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This Way #1
It's Better This Way
Twenty-three years ago, the 'bulls' appeared in orbit and destroyed Earth's infrastructure in less than ten seconds. These days, the alien invaders aren't as much of a problem as the surviving humans are.
Evan Greggs learns that things aren't always as bad as they seem, but sometimes the choices to be made are as murky as they are difficult when it comes to living on The Farm, a community of survivors near the Cascade Mountains in central Oregon.
When a detachment of the old United States Army arrives with new information about the invaders, the citizens of The Farm are tasked with making another hard choice.
24,000 word novella
LGBTQ Friendly
Adult language / situations
Evan Greggs learns that things aren't always as bad as they seem, but sometimes the choices to be made are as murky as they are difficult when it comes to living on The Farm, a community of survivors near the Cascade Mountains in central Oregon.
When a detachment of the old United States Army arrives with new information about the invaders, the citizens of The Farm are tasked with making another hard choice.
24,000 word novella
LGBTQ Friendly
Adult language / situations
73 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 7, 2013
67 people are currently reading
266 people want to read
About the author
Travis Hill
33 books20 followersMy mailing list here:
http://eepurl.com/D2ktH
I write adult stories for adult readers.
I am an LGBT-friendly author.
http://eepurl.com/D2ktH
I write adult stories for adult readers.
I am an LGBT-friendly author.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
June 22, 2014
-Postapocalipsis con rumbos inesperados o al menos diferentes a lo típico y tópico.-
Género. Novela corta.
Lo que nos cuenta. Hace algo más de un par de décadas que la Tierra fue invadida por unos alienígenas con aspecto de minotauros, intenciones poco claras y comportamiento algo extraño. Evan es uno de los supervivientes que ahora reside en un asentamiento conocido como La Granja y que ejerce labores de explorador. El hallazgo de una nave extraña accidentada amerita su vuelta a La Granja para informar.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Novela corta.
Lo que nos cuenta. Hace algo más de un par de décadas que la Tierra fue invadida por unos alienígenas con aspecto de minotauros, intenciones poco claras y comportamiento algo extraño. Evan es uno de los supervivientes que ahora reside en un asentamiento conocido como La Granja y que ejerce labores de explorador. El hallazgo de una nave extraña accidentada amerita su vuelta a La Granja para informar.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
June 21, 2013
At the end of this book, the author makes a plea for a review regardless of the rating so that he can understand how his work comes off. OK, I will bite.
I love Science Fiction - Alien stories. The fact that you included members of the LGBT community guaranteed that I would pick it up to sample.
Kudos for including the LGBT members within your cast of characters.
The alien invaders and their method of conquering earth (leaving humans to kill themselves off first) was good as it showed the darker side of mankind.
Most all apocalypse stories come equipped with the authors political and personal world views of the woes of society. Yet, I thought you got a bit heavy on that. Commentaries on society are best when they are implied or spoken in passing, leaving the reader the option to buy what you are selling or not. If the author (through the MC narration) hammers too hard on their own personal spin, it takes away from the characters and the action of the plot (story).
This reader got caught up in wanting to knock the main character on the head for his inconsistencies and double standards, so much so that I almost stopped reading altogether. And so it took me 3 days to finish what should have taken me one, because I kept grumbling at his "logic". In short: dial it back buddy.
Next, This again goes to me as a reader, I can not get into a story if the characters in the story are inconsistent, stereotypical and or not redeemable (I need to know that they are seeing their flaws and on their way to change). I found no redeemable qualities in several of your characters. Your protagonist is hardly a good guy and your antagonist (the military guys) are whom I would be cheering for. Your heroes are just as savage as your villains, in fact more so because we do not "know" the military characters back stories only that the "farm" council (who as I have already said have questionable morals) do not like them. I want a hero, even if it is a flawed hero. I want to see the good vs. bad and your hero and for that matter the entire council hold no hope for saving society. They are self absorbed, morally questionable and frankly most of them are stereotypical, flat characters.
So does that mean I hated the story? No. It was an "OK" read.
I liked the world building that you did. I thought the aliens and the method of battling them was original.
Yet in the end, I do not know that I would pick up another episode in this series as I am not emotionally invested in your cast of characters enough to see what happens.
Yet having stated all that, I think that readers of the Science Fiction genre may enjoy this title.
I love Science Fiction - Alien stories. The fact that you included members of the LGBT community guaranteed that I would pick it up to sample.
Kudos for including the LGBT members within your cast of characters.
The alien invaders and their method of conquering earth (leaving humans to kill themselves off first) was good as it showed the darker side of mankind.
Most all apocalypse stories come equipped with the authors political and personal world views of the woes of society. Yet, I thought you got a bit heavy on that. Commentaries on society are best when they are implied or spoken in passing, leaving the reader the option to buy what you are selling or not. If the author (through the MC narration) hammers too hard on their own personal spin, it takes away from the characters and the action of the plot (story).
This reader got caught up in wanting to knock the main character on the head for his inconsistencies and double standards, so much so that I almost stopped reading altogether. And so it took me 3 days to finish what should have taken me one, because I kept grumbling at his "logic". In short: dial it back buddy.
Next, This again goes to me as a reader, I can not get into a story if the characters in the story are inconsistent, stereotypical and or not redeemable (I need to know that they are seeing their flaws and on their way to change). I found no redeemable qualities in several of your characters. Your protagonist is hardly a good guy and your antagonist (the military guys) are whom I would be cheering for. Your heroes are just as savage as your villains, in fact more so because we do not "know" the military characters back stories only that the "farm" council (who as I have already said have questionable morals) do not like them. I want a hero, even if it is a flawed hero. I want to see the good vs. bad and your hero and for that matter the entire council hold no hope for saving society. They are self absorbed, morally questionable and frankly most of them are stereotypical, flat characters.
So does that mean I hated the story? No. It was an "OK" read.
I liked the world building that you did. I thought the aliens and the method of battling them was original.
Yet in the end, I do not know that I would pick up another episode in this series as I am not emotionally invested in your cast of characters enough to see what happens.
Yet having stated all that, I think that readers of the Science Fiction genre may enjoy this title.
August 14, 2013
2.5 stars. Interesting post-apocalyptic/horror short story. I was enjoying it for the first 3/4 but it took an unappealing turn when the commune was confronted by some ex-military men wanting to fight back at the bulls. I thought the reactions of the commune members was bizarre, callous and inhumane. They put their green agenda above the lives of others. The hero Evan was cold and his affection for the young girl Ellie seemed more about his needs than hers considering the dismissive way he treated her mother. And the ending when he got the greenlight for a relationship with 'Mother'... Weird! Has a few LGBT characters but it's not an m/m romance.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to read
July 7, 2013FREE at Amazon!
December 8, 2016
In a world left from the attack of an alien invader, Evan Greggs has a lot more to worry about than the aliens; it's the people. Things become more difficult in his peaceful life on The Farm, a large self-sustained community in Oregon, when what's left of the United States Army comes calling with a proposition for the people of The Farm.
Plot
It’s Better This Way is set twenty-three years after an alien race human’s call “Bulls” came to Earth and basically destroyed humanity. This seems a pretty standard post-apocalyptic novel that takes place after the events of an alien invasion. Except the characters are fine with a murderous alien race staying on their planet because it’s “greener”. It’s Better This Way is a very short novel, but it tries to take on a lot in one sitting. I really can’t describe what the plot is. Nothing really happens in the book besides building the world the author, Travis Hill, has created. There’s no climax either, so the book feels more like a “part one” than an actual book.
Writing
The writing was a bit wordy at times, and in need of an editor equipped with a fine-tooth comb, but it wasn’t all that terrible. I question the choice of putting the book in first person, as Evan, the protagonist, isn’t especially likeable. There were concepts that were introduced but weren’t described until a chapter later, and the reader doesn’t even learn Evan’s name in-text until about a third of the way through the book. Character’s personalities came out of nowhere during the end of the book, and things didn’t seem all that planned; the writing enhanced this.
Characters
There’s Evan, Troy, Mom, and a bunch of other characters that I can’t be bothered to remember. Nobody had any personalities that stuck or, or much of a personality at all. The only character I can think of that had a personality that stuck out was Kim So, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was a bit of a Dragon Lady (East Asian stereotype, look it up). Two-thirds through the novel Evan’s personality changes, where he starts out as a sort of relaxed guy that’s gone through a lot to a man who takes charge and takes authority put upon him like a fish takes to water. It would have been character development if he had actually developed instead switching to Evan Personality B.
Things I Liked
I… didn’t like anything, really. Pity.
Things I Didn't Like
The rape. Oh, my god, the rape talked about in this book. It’s never explicitly described, but literally one week after the Bulls invaded, men collectively picked up guns and started raping all the women they could. This automatically knocked one star off my final review for this book. Rape in post-apocalyptic books are used for one purpose only, to show how dark people are without society, or something along those lines. Rape is basically used as a literary device, same as how similes and metaphors are used. It has no other purpose, and it’s insulting to rape victims and women reading these types of books. The funny thing is, the book claims to be “LGBTQ-friendly” but it is not very woman-friendly.
Without all of the rape, my rating would have been two stars.
I also couldn’t stand the whole message at the end of the book. Yes, the Earth is better pollution-wise, and that’s wonderful, but it came at the cost of billions of deaths, and the characters are all okay with this. There are so many conflicting attitudes in this book it’s not even funny. One example of this is when Mom criticizes the militaries of the world for killing millions, yet at the same time says it was better for the Earth to be cured of its “overpopulation” problem when the Bulls killed billions of innocents. How is one acceptable but not the other?
Diversity
As I mentioned above, the book claims to be “LGBTQ-friendly”, but it’s more “LG-friendly”. There are no confirmed bisexual characters or transgender characters. Women in the book get the crap end of the stick with the rampant raping going on in this world, and there are maybe three characters of color. And one of them, an East Asian woman, is a Dragon Lady stereotype.
Overall
I don’t think there was any possible way for me to like this book. The plot was dull and barely there, the characters weren’t very relatable at the best of times, and terrible people at the worst. There isn’t any real climax, and the book ends in more of a fizzle than anything. There’s non-descriptive rape galore in this world, and I don’t think any woman could like this world. This book could have been a lot better, but it fell prey to cliché’s and very weird character attitudes in the end.
I can't recommend this book.
Here is a link to my notes.
Plot
It’s Better This Way is set twenty-three years after an alien race human’s call “Bulls” came to Earth and basically destroyed humanity. This seems a pretty standard post-apocalyptic novel that takes place after the events of an alien invasion. Except the characters are fine with a murderous alien race staying on their planet because it’s “greener”. It’s Better This Way is a very short novel, but it tries to take on a lot in one sitting. I really can’t describe what the plot is. Nothing really happens in the book besides building the world the author, Travis Hill, has created. There’s no climax either, so the book feels more like a “part one” than an actual book.
Writing
The writing was a bit wordy at times, and in need of an editor equipped with a fine-tooth comb, but it wasn’t all that terrible. I question the choice of putting the book in first person, as Evan, the protagonist, isn’t especially likeable. There were concepts that were introduced but weren’t described until a chapter later, and the reader doesn’t even learn Evan’s name in-text until about a third of the way through the book. Character’s personalities came out of nowhere during the end of the book, and things didn’t seem all that planned; the writing enhanced this.
Characters
There’s Evan, Troy, Mom, and a bunch of other characters that I can’t be bothered to remember. Nobody had any personalities that stuck or, or much of a personality at all. The only character I can think of that had a personality that stuck out was Kim So, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was a bit of a Dragon Lady (East Asian stereotype, look it up). Two-thirds through the novel Evan’s personality changes, where he starts out as a sort of relaxed guy that’s gone through a lot to a man who takes charge and takes authority put upon him like a fish takes to water. It would have been character development if he had actually developed instead switching to Evan Personality B.
Things I Liked
I… didn’t like anything, really. Pity.
Things I Didn't Like
The rape. Oh, my god, the rape talked about in this book. It’s never explicitly described, but literally one week after the Bulls invaded, men collectively picked up guns and started raping all the women they could. This automatically knocked one star off my final review for this book. Rape in post-apocalyptic books are used for one purpose only, to show how dark people are without society, or something along those lines. Rape is basically used as a literary device, same as how similes and metaphors are used. It has no other purpose, and it’s insulting to rape victims and women reading these types of books. The funny thing is, the book claims to be “LGBTQ-friendly” but it is not very woman-friendly.
Without all of the rape, my rating would have been two stars.
I also couldn’t stand the whole message at the end of the book. Yes, the Earth is better pollution-wise, and that’s wonderful, but it came at the cost of billions of deaths, and the characters are all okay with this. There are so many conflicting attitudes in this book it’s not even funny. One example of this is when Mom criticizes the militaries of the world for killing millions, yet at the same time says it was better for the Earth to be cured of its “overpopulation” problem when the Bulls killed billions of innocents. How is one acceptable but not the other?
Diversity
As I mentioned above, the book claims to be “LGBTQ-friendly”, but it’s more “LG-friendly”. There are no confirmed bisexual characters or transgender characters. Women in the book get the crap end of the stick with the rampant raping going on in this world, and there are maybe three characters of color. And one of them, an East Asian woman, is a Dragon Lady stereotype.
Overall
I don’t think there was any possible way for me to like this book. The plot was dull and barely there, the characters weren’t very relatable at the best of times, and terrible people at the worst. There isn’t any real climax, and the book ends in more of a fizzle than anything. There’s non-descriptive rape galore in this world, and I don’t think any woman could like this world. This book could have been a lot better, but it fell prey to cliché’s and very weird character attitudes in the end.
I can't recommend this book.
Here is a link to my notes.
December 14, 2014
Evan lives in a world that has been destroyed by alien “bulls” that have destroyed and harvested minerals from major cities. He, and his partner Tony, scavenge things that are useful from the areas around them. On a trip, they come across a downed alien craft and a dead bull – it’s the closest they’ve ever come to one of the aliens and it spooks them.
They travel back to “The Farm,” where they live, and tell the leaders about what they’ve found. They decided how to handle the situation.
Meanwhile, they get a visit from someone who claims to be military, trying to recruit people for their cause: taking down the bulls.
When I started reading this story, I thought it had strong promise. I was quickly disappointed. There were large plot holes (just one example: at one point it was night time and then all of a sudden they’re getting ready to leave in the morning).
Next, the author explains at length that the people at The Farm, and general society, have no use for last names, and then almost every character after that point has a last name. That was a waste of words and completely inconsistent.
Then there were more inconsistencies in grammar and editing. Sometimes it was correct, and in the next paragraph it would be the wrong way (mainly in and around dialogue with dialogue tags).
The end was a total and complete disappointment with more huge plot holes. This story also suffers from telling not showing, which is another major breach in good storytelling.
They travel back to “The Farm,” where they live, and tell the leaders about what they’ve found. They decided how to handle the situation.
Meanwhile, they get a visit from someone who claims to be military, trying to recruit people for their cause: taking down the bulls.
When I started reading this story, I thought it had strong promise. I was quickly disappointed. There were large plot holes (just one example: at one point it was night time and then all of a sudden they’re getting ready to leave in the morning).
Next, the author explains at length that the people at The Farm, and general society, have no use for last names, and then almost every character after that point has a last name. That was a waste of words and completely inconsistent.
Then there were more inconsistencies in grammar and editing. Sometimes it was correct, and in the next paragraph it would be the wrong way (mainly in and around dialogue with dialogue tags).
The end was a total and complete disappointment with more huge plot holes. This story also suffers from telling not showing, which is another major breach in good storytelling.
November 13, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed this read and actually found it quite plausible. Although there are aliens in this book (not always realistic in dystopian fiction), they are not the focus of the story. But rather how humans adapt, or don't adapt to change being the real focus. I thought the characters were real and believable and I was honestly interested in their thoughts and actions. Especially since there were so many different groups of people being represented in the story. I think the author did a great service by representing so many different demographics who are all going through the same thing in this story. Judging others on their differences no longer seems to be that important when the entire human race is at stake.
At one point in this story the military show up after 20+ years of non-existence and expect everyone to just fall in line the way they did before the fall of humanity. I found this to be a very interesting commentary on us as a people and how for so long the government has treated us like cattle because, well, we act like cattle. There is real hope in the human race at the end of the story and although it would be interesting to see what happens, I'm perfectly happy without a sequel. I mean, after all, It's Better This Way.
At one point in this story the military show up after 20+ years of non-existence and expect everyone to just fall in line the way they did before the fall of humanity. I found this to be a very interesting commentary on us as a people and how for so long the government has treated us like cattle because, well, we act like cattle. There is real hope in the human race at the end of the story and although it would be interesting to see what happens, I'm perfectly happy without a sequel. I mean, after all, It's Better This Way.
July 13, 2014
A Different View of a Post Apocalyptic World. A couple of decades after aliens move in and knock Earth's civilization back darn near the stone age and start making wholesale changes to the atmosphere and landscape. Chaos reigned for a long time as people turned on one another to take what they needed to survive, or just from shear masochism. Now a sort of peace and order has been established, although the hold on it is tenuous. A faction of the new Government enters the scene, showing ways to finally attack and kill aliens, but is that necessarily a good thing?
July 11, 2013
This book reminds me of "The Passage." I really liked it. Evan now lives in a world that has been invaded by aliens that look like bulls. He finds himself part of a community that calls itself "The Farm." Military men come to The Farm to recruit people for their army to defeat what they call, the enemy. What they encounter are people who have settled into a way of life that they have adapted to. No electricity, no government and none of the "things" that made life easier. Short read.
May 20, 2014
I understand that this is possibly going to be written as a full book and when it is, I am sure that my rating will be higher. The story was just getting to the point where I could figure out what was going on and then it was over.
So Travis, please start your engines and let us know when the full book will be available through Kindle.b
So Travis, please start your engines and let us know when the full book will be available through Kindle.b
May 20, 2014
I enjoyed this book. It appealed to my love for dystopian and sci-fi novels. looking forward to the next book!
I found it well-written, the characters interesting and the plot line was realistically adapted.
I found it well-written, the characters interesting and the plot line was realistically adapted.
October 11, 2014
Well that was a quick read!! I didn't realize it was only 73 pages. I love the premise but I think there's a lot of reference to sexual preferences that may or may not be necessary. It didn't detract but I'm not sure it added either. I'm looking forward to the next segment. Bring it on, Travis!!
Read
July 26, 2014I am the author of this book. It is bad karma to rate your own work!
July 7, 2013
Read in a day and definetly want more of the story.
July 8, 2014
Good. Rough-hewn and not perfect, but also fun and entertaining.
June 19, 2020
It was an interesting book, another apocalyptic story. Aliens invade, the military's response to them, and a place called The Farm, where survivors learn to live off the land, rule by everyone's vote and their belief that the aliens, known as Bulls actually are taking care of the human race and the planet by getting rid of all the electronics, nuclear plants and the methane in our air.
The battle isn't about the Bulls, it is about the members of The Farm and the last of the military left at Clear Lake in Oregon. The book is only a piece of the story and Travis does a decent job of putting this together.
I am not the biggest fan of apocalyptic stories (there have been so many over the years), so part of my star rating deals more with me, than with the book.
I love the way that sexuality is barely a part of the story. It isn't ignored, but it is mentioned and the words basically talk about how they all seem to take sex and sexuality as a way of life. The military officers think of The Farm as a hippie commune, and it some ways it really is.
If you like end of world/alien invasions, you might like this.
The battle isn't about the Bulls, it is about the members of The Farm and the last of the military left at Clear Lake in Oregon. The book is only a piece of the story and Travis does a decent job of putting this together.
I am not the biggest fan of apocalyptic stories (there have been so many over the years), so part of my star rating deals more with me, than with the book.
I love the way that sexuality is barely a part of the story. It isn't ignored, but it is mentioned and the words basically talk about how they all seem to take sex and sexuality as a way of life. The military officers think of The Farm as a hippie commune, and it some ways it really is.
If you like end of world/alien invasions, you might like this.
October 1, 2019
Aliens that practice Eminent Domain?
Mob-style maybe. Unless you count being allowed to live as "compensation".
They've been here or 23 years, and whatever it is they're after is still available.
It's not people - get in the way, threaten them, you're dead; if you stay out of the way and avoid weaponry, they couldn't care much less about you... Unless you're the incautiously nosy sort.
It's a novella, a fairly quick read, and a good introduction to the arc...
Oh, and it's FREE.
Mob-style maybe. Unless you count being allowed to live as "compensation".
They've been here or 23 years, and whatever it is they're after is still available.
It's not people - get in the way, threaten them, you're dead; if you stay out of the way and avoid weaponry, they couldn't care much less about you... Unless you're the incautiously nosy sort.
It's a novella, a fairly quick read, and a good introduction to the arc...
Oh, and it's FREE.
October 1, 2019
Aliens that practice Eminent Domain? Mob-style, maybe; if you count being allowed to live as "compensation".
They've been here or 23 years, and whatever it is they're after is still available.
It's not people - get in the way, threaten them, you're dead; if you stay out of the way and avoid weaponry, they couldn't care much less about you... Unless you're the incautiously nosy sort.
It's a novella, a fairly quick read, and a good introduction to the arc...
Oh, and it's FREE.
They've been here or 23 years, and whatever it is they're after is still available.
It's not people - get in the way, threaten them, you're dead; if you stay out of the way and avoid weaponry, they couldn't care much less about you... Unless you're the incautiously nosy sort.
It's a novella, a fairly quick read, and a good introduction to the arc...
Oh, and it's FREE.
March 25, 2017
Started out pretty well, but then my interest began to wane, before vanishing completely when the military showed up at The Farm. The message of the book itself (the 'bulls' invasion was a good thing, because it meant people could live a 'greener' life, or something) completely put me off.
July 30, 2015
This was a scifi post-apoc full of unexpected twists. It came off as a little heavy-handed at some points, but overall it was a fantastic read. The Earth has been invaded by an alien race who are only killing humans that threaten them or use technology. They are also leveling the human cities. Humans have been thrown into the stone ages without tech, electricity, running water, etc. The biggest threat, however, in the collapsing society isn't the aliens - it's other humans.
This appears to be a perma-free on Amazon, so I recommend you go ahead and give it a try for yourself. It's a novella. I'm not sure if this is setting up for a series, but the story does stand on its own and has made me interested in checking out the author's other books.
This appears to be a perma-free on Amazon, so I recommend you go ahead and give it a try for yourself. It's a novella. I'm not sure if this is setting up for a series, but the story does stand on its own and has made me interested in checking out the author's other books.
September 6, 2016
Mr. Hill takes the apocalypse and gives it new meaning. If we could make the worked better, would we? Will it take a more knowledgeable race to dedicate themselves to destroying what we consider a bad thing? We spend our lives in a dull drum trying to find our way and thinking each day about a place that does not exist but what if that place existed we just did not know how to get there? In this book the author takes the apocalypse and shows us how an alien attack actual could benefit everyone yet at the same time it invades our every being trying to escape it. Would we accept our fate given to us by another race or would we actually fight to survive.
December 31, 2016
***2016 has been a very unstable year. Not only have I lost favourite role models in droves, I have been into dark places more times than I could count. Yes, I experienced highlights as well but the darkness has had a big impact this year and the only way to keep it at bay was reading, mass reading, back to back books with no stopping and no reviewing. I do apologize to all the writers that I won’t be able to review their books yet but I will get to it. Promise!***
January 21, 2015
This book was interesting at first, but then it just became a political statement, or maybe an anti-political statement. Also, there was no climax. It just fizzled out. I'm not a part of the target audience for this book. I think it would appeal more to an anti-establishment, anything-is-better-than-today's-society kind of person.
January 3, 2016
Another story start masquerading as a novella. Not very compelling start either. If I had the entire story in front of me I probably wouldn't bother finishing after the first 100 pages.
November 3, 2015
The story is well written, but the ending fell short for me since this is the only book on this title.
April 20, 2016
Amazing
I've always loved post-apocalyptic movies or book. Most disappoint. This one did not. The story was fascinating and the characters intriguing.
I've always loved post-apocalyptic movies or book. Most disappoint. This one did not. The story was fascinating and the characters intriguing.
November 10, 2016
eh it was pretty good. then just ended. never really wrapped up
July 1, 2014
Excellent at the start, then got strange and ended abruptly.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews