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    Oblivion
    Oblivion
    Oblivion
    Audiobook20 hours

    Oblivion

    Written by Anthony Horowitz

    Narrated by Simon Prebble

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Having escaped from Hong Kong, the five gatekeepers - Matt, Pedro, Scott, Jamie and Scarlett - are scattered in a hostile and dangerous world. As they struggle to re-group and plan their next move, the malevolent King of the Old Ones gathers his forces in Oblivion: a desolate landscape where the last survivors of humanity must fight the ultimate battle.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 31, 2013
    ISBN9781470352127
    Oblivion
    Author

    Anthony Horowitz

    ANTHONY HOROWITZ is the author of the US bestselling Magpie Murders and The Word is Murder, and one of the most prolific and successful writers in the English language; he may have committed more (fictional) murders than any other living author. His novel Trigger Mortis features original material from Ian Fleming. His most recent Sherlock Holmes novel, Moriarty, is a reader favorite; and his bestselling Alex Rider series for young adults has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide. As a TV screenwriter, he created both Midsomer Murders and the BAFTA-winning Foyle’s War on PBS. Horowitz regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines, and in January 2014 was awarded an OBE.

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    Reviews for Oblivion

    3.5/5

    91 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This review first appeared on The Book Zone(For Boys) blog

      Some people have been waiting patiently for four years for this final instalment to The Power of Five series to be released whilst Anthony wrote a fantastic end to the Alex Rider series, and a brilliant addition to the Sherlock Holmes stories. However, some people (me included) have been waiting just a little bit longer for Oblivion - it has been twenty three years since Day of the Dragon, the fourth book in the Pentagram series, was published, a series that Anthony would go on to rewrite as The Power of Five. I did not discover these books back in the 80s when they were first released - I had to wait until I discovered them in a Birmingham charity shop not long after I started teaching in 1995, but seventeen years is still quite a wait. Was it worth it? Hell yes!

      Before I say any more, I want to remind you of the closing lines of Necropolis, words that sent many a Power of Five fan's heart racing with concern, and no doubt caused howls of frustration to echo out across the land:

      "The Five had entered the door without knowing where they were going, so none of them would have arrived in the same place. They would be as far apart now as they had ever been. Worse than that, the door had been disintegrating even as they had passed through it, and the final blast had played one last trick on them. If the five of them had survived the journey, they would find out very soon.

      It would be a very long time before they found each other again."

      What a cliffhanger that was! It left fans wondering whether all of The Five would survive, and where on earth the doorway would take them. It was also the perfect set-up for Oblivion. I don't think it is creating a spoiler to say that not only are The Five scattered around the world (again), but the doorway also sent them all ten years into the future, by which time the King of the Old Ones has had his wicked way with Planet Earth. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong - war, famine, disease, environmental meltdown, death and destruction - you name it, it has happened somewhere or other. Nowhere on earth has gone unaffected, giving the poor, unsuspecting Five quite a shock as they arrive through a variety of doorways, not knowing where the others are, or even if they survived the hasty escape from Hong Kong. They also quickly discover that the doorways are all inexplicably no longer working, meaning they will have to rely on more traditional means of travelling if they are to come together again to banish Chaos and the Old Ones back to whichever hell they came from.

      You would be right in thinking this a seemingly impossible task, especially given that the minions of the Old Ones have had ten years to prepare for their arrival. Have no fear though, this is an Anthony Horowitz book and the man does have a knack of bringing things together to create a nice neat ending. Be warned as well though, this is an Anthony Horowitz book and the man does have a propensity for killing off main characters. There are both sides of the coin for you. What would you prefer? A nice neat ending with a favourite character being slaughtered by the Old Ones? Or perhaps a death-free end for The Five and their friends, but loose ends left blowing in the wind. I would certainly prefer the former of the two, and again, it's not really creating spoilers when I tell you that this is the road that Mr Horowitz chooses to travel, although you could stick hot pins under my toenails and I still wouldn't tell you who dies and who lives, or whether any of The Five manage to fully triumph over the forces of evil.

      I'm rambling now, and that is because I am finding it very difficult not to create spoilers. I was one of the incredibly fortunate few who received an early proof of this book (naturally I dropped everything to read it) and I have been agonising over this review for some time. It is only now, the day before its release, when I feel I can no longer put off writing it any longer, and so I have forced myself to sit down and get it written. Why am I finding it so difficult? Well, I really, really loved this book but to really explain why would just create so many spoilers. I loved the characters, and the way Anthony really tests them to their limits; I loved the many, many action scenes (he does action so well); I loved the varied (almost) post-apocalyptic locations and their (often insane) inhabitants who have all been affected in some way or another over the past ten years. And most of all, I loved how Mr Horowitz has taken many of the issues facing our planet and its population today, and imagined what they would be like after ten years of Chaos and his Old Ones. The imaginary future he creates is all the more scary because in the back of your mind you realise that unless something is done pretty damn soon by the world's numerous governments then his fiction could become a very painful not-too-dissimilar reality for us all.

      Oblivion is more than 650 pages long, and I am sure there will be some who will question this. However, I doubt many of these detractors will actually read it, and if they did they would quickly realise that when your five main characters (and various friends) are scattered around the world, it does take many, many words to lead them up to the ending that he delivers for his fans. However, I'm also not going to sit here and say that the book is perfect, as in my mind it isn't. I have one small gripe, and that is I felt it could have been just a handful of pages longer. Just twenty or thirty, as after the wonderful (or should that be horrific?) journeys he creates for his Five, the final climactic scenes in Antarctica just seemed to come to an end a little too quickly for my liking. However, I don't want to dwell on this as I had so much enjoyment reading this final instalment to a series that in one way or another has kept be enthralled and entertained for more than fifteen years.
    • 3/5
      Anthony Horowitz's Gatekeepers series is an excellent choice for readers who enjoy thrilling, action-packed dystopian stories with all sorts of twist and turns. The series has positive reviews overall from several credible sources and Anthony Horowitz is beloved by his fans. Oblivion is the fifth and final book in the saga.The book is not short on shock-factors, gun violence, or terrible people (demonic forces or human). I get why the series is thrilling; I can see why the plot is exciting, but honestly, I was just glad when it was over. As I work in the editorial world, I get itchy when a book needs to trim down the excess thinking, complaining, fretting, and bullets whizzing (book five comes in at a whopping 580 pages--there's A LOT of this).There are also many scenes included not only to shock the readers, but to illustrate just how much the world has gone to hell. My argument: we're five books in so we get it. These shock factors include suicide, graphic violence, gore, human trafficking, torture, murder, and cannibalism. Plus all the time the characters spend dwelling on them. The publisher deems the series is for ages 9-12, but I would push 12+ due to all the reasons listed above, plus a little objectionable language. Moreover, some of the themes and concepts will make more sense to older reasons.If you're just getting started, I can say that the series goes out with a bang. Actually, with all the gunfire and murder occurring in book five, the end battle is a touch anti-climatic. Although we do get two main character deaths (I do love an author who is brave enough to do this in a series that's lasted this long!).I'm not a fan of books that need so much room to pack a punch, but if you love the build-up and the action, then you'll be fine. It's worth a read if you're a die-hard dystopian fan, but pass if you love dystopian and are anxiously looking to fill the void Divergent or Hunger Games left in your soul. Horowitz is a bestselling author and deserves all the acclaim he's received, but Oblivion doesn't come close to touching the crown jewels of YA.
    • 3/5
      The five gate keepers fled through the gate at the end of book 4, only to find themselves separated and thrust forward, ten years into a dark dystopian future. Somehow they must come together for the final showdown, in Antarctica. But only the five together can save the world from the Old Ones - and one of them has turned traitor...

      A massive epic tome of a novel, this is the final conclusion of the series. And what a read! Non-stop action - filled with betrayals, twists, edge of the seat suspense... A page-turning read. However, the ending felt a little haphazard and rushed to me, almost as though there were no real way he could build it to too much intensity - the good guys were, after all, vastly outnumbered.

      Overall, a satisfying read.
    • 5/5
      Words cannot begin to describe how utterly beautiful and amazing this book was. So lets just say this.

      Oblivion filled me with grief,sadness, happiness, utter despair and a sense of amazement and beauty as to how well written and thought-out this last book was. Anthony Horowitz did an amazing job. He tied up all the loose ends and the amount of surprises in the book was stupendous. He was able to make you think one thing and change it completely. He broke THE NUMBER ONE RULE TO WRITING A FICTION NOVEL and still was able to make a perfect last book which will not disappoint. ANTHONY HOROWITZ IS AMAZING, FANTASTIC AND STUPENDOUS. In some ways this book is just as good as the last Harry Potter but is itself unique and AMAZING.

      I extremely enjoyed the set-out of this book. I liked the fact that it had various different POV's. Not just the POV's of the main characters but of others too. I also find it quite amazing that the author was able to make each character likeable in their own way. I loved all five of the Gate Keepers even Scarlett, although at the beginning I wasn't too fond of her, but now I am.

      So all in all AN AMAZING LAST BOOK. ANTHONY HOROWITZ HAS CREATED HIMSELF A REPUTATION. In some aspects the books set-out was quite similar to 'Scorpia Rising'

      I strongly recommend this series "The Power of Five" as you see the progression of the author as a writer and you see an extreme growth of character development for all the characters. The ideas were complex yet simple and were able to make sense and deceive the reader. There were no loose ends. It all flowed perfectly and fit together well like a Jigsaw puzzle, with the end an amazing relief that it was finished and was finished so well.

      I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS SUPERNATURAL SERIES !!!!!!
    • 4/5
      Oblivion, the final volume of Anthony Horowitz’s Power of Five Quintet which started in 2005, is a hefty read and like many conclusions, leaves the reader with an unsatisfying sense of anti-climax. Horowitz is probably the best young adult’s author of the day and while this series started on a high note, the books grew longer and more unwieldy, with a four year gap between the nearly 700 page Oblivion and the previous tome. The overlong mish mash is none-the-less compulsively readable of course, with hints of Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness with its Antarctic setting and the Old Ones parallel the monstrous Elder Things. Tolkien’s here too as the companions face obstacles in their environmental and quasi-spiritual quest, while the themes of willing sacrifice, betrayal, redemption and resurrection come straight from the Gospels. The Five Gatekeepers undergo a series of travails that would put Christian from The Pilgrim’s Progress to shame: separated by continents they negotiate genteel cannibals from the English Home Counties to slavers in the Amazon to megalomaniacs in an eerily deserted Dubai. Can Oblivion be enjoyed without reading [or rereading] the first four books? Yes, new readers are brought up to speed quite subtly and there is an engrossing host of new independent adventures and characters.It’s not a patch on the first three books but that level of excitement is difficult to sustain: besides, Horowitz is such a talented writer he could make a page-tuner out of a telephone directory – and Oblivion is better than any directory.
    • 5/5
      It's always nice coming across crime thrillers where the author keeps the story moving without having to be sneaky and hold back too much information from the reader to maintain suspense. In this book, first person perspective provides all the smoke screen necessary to keep the reader guessing, because the private investigator, Nick, doesn't even know for sure if he himself is the criminal he is looking for, once he figures out he is even tracking a criminal. He isn't sure if he even has a client for most of the story. There are some fun twists in this story, and while I did still work out who the bad guys were before they were revealed, the solution was not obvious until fairly late in the story.
    • 4/5
      This book comes dangerously close to describing the inner workings of the mind of the middle-aged male.

      That doesn't make it a great book, or even a particularly good one; but the passages describing self-doubt, anxiety (frankly, we're not all dealing with brain tumors, but we often act that way), the loss of a step (both physically and mentally) hew close to the emotional crux. The detective stuff? Guns, gals, motorcycles, murder, just a recognizable framework on which to hang the stuff that's valid. It's essentially a précis on human frailty, and as such is a more than worthwhile read.
    • 1/5
      Terrible! A waste of time.
    • 4/5
      somewhat difficult to follow but good
    • 3/5
      So it’s not a bad book.The writing is okay, but it’s also nothing to write home about.Entertainment Weekly’s review of it is a certainly over the top:"You know you're holding a first-rate thriller when you take it with you in the car to read at stoplights."- Entertainment Weekly. Grade: A. (Jennifer Reese)First of all, EW, if your need to read is that intense might I suggest that you take an alternate form of transportation from place to place? Secondly, if this book makes you want to read it a stoplights, I fear what would happen if you read something that was actually thrilling, or in fact, in any way exciting. Because this book is neither of those things. The guy from the LA Times must have been reading a different book than me, because, “exciting and out of the ordinary... full of funny, touching and alarming surprises...” is pretty much the opposite of how I would describe this book.
    • 3/5
      As usual, Abrahams delivers on character. Quirky and fun, he kept my interest.The story is hard to follow though, and the ending vaguely anti-climatic.
    • 5/5
      First, forget about inevitable comparisons to Memento...Love this book! Completely caught up in Nick’s mind, absolutely sympathetic to his denial AND his obsession to solve the case. I REALLY wanted him to get better at the end. I even loved his totally improbably instant marriage to his nurse. Who knows? Maybe that’s what people do when they have tumors.