Book Review: Blaze By Jason Woodham

By Nathan Young on March 10, 2014

On this Geek Alabama book review post, I am reviewing Blaze written by Jason Woodham. Jason is an Alabama based author from the Ozark area and works as a strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer. He is an avid reader, writer, and outdoorsman who enjoys many different sports. Blaze is the first book of the High-Born epic, a four-part sci-fi, action-adventure, love story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. At its core, Blaze is a super-hero origin story that has both mainstream and niche appeal. Full of adorable children; deep emotion; advanced technology, and remarkable powers, Blaze will burn its way into your dreams and keep you up at night wondering what will happen next. While full of action, Blaze is appropriate for all ages.

The story begins in an apocalyptic world, Harold is living on a farm and in this world, food means survival. For example, families and people trade homemade clothing for food like a ham hock. Colonel Foxx was kind of like the unofficial leader of the town, and he was strict. If the villagers did not produce enough food, food was taken away from them! Everyone struggles to survive and are extremely money poor. Even though the people struggle to survive, Harold and the other kids does have a chance to be a kid and play. The few people who live comfortably are called the High-Born, and everyone else treats the High-Born like they are their kings and queens. Things are so bad, electricity is only on for certain times in a day. And if you are caught learning things like Algebra, you could be executed.

The High-Born city could be seen from the village of Foxx Hole. The city was mostly in ruins sadly. Later in the story, you read that Harold develops special abilities like being on and creating fire, this changes everything. Harold also develops other powers like great intelligence, moving across distances by thinking, and lots of physical powers. In a town where Colonel Foxx requires everyone to attend lessons on how genetically-engineered soldiers saved humanity from extinction, Harold suddenly becomes a huge threat and attempts are made to get rid of him. It’s almost like what you see in North Korea today, one leader is rich and lives well while everyone else is treated like scum. And if anyone rises up, they are either killed or sent to labor camps. Here is an interview with the author from WTVY-TV.

This book has 55 chapters and 358 pages. What I like is each chapter in the book is not really too long. And the print is easy to read and sized so mostly anyone can read it. The print is much larger than what you get in other books like the Bible. In this book, the High-Born are almost like some spoiled rich people. And the High-Born expect everyone else to give them the proper respect they deserved and always comply with them. Seriously, the High-Born say they are the only reason everyone is alive today, and they celebrate with military gunfire. This almost sounds like what you see in some countries in our world today, Hunger Games anyone? The High-Born also gives everyone their weekly allotment of food for survival.

Harold spent some time learning what these powers mean, and often ended up somewhere very rural and naked. And the High-Born wanted to continue to keep everyone un-educated and dumb. After the High-Born defeated the Forgotten Nations’ Soldiers, the High-Born took away all computers, books, and even paper so people could not write on anything. All of the survivors were rounded up and places in villages like Foxx Hole, this way no one could learn and all schools were destroyed. It is like the rich and powerful wants to control everything and keep everyone else down and out.

Aunt Nean had an Algebra book, and Harold began to learn from that book. But soon, the guards noticed the learning and the different looks on Harold. And the soldiers began to round up the children. Colonel Foxx pretty much summed things up and said everyone in Foxx Hole was his slaves, and that is only Chapter 20 and the end of part one. Harold had enough, and he started to change things, but that is all I am going to reveal, you need to buy the book to read what happens next! You will get plenty of adventure and action and a story of someone rebelling against slavery and wanting freedom for his people. We have seen similar stories from our world before.

In the story, you see Harold caring for the children in and outside of Foxx Hole, and in the book World War III is mentioned along with how the High-Born came in to take over everything. The High-Born attempts to stop Harold and the village suffers as the High-Born wants to see the villagers resort to cannibalism. I loved the aspects of learning and family being together in Blaze. The second half of Blaze features plenty of action that is sometimes ugly, but not too graphic for older kids and teenagers. Those people would enjoy this book!

Like some people who have reviewed Blaze, you will want to learn what happens next! Harold has the power to balance the scales, and he has to battle against a army of perfect soldiers equipped with an arsenal of the most advanced technology the world has ever seen. Harold cared for his family and the villagers of Foxx Hole. You will get to read a great sci-fi experience that any geek/nerd would enjoy! I would recommend you get Blaze, and enjoy reading it, you might have a tough time putting it down! I give the book 5 out of 5 stars, it’s a good book that more people should notice!

Buy the book on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Blaze-Jason-Woodham/product-reviews/0615892760/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Thanks for author Jason Woodham for singing the book for me!