The End of Ordinary

A Novel

By: Edward Ashton

Narrated by: John Pirhalla, Katharine Chin

The energetic and bitingly satirical novel from author Edward Ashton, author of Mickey7! The End of Ordinary is a riveting near-future thriller that asks an important question: if we can’t get along when our differences are barely skin deep, what happens when they run all the way down to the bone?

Drew Bergen is an Engineer. He builds living things, one gene at a time. He’s also kind of a doofus. Six years after the Stupid War—a bloody, inconclusive clash between the Engineered and the UnAltered—that’s a dangerous combination. Hannah is Drew’s greatest project, modified in utero to be just a bit more than human.

She’s also his daughter.

Drew’s working on a new project now. He thinks his team is developing a spiffy new strain of corn, but Hannah’s classmate and her mysterious companion disagree. They think he’s cooking up the end of the world. When one of Drew’s team members disappears, he begins to suspect that they might be right.

Soon they’re all in far over their heads, with corporate goons and government operatives hunting them, and millions of lives in the balance.

There’s boring and then there’s End of Ordinary

Dear Lord, what did I just waste 10 hours trudging through? I’m normally a fan of Edward Ashton, and there’s nothing wrong with his usual duo of narrators, but this book was utterly pointless verging on infuriatingly so. It’s a good setup, it’s a sequel of sorts to Mal Goes to War, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but woof does this just go nowhere. Basically, everything that happens in the plot would have happened the same way had none of these characters been involved. None of them, especially Drew, had any real agency so I find myself struggling to find the point of their inclusion. Speaking of Drew, GD dude grow a spine. Every single male character in this story I was effectively useless but he was the King of Useless. He’s a horrible manager, a god awful husband and an embarrassment of a father. That’s fine, I have no issue with flawed characters as they can often be the best part of a story, but in his case it’s made unforgivable as the man is boring as paint drying. He could have stepped into an empty elevator shaft in the first chapter, and the entire book would have been improved by his absence.
Maybe pick this up if it’s on sale, but do not pay full price or god forbid blow a credit on this title.