Rating: 3/5 Terrified Nights
Give me the short version: It was the mysterious booming sound in the night that brought the monsters and very quickly the world fell apart. Our narrator and his little sausage dog must struggle not to fall apart with it.
Let me get the most obvious thing out of the way first, as if you’ve skimmed other reviews you’ll already be aware. I found The Greenland Diaries to be a damn enjoyable read, and given a solid round of proofing and editing it would become a great one. The kindle version I downloaded was dated October 2014 and it was unusual to find a page that did not contain typos, similar-word errors (i.e. “grizzly” for “grisly;” “scrapped” for “scraped”), or metaphors that did not quite fit. I would love to see Mr Marsh give this a tidy up and re-release, especially as popular culture is ravenous for clean straightforward narration given the audience of Howey’s Beacon 23 or Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts. The concept for The Greenland Diaries is bold and well realised with engaging pacing, leaving you desperately wanting to know more about the monsters (monsters being Patrick Marsh’s raison d'être). Prior to a polish of the existing version you will need to bring a little patience along with you, but I will absolutely recommend it to read.
Favourite bit:
“Their negligence is the only source of survival for us now. Not that there is “us.” Who knows how many people are left with this parade of horrors.”