Audible Book Review: Nomad, The Nomad Triology 1, by Matthew Mather

This apocalyptic, action story has interesting climate science elements.

Nomad
The Nomad Trilogy 1
By: Matthew Mather
Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka

Series: The Nomad Series, Book 1
Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
Release date: 11-04-15
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Genre: Action, Post-Apocalyptic
My Rating: 4.0 of 5.0 Overall; Story 4.0; Narration 4.0.

Publisher's Summary
Something big is coming...big enough to destroy the entire solar system...and it's heading straight for Earth. That's what Dr. Ben Rollins, head of Harvard's exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter and wife, who are vacationing in Italy: Something is coming, he tells them, a hundred times the mass of our sun. We can't see it, we don't know what it is, but it's there. They're calling it Nomad, and it's coming fast. In just a few months, the Earth may be destroyed.
The world erupts into chaos as the end approaches - and Ben discovers that his wife and daughter are trapped in Italy. The key to humanity's survival may rest in the final answers he pieces together in the midst of his frantic scramble to find his family before Nomad swallows the planet.
©2015 Matthew Mather (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Review:
As a young scientist, Dr. Ben Rollins provided research predicting a collision in space. That research paper was declined for publication many years ago. Now Earth is facing a catastrophic solar event which is being hidden from the public even as it will soon be in position to be seen by amateurs. Nomad, as the event is called, doesn’t have to collide with Earth to cause a terrible impact. Instead, it has enough draw to pull planets out of orbit. There will be cataclysmic global warming, volcanic activity, tsunamis, and more extreme conditions that will remove society infrastructure as well as causing immediate deaths.

Ben is picked up by government/scientific authorities. He apparently has the only records that would help pinpoint the origin and trajectory of Nomad. He tries to have his family, ex-wife, Celeste, and daughter, Jessica, fly to meet him but they get trapped in Italy when the climate reactions begin.

Jessica and Celeste were touring a castle (“castello”) in Chantilly, Italy. Jessica is an expert extreme climber in spite of having a prosthetic leg. She captures the eye of the owner of the castle which provides her a place to seek refuge after getting mugged in Rome.

The pacing was good and I enjoyed the action moving the story along. The scientific descriptions of the events and consequences made this interesting. On the other hand, I wasn’t particularly drawn to the characters with their poor decisions. It is an interesting post-apocalyptic and I expect I may pick up more in the series sometime in the future.

Audio Notes: Keith Szarabajka did a good job with the various voices, including acceptable accents (a least to my untrained ear). I am glad that I had this title to listen to.

Source: June 2021 Audible Plus Catalog. This qualifies for 2022TBR and 2022Audiobook goals.