The End Of The World Is Nigh by Tony Moyle

2.5 Stars

Strangely prescient read, considering I started reading this in February 2020 as Covid-19 started to make a worldwide impact.  All the more ironic really as the book deals with a prophecy that predicts a pandemic causing cities to be put under quarantine and mass panic stirred by media outlets.  A fictional prophecy that is strangely running parallel to the times we live in - if only oranges really would help.

I felt strangely let down by this book, it just didn't gel for me.  Whilst there are some sound attempts at depicting medieval life through Phil's exploits the choice of language jarred greatly with the setting.  The voices for medieval life and modern life are the same which made it very difficult to feel any genuine connection with the historical setting.  I wasn't expecting the author to slip in to a heap of forsooths and sirrees but because the narration had no pitch change it all became a bit blah and bland.  The juxtaposition between ancient and modern can be handled without resorting to time appropriate verbiage but it was ineffectual here.

It also didn't help that I genuinely did not like any of the characters in the book.  Ally Oldfield was the nearest I got to liking anyone and that was because she was relatively open and honest in her hostile superiority.  I got the feeling that Phil was supposed to be who the reader really liked but I just wanted to slap him on a regular basis.  Gabriel was just an abomination and every worse trope of a "Millennial" you could possibly conjure up from skimming the internet.

Despite being all too real a scenario in the modern day - minus the Nostradamian Gloom - this really wasn't for me.  I couldn't wait to finish the book and was tempted on several occasions to just label it a DNF and be done with it all but I persevered and limped to the end.  I noted it as a 2.5 Star read in my notebook but on reflection it was more a 1.5 - 2 but I will stay with my impression on concluding the book.