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  • Pandemic

  • The Extinction Files, Book 1
  • Written by: A. G. Riddle
  • Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
  • Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (425 ratings)

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Pandemic

Written by: A. G. Riddle
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
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Publisher's Summary

A deadly outbreak in Kenya. A conspiracy beyond imagination. And a race to save humanity in its darkest hour.

From A. G. Riddle, the worldwide best-selling author of The Atlantis Gene and Departure, comes a novel that will change everything you think you know about pandemics.

A hundred miles north of Alaska, an American Coast Guard vessel discovers a sunken submarine at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. It has no national identification and doesn't match the records of any known vessel. Deep within, researchers find evidence of a scientific experiment that will alter our very understanding of the human race.

In Atlanta, Dr. Peyton Shaw is awakened by the phone call she has dreaded for years. As the CDC's leading epidemiologist, she's among the first responders to outbreaks around the world. It's a lonely and dangerous job, but it's her life - and she's good at it. This time she may have met her match. In Kenya, an Ebola-like pathogen has infected two Americans. One lies at death's door. With the clock ticking, Peyton assembles her team and joins personnel from the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the WHO. What they find in the remote village is beyond their worst fears. As she traces the origin of the pathogen, Peyton begins to believe that there is more to this outbreak - that it may be merely the opening act in a conspiracy with far-reaching consequences.

In Berlin, Desmond Hughes awakens in a hotel room with no memory of how he got there or who he is. On the floor he finds a dead security guard from an international pharmaceutical company. His only clue leads him to Peyton Shaw - a woman who seems to know him but refuses to tell him how. With the police searching the city for him, Desmond desperately tries to piece together what happened to him. To his shock and horror, he learns that he may be involved in causing the outbreak - and could hold the only key to stopping it.

As the pathogen spreads around the world, Peyton and Desmond race to unravel the conspiracy behind the pandemic - and uncover secrets some want to keep buried.

©2017 A. G. Riddle (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Pandemic

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
    50
  • 2 Stars
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    18

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Editor wrecks first words of every chapter!

I really enjoyed this book with a couple exceptions. Most important-- Audible, your editing SUCKS! Every single Day, and every chapter has the first word or two or 3 clipped by a over zealous editor. Very distracting. We need to hear ALL the WORDS in a BOOK.
Because the first few words say how many died, what day it is, and usually starts with a person's name, it's really hard to track who they are talking about. I wanted to know how many were infected, and how many died, and by about Day 3, these important facts were clipped. Thinking it might be something wrong with the download, I tried downloading again, and listening on my computer but it's the same all devices.

Storywise, I enjoyed it, although as others have mentioned, things just got really coincidental. In this type of pandemic, the loses should have been much, much higher. I liked the narrator, although I didn't love his accents particularly. I'm sure Aussies, Russians, Brazilians, Germans and Africans are not going to give his accents the highest marks, but I'm Canadian, they sounded ok to me though not great. His pace was good, he pronounced words correctly, I just wish (not his fault) that his first words in every chapter weren't clipped off. For those reasons, I'm not rating this higher.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Well written and engagingly performed

This story has a similar feel as the Atlantis series. Just plausible enough to be believable: just fantastic enough to work. Sometimes the story seems to slow down, but I never felt disengaged. Riddle uses a great deal of memories / flashbacks. Each is a self contained short story that reveals some essential part of the character. There are a few unexpected twists near the end. Edoardo Bellerini is an excellent reader. Female voices are believable and varied, and accents are consistent. Downloading Extinction Files book 2 right now!

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Too long, poorly written, annoying narration

Very predictable plot twists that are drawn out as if you couldn't possibly guess them but you can.

Tons of stereotypes both gender and racial. Themes of 1. white people being more valuable than Black Africans because white people are the scientists and doctors of the world and that knowledge is held by them alone. 2. Women fall in love only once per lifetime and then sacrifice everything for mediocre men.

Narrator uses russian accent for Brazilians. These Brazilians are portrayed by the author as stereotypical Latin American revolutionaries, even though they live in the favelas of Brasil which has a very different culture than the rest of South America.

Finally it was just WAY TOO LONG. By the end, I just wanted the pandemic to win and wipe out everyone, especially the annoying as fuck main characters.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

needs a good editor

I like long books. They hold the promise of many hours spent in someone else's skin. However, when the long descriptions and many characters don"t advance the story or really contribute to the plot in a meaningful way it is just extra fluff. I lose interest. So it is with this story. I am ready to suspend my belief in reality to some extent for the purpose of entertainment, but there is a limit. A.G. Riddle exceeded that limit. Edouardo Bellerini did a good job reading it. That is what got me through.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Epic!

I loved it all the way through! The detail is fantastic and is one of the many reasons I voraciously read every Riddle book I can get my hands on.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

I couldn’t get into this

I know most people would have enjoyed this read, but, I just couldn’t get into this one. I would listen for a while and then go to another book, then return because I had nothing else, then, disappear again until I had no choice. I think some aspects of the book triggered me or made me uncomfortable. I think this reflects more on me than on the book itself.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Good idea but does not follow through

The pandemic idea was interesting and obviously there was a lot of background research done on the management of an epidemic. But a third through the story, it just becomes too many coincidences piling on top of each other, that make the whole plot loose its credibility.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Painful, cliched and boring, with awful characters

Despite a compelling premise and reasonable pace, this one really shocked me with its quality. Every cliche you can imagine, awful characters, meaningless twists that promise revelations that never come and bad writing make this feel like something a high schooler might write as his first novel. A hollow imitation of what a better novel like this should be. A fine pitch, all the pieces you think you need to tell a compelling story mashed together without any talent or care. It’s like Audible read a pitch and didn’t bother editing it before they paid for a top shelf narrator and marketed it as ‘must read’ title. Honestly, I slogged my way through this hoping for a satisfying conclusion or some closure. Got nothing and despite still not having an answer to the big revelations I was promised, I will NOT be reading the sequel. And I already paid for it, so that should give you an idea of how bad this was.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Ben
  • 2018-05-26

Crazy action, but good suspense + medical context

A good audio page-turner - a suspense novel about a global pandemic that seems to be used as a bioweapon, but for what reason? The story moves across decades, and across continents, from Kenya to Australia, the US to the UK, and small Pacific islands as well. It is definitely written to keep you hooked, it is almost non-stop action at an unbelievable level. How can epidemiologists also be genius-level computer programmers, as well as military-level combatants and strategists, and also be expert pilots?! The characters overall are good enough, though some drop out of the story or come back in as it goes along. There were perhaps just a few too many entwined narratives to really make it an easy read - you had to keep straight who was related to/sleeping with/childhood friend of/enemy of each other character, and then some would change sides just to mess with you. There were a few times where the action really slowed down and we got into more serious medical descriptions, which caught me by surprise once or twice, but it actually made for a nice break and added plausibility to the whole thing. A.G. Riddle seems to know enough about medical procedures and pandemic events to make a believable story, or at least to make the medical/pandemic part believable with the unbelievable bioterrorism and hand to hand fighting. Edoardo Ballerini does a good job narrating, though I felt the Australian accents were a bit harsh and the evil people always had very gruff voices.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Terrible story.

It takes quite a bit for me to quit a story part way through but this book was so bad I could not go on. The plot is so unrealistic and predictable. It felt like the author added in some parts just to make the story last longer as they had no bearing on the story line. Very disappointing

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