material, I am hoping, from book one).

While I will admit that the story started out a bit slow for my taste, I stuck through it as I have not been disappointed by Nick in the past. Man, am I glad that I did. What happens when a secret military experiment goes awry and results in mutations that seek to feed and spread? That is where this story takes you. Starting out with an experiment set back during the Vietnam War, the story gradually unfolds with what is clearly well researched science and thought. Reed Beckham leads Team Ghost through a mission to recover a sample from a gone-silent medical research facility as USAMRIID (pronounced u-sam-rid, minor nit-pick on my part as it is spelled out phonetically quite frequently during the narration).

As someone intimately familiar with Fort Bragg, I loved the details about the base as Reed leads his team to search for survivors throughout the now overrun base. The roads and locations called out easily helped me to picture what was going on and Nick clearly did his homework with regards to the base. Likewise, the details which go into Kate and Ellis's research into curing the infected fro the initial outbreak. All of the details make this story feel very real and help draw you in to the various situations which impact the human condition of each of the characters in the story.

The details on the infected and variants definitely give this a very unique feel (not typical zombies, not resident evil mutations, but a good and scary mix which also reminds me of a creature from an X-Files episode).

I am very glad I invested in this story as, like Hell Divers and Trackers, this story has me as another hooked reader (listener in my case). Great work and highly recommended!


EXTINCTION EDGE

Already on to book 2 of this amazing series. As is my history with Nick's writing, I am absolutely addicted to his style of storytelling (and that of Bronson Pinchot's narration as I am listened to the audible edition of this book).

Book two takes place in a situation where team ghost and the survivors across the world, to include Plum Island, must now figure out how to deal with the variants created by the bio-weapon designed by Dr. Lovato which was designed to eradicate the Hemorrhage virus. After all, “to kill a monster you have to create a monster.” The modified VX-99/Ebola virus combo which infected humanity has now been modified once more resulting in some truly terrifying sounding creatures.

The research into military culture which Mr. Smith has done for this series is truly admirable. I love the shout-out to the wounded warriors out there in this series. I also greatly enjoy the from-the-front leadership style of Beckham and how he seeks to continue to encourage his team and the other members of Plum Island to continue to fight for humanity (they fight so humanity survives. For those who have read Hell Divers, do you see what I did there?)

The details that went into the fight between those at Plum Island, the members of Team Ghost, and CENTCOM really hits home as it highlights a key aspect of military life; the battle between those on the ground doing the fighting and those making the decisions. While not taken to the extremes seen in the book, some of it hit home for me. Operation Liberty fails miserably, despite warnings from the experts who are studying the variants and those infected with the hemorrhage virus, and Team Ghost is left to pick up the pieces.

I will say the most memorable portion of this entry in the series was the opening side story which expanded later in the book. The encounter in the lair was truly horrifying and gave me an Aliens style vibe akin to when the team on LV-426 first encountered those which had been cocooned. And, once again, the way the lips/mouths morph for these creatures is perhaps one of their most terrifying characteristics.

Book two was just as good, if not better than, the first and I am really glad I got to dive into this series.

EXTINCTION AGE

Book three has already come and gone for me and I continue to be drawn into this story line. With Operation Liberty resulting in a beyond failure status, Team Ghost now faces the risk of dwindling supplies, a lack of appropriate guidance from their parent command, and the task that the science team now faces to eliminate the variant threat. Like my other reviews from the series, I am reviewing the audible edition (namely the first omnibus of books one through three).

Like in other books, Nick’s research clearly shines through in this series, as others have pointed out, with very well developed characters and well researched technology, science, and military tactics. He really has a talent for painting a story that is deep, well-developed, believable, and feels very realistic. The audio editions of these books bring the story to even greater life in my eyes and make this series that much better.

Like in the last book, I am really drawn to the leadership style of some of the characters in the book (Beckham, Jensen, etc.). Jensen is the leader every soldier hopes for as they go into combat, one that leads by example and is not afraid to join his men. Beckham has a fatherly quality about in the way that he leads his team and continues to develop them.

As supplies begin to dwindle and the hopes of a re-supply are tarnished by General Kennor’s short-sighted vision of how this battle should be fought, key military locations begin to be overrun. An attack on Plum Island takes this threat and amplifies it as the science team seeks to research and understand the variant threat. Likewise, the threat of those infected with the original hemorrhage virus re-surfaces, requiring a re-look by Dr. Lovato. This all culminates as a rogue destroyer happens by Plum Island and opens up the next chapter in this highly addictive series.

As I’ve said in my other reviews, this series is worth every minute I have devoted to it. Easily 5 stars.

Great series!

I'll start with the negative and say that the narrator is good, but he works with a narrow range of voices and at times i couldnt tell who was speaking unless he read the name. His voice did fit for the sciency stuff and doctors, not to sound stereotypical (maybe a bit), but he did have that slightly flat tone many seem to have in his voice. His female voices sounded almost over exagerated with the woe is me tone or that im fragile tone. You do get used to it though and the ride is worth it. My only other complaint is that i think he reads some dialogue off a little too whiney for soldiers who've gone to hell and back again.
That aside, he read the action well and overall was easy to get used to. The story is amazing and made the author's version of "zombies" scary as hell and hard to see any hope of survival. Very few punches are pulled. By this I mean bad things keep on happening and there are a lot of consequences to people's mistakes. Though it seems like nothing will go well, the author does a great job of allowing you to hold onto that small bead of hope. I was cheering the mc's on and even some side characters through these books, hoping they get through each trial. At one point I even pumped up my fist and shouted "YES!" Books rarely get me to do that, but for the characters every small victory is worth celebrating as the author guides them through hell.

A marathon that doesn't require endurance

What made the experience of listening to The Extinction Cycle Boxed Set the most enjoyable?

This was the sweetest little nugget I have discovered in audible. Nicholas Sansbury Smith is one of the most talented fictional writers of our time and he weaves incredibly intricate details into his dark apocalyptic world. Imagine my amazement when I discovered three of the first Extinction Cycle series books rolled into one 25 hour long adventure. Hell yeah I was in for the long haul. The first three books grip you with some much gut wrenching force that you'll buying the rest of the books before you finish the set. Smith's stories have a way of immersing the reader into the story so deep that its hard to snap back to real life and to me that's the best kind of books. Bronson Pinchot is a great voice actor and did a better performance of this story than RC Bray could have done.

Great character and story development.

Great narration and story. Very engaging and hard to put down (well in this case stop listening) so be warned lol.

Fantastic!

Fantastic series again by NSS. On the edge of my seat the whole series. My only complaint is the reading of the 3rd book sounds like the microphone is from a 2003 laptop. Other than that, it’s amazing!