"The Malaise" is an apocalyptic dark fiction/horror story about the dangers of technology and autocracy. The basic premise is that it’s the near future (2038 is when we start), and the world’s tech is run by one man. One night in April, this tech launches a viral video that causes all of mankind wipe itself out. Anyone who watches the video will go daft and murder anyone in sight, and then kill themselves. The story follows a father and his baby daughter that survive the night in a quiet lake town in England. Along with a few other scant survivors, they inherit a world where all tech has now been turned off. 

This book feels like a Black Mirror episode that didn’t get past the cutting room floor, with some later-stage Walking Dead elements thrown in. Some familiar ideas are preached: tech is bad, getting back to nature is good, and people will always be both good and evil. The messages are fine, but it’s nothing we haven’t considered before. Nothing really new here to get excited about. 

The cover seems to want it push it as a horror novel, and that’s what initially attracted me to it, but it’s more of an apocalyptic story with lots of gory descriptions of death. Gore is fine, but it wasn't at all frightening. It felt like the author was pushing for graphic descriptions of murder and chaos, but too much gore without anything substantially terrifying behind its use feels a bit lazy. 

The book is fine, there’s nothing much wrong with it - it’s competently written and concise - but there were more than a couple of instances where the thing everyone is looking for just happens to be the first thing they find. Convenient for storytelling purposes, but not for immersive purposes. Also, not a ton of new ideas here, but people new to the genre might enjoy it more than I did.

The Malaise is a post-apocalyptic horror novel (with an incredibly cool cover) that takes place in the somewhat near-future.

It’s the year 2038, and our main character is Mike Pilkington, a college professor who is an expert on digital technology, specifically Razor Technologies. Razor Technologies was founded by Rick Razor, whose goal was to “connect the world” through products that could essentially read a user’s mind and provide them with what they need. These products were provided free to the public, at least in terms of a price tag – the consumer, of course, must give up their privacy in order to utilize these products. Pilkington rallies behind this technology and Razor himself. Until, of course, disaster hits and most of the world’s population is wiped out overnight: It’s kill or be killed, leaving Pilkington alone with his infant daughter until he finds other survivors.

The story jumps forward almost twenty years, and together Pilkington, his now teenager daughter Zara, and a few others slowly rebuild a community. But the mystery of why the massacre happened, and it’s possible link to Razor Technologies lingers. There is also the allure of finding whoever else may be out there, and so some members of the community leave their peaceful existence in search of answers.

This results in a story with a lot of action, but at times, it felt blandly written. Some of the dialogue was a bit stiff, but at least the author tried to paint full portraits of his characters. With a story like this there are many characters to follow and hear from, and I admit at one point I had to refresh my memory by reading an earlier chapter to remember who someone was. I think the more interesting stuff happened toward the end of the novel, and actually wish the last quarter of the book could have been explored more because of the dilemma it raised for the characters, and because of the villain.

Something I enjoyed is that the book incorporated material such as interviews into the story, to give the reader a fuller picture of Razor Technologies and its founder. Without giving too much away, I thought the catastrophe that took place was an intriguing concept, and one that’s timely, given the current issues involving websites like Facebook and privacy concerns. Overall I did enjoy the story and I liked that one of the main characters we followed was a young girl who not only had to grapple with growing up, but also growing up in such a crazy world.

Check out The Malaise if you’re into post-apoc stuff and if you have some thoughts on the social media/privacy debate.

The Malaise by David Turton is a gripping dystopian mystery that weaves a story about technology, human interactions, and people's reliance on that technology and creating a world before and a world after. It truly has the reader questioning if technology has helped or hurt society. When one man is granted too much power and technology takes over, the fate of the world is at play. 

The story focused more on the characters that survived and rebuilding a society rather than on the "zombies," which is different from the more traditional dystopian novels. I liked the characters and their storylines. The plot had me wanting to read and turn the pages faster to find out what would happen or why the event took place. The story is creepy in parts, but yet hopeful. The ending was a little too quick, but still very good and leaves it open to a possible sequel. 

I also love the spooky cover. Good book overall.

WOW! Double up that WOW! What a great book. Make a cup of tea, throw on some comfy clothes, you will be a while! I read this book in one sitting! IT WAS SO GOOD! The author did a great job moving the story forward and building the suspense. Even the ending was a great ending...leaving it open for a sequel.
There was some downsides...this could be an EPIC book if the author added more details. More character development. 
Further, the ending I thought was good, I thought a little unbelievable that two people who had never met, would plan a murder.
Overall, a great book. An easy read!

It's a good post-apocalyptic novel that takes place outside London.  Mike, the main character, is a college professor of technology.  Technology causes most of humans to kill each other.  Well written and an easy read.

I have to admit I am on the fence about THE MALAISE.  I Thought perhaps if I read it a few times it would grow on me.

In THE MALAISE the inhabitants are living the simple life after surviving a night of horror. The mechanics of the story is there and from the descriptions the author sent I thought I wouldn't be able to put it down.

To me, I thought the concept was terrific, but as I was reading I found myself thinking I was reading an outline.   I thought the story should have been longer and more detailed.  When the story finally ends, of course there's a cliffhanger for the next installment.