Book Review: Reaper Aftermath by Jonathan Pongratz

It’s been five years since the fateful Halloween night when Gregory and Trent killed a reaper in an attempt to rescue Gregory’s sister, Imogene. Five years of struggle and death, while the reapers colonization of Earth continues unabated.

Reduced to a handful of survivors, Gregory lives a miserable existence, wrecked with guilt. He seems to have gone from the frying pan into the fire when one of the reapers throws him through a portal to an alien planet, but had his life really got worse?

I applaud Pongratz for the direction he has taken the story and characters in this sequel. The novella ended on a dark note, and the author hasn’t shied away from that or tried to retcon it. Humans are no longer the dominant species on Earth, and are facing extinction.

Gregory isn’t the most likable character at the start of the book. He’s angry and depressed, both understandable given the circumstances, but he also seems immature for his 18 years, and feeling very sorry for himself. His character matures nicely throughout the book, and I respected him by the end of the novel.

The planet that Gregory travels to and the aliens that he meets are imaginative, and the author obviously put a lot of work into world building as it makes sense and keeps to its own rules.

My only niggle about the book is that I wish it were darker. There is plenty of action and peril, deaths, and two moments that I won’t spoil but that effected me deeply. I loved the science fiction elements, but I felt that horror had been left behind in favor of it, which I didn’t think was necessary.