The Rift

By: Walter Jon Williams

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

Length: 30 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Fast-paced and terrifyingly real, The Rift is a blockbuster novel of destruction, heroism, and survival that is sure to grab fans of recent disaster movies.

It starts with the dogs. They won’t stop barking. And then the earth shrugs - 8.9 on the Richter scale. It’s the world’s biggest earthquake since Lisbon in 1755, and it doesn’t hit California or Japan or Mexico, but New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi River. Seismologists had predicted the scope of the disaster - but no one listened.

For hundreds of miles around, dams burst, engulfing entire counties in tidal waves of mud and debris. Cities collapse into piles of brick and shards of glass. Hospitals and schools crumble. Bridges twist and snap, spilling rush-hour traffic into rivers already swollen with bodies. Within minutes, there is nothing but chaos and ruin from St. Louis to Vicksburg, from Kansas City to Louisville. Every bridge down, every highway torn, every house gone.

America’s heartland has fallen into the nightmare known as the Rift, a fault line in the earth that wrenchingly exposes the fractures in American society itself. As a strange white mist smelling of sulfur rises from the crevassed ground, the real terror begins for the survivors, who will soon envy the dead, including:

• Jason Adams, a teenager separated from his mother;
• Nick Ruford, an African-American engineer searching for his estranged daughter;
• Noble Frankland, the television preacher whose visions of hell have become all too real;
• Larry Hallock, a technician working frantically to prevent a nuclear meltdown at his power station;
• And Omar Paxton, a sheriff and Ku Klux Klansman who seeks racial vengeance in the turmoil of disaster.

Walter J. Williams has created a modern American disaster saga, a story based on terrifying fact, filled with non-stop action, peopled with characters who are heartbreakingly real. Witnessing authentic heroes surfacing in the unlikeliest places, you will share their horror, feel their despair, and triumph with them in their struggle to survive. One thing you will know for sure: It can happen here. And sooner or later, it will.

©2013 Walter Jon Williams (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Unexpected great book

I tried this book based on readers recommendations. Do you ever have one of those experiences where you are reading a book and something happens in real life that makes the book even more believable- that’s this book.
I started it right before the recent earthquake hit in California.
Excellent character development and a story that continues to draw you in and root for the good guys!

Just WOW!

This book was well written and performed flawlessly.

It kept my attention through out the length of the story and had me engaged with most of the characters, never felt as if it was dragging on.

Loved it

One of the best I’ve heard. Even though it’s 30 hours it’s never for a moment boring or seems long. I’m shocked it was published in 1998 as it could have been written today. A really excellent story.

Breathtaking!

Simply outstanding in every way. Much like the mighty Mississippi, the book rises, and roils, and is relentless.

Struggled here

Huge fan of Walter Jon Williams. But this... well, it's older, and it's far from his finest work. It moves with absolutely glacial speed, and most of the characters are simply horrible people; I kept hoping for the Big Event just so most of them would be swallowed in a crevasse. The combination means you're spending hours listening to people you hate whine and complain about their petty issues. I don't need that in my escapist fantasy.

long in the descriptions

I really liked the story but for the overly wordy descriptions. performance was outstanding

Little slow at first but gets better!

I will admit I almost stopped listening because the start was so boring for me. I could not get into it and it the people bored me. But once everything went sideways and things got crazy it got good!! Loved Jason and Nick thought their story was great. I liked how everything came together in the end. So, the start was eh and didn't care for it but after the quake it got super good.

Makes you think hard of what could happen

This was an interesting thought provoking read. Human interactions were tested. Makes you think. The race issue was handled quite well. We need to overcome our predjudices, both black and white, and reunite as in species, not as color. Highly recommended.

Couldn't Get Past The Reader - Terrible!

The premise of an earthquake on the New Madrid fault is intriguing but this book was so riddled with bad narrating and various agenda's, it was an absolute miserable time.

Great book, here's how to fix the volume issues...

EDIT: figured out it was an issue with bluetooth. it was cutting out due to the long pauses. if you have this issue, get an app that creates a steady stream of sound, like one of those sleep noise apps (I use Sleepo), and set it to a very low volume while listening.

now that I figured that out, this book is great! definitely recommended!