**I received a copy of this book from Kensington Books via NetGalley in exchange for a fair, honest review**


The supervolcano lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is the largest caldera in the world. The caldera, measuring 25 x 37 miles, last erupted about 640,000 years ago, scientists estimate. In recent years, the ground surrounding the caldera has been surging, or rising up, sometimes as much as 2.8 inches. Is that a sign that the supervolcano is headed for another eruption?

If so, it could be a climate-changing, world-shattering......cataclysm.

Tim Washburn spins an awesome disaster story! Cataclysm tells the tale of what might happen before, during and after an eruption of the largest supervolcano on the planet.

The story is well-paced and the suspense starts building almost from the very beginning. The characters are well-developed and believable. I'm not sure about the science as I'm not an expert on volcanoes, but it seemed believable to me. Not so sure fracking could set off a supervolcano, but it seemed plausible enough to me.

All in all, an enjoyable read. For readers who are fascinated by volcanoes, or who enjoy disaster stories, this would be a perfect read! Cataclysm releases October 25th from Kensington Press.

Tim Washburn has written one other disaster novel, Powerless. Find out more about the author and his books on his website: www.timwashburnbooks.com ( )

Received via Pinnacle and NetGalley in exchange for an completely unbiased review.
Also posted on Silk & Serif


Yellowstone National Park is the home of beautiful landscapes, hot springs, idyllic camp grounds and one of the world’s “super volcanoes”. Scientists estimate it has been approximately 640,000 years since the last time the super volcano's caldera erupted. Recently, the ground beneath Yellowstone has been steadily heating up and rising - classic signs of an impending eruption.

When researchers tasked with observing and recording changes in the Yellowstone volcano’s rate of elevation and rising underground temperature discover that the volcano appears to have magma rapidly rising to the surface, chief scientist Tucker Mayfield recommends the evacuation of Yellowstone National Park. Although Park Superintendent Ralph Barlow calls for the evacuation of the park as soon as possible, no one expects the caldera to erupt within hours.

All signs point to an upcoming eruption and the date of eruption could be in days or weeks. Our story follows chief scientist Tucker Mayfield and his band of survivors in their race to safety before disaster strikes.

Cataclysm is a novel is plenty of implausible escape scenes – including hiding underground from flowing lava which, if you understand the volcanic eruption of Pompeii, you would realize is completely impossible and everyone would have been instantly cooked. Regardless of obvious “flaws; if the reader is willing to suspend belief they will find Cataclysm a fun and compelling read. Washburn’s writing style is reminiscent of Clive Cussler’s writing style with plenty of action, impractical heroic moments and the typical “hero” trope in Mayfield.

Cataclysm is a fun, easy beach read with a steady stream of action that keep readers reading.

Finally, the newspaper snippets and interviews included in the novel was a fantastic addition. The eye witness interviews conducted in refugee camps were fantastic methods to fill in the gaps during and after the Yellowstone eruptions. Unlike The Three by Lotz, the interviews and clippings added a human element to the novel rather than an irritating serialization of events and also allowed for a break between chapters which was refreshing.

The biggest problem with this novel was by far the rushed ending. I found this more irritating that some of the outlandish action scenes. The author favored a large leap in time of a year (or two?) to briefly revisit the main characters and show how North America has fared once the eruption had run it's course. Unfortunately, I felt like the author ran out of ideas or time and hastily threw together an ending just to finish the book. Still a good read, but the ending wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been.

I would recommend this novel to fans of disaster novels, people who enjoy an escapist read with action right out of the gate, novels without a great deal of pre-story and simplistic language. Reader beware: although there is some science contained in the novel (eg: what a caldera is, super volcano definitions and the basic mechanics of an eruption), there is a fair amount of suspect circumstances and situations that require some flexibility in belief. ( )

http://bibliophage.booklikes.com/post/1469329/review-cataclysm ( )

This was ok. I didn't get on very well with the present tense form of writing, perhaps it was meant to lend an immediacy to the situation, but it just seemed stilted to me. There were a few other things that pulled me out of the story, for instance, anyone driving a vehicle constantly 'gooses' or 'mashes' the gas, most often 'gooses'. About two thirds of the way through I thought, "If I read that damn word one more time!" Every time you see the President, she is massaging her temples. By the end of the book I fully expected her to have worn through her skin and be rubbing at bone.
The book could have done with an 'instance of word usage' analysis to prevent this kind of thing.
It also felt a bit choppy, like there were too many characters. I think it would have benefited from focussing on the trials and tribulations of the few rather than the many.
The majority of the book is a build up to the main eruption, at which point, it is dealt with rather quickly and then everything just seems to fizzle out in a series of short chapters to tie up loose ends, even one instance of 'oh, you remember so and so? He got out ok' style wrap up.
Essentially I think the book could have been a lot better if it was tighter. But that is just my opinion. I think it was supposed to be fast paced, but it did not read that way to me, probably because I was struggling to get into it due to my issue with the tense, but that might just be my personal preference. I generally only read a few chapters at a time. I'd normally devour a book like this in a single sitting, but it took me several days. My longest stint was three hours, just to get it finished because I wanted to move on to other things.
I probably won't read any more by this author, they are not for me. ( )

Cataclysm by Tim Washburn is a recommended disaster novel that would make a great action movie.

There is an earthquake swarm happening at Yellowstone National Park. While small tremors and earthquakes are a common occurrence, these aren't so small and are increasing in magnitude. All the data coming in indicates that the super volcano underneath the park may be heading toward an eruption. The normal geothermal features in the park are growing in intensity. The magma chamber underneath Yellowstone seems to be pushing the park's landmass up at an alarmingly increasing pace. Since the magma chamber is 18 miles wide and almost 55 miles long, an eruption would not only be devastating for the USA, it would negatively impact the entire planet.

Washburn does have several recurring main characters in his book that we follow and a whole cast of doomed extras. To be honest, and my reviews always are, I'm not reading a book called Cataclysm for the well-developed characters or the poetic language (no offense to Washburn). And, admittedly, there were parts of Cataclysm I skimmed through quickly, especially all the White House scenes. I'm reading it for the action, the suspense, the looming disaster, the scrambling scientists and buff park rangers, the panic, the doomed tourists, and the challenge of escaping alive. Cataclysm provided me with a terrific impending disaster of huge proportions and gave me some characters to follow through it.

There were also some flaws in Cataclysm. (I kept switching my rating between 3 and 4 stars because of the flaws.) Without detailing a list of them, most notable was the effort to be as incredibly P.C. as possible. For example, while I can appreciate a diverse cast of characters, in this case I didn't really need a detailed physical description, including the skin tone, of every character in a disaster book. I can usually provide plenty of diversity in my mind's eye... while picturing the mad scramble for survival when death is an expected outcome. It is also possible to have your diversity without making a huge point of describing people. Other characters can always do the job for you. There are also several other examples (anti-fracking) where the effort to be P.C. got in the way of what should be the real focus: THE YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO IS GOING TO ERUPT!

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.
http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/2016/11/cataclysm.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1800029055 ( )