Yesterday's Gone: Episode 1 - David  W. Wright, Sean Platt Not too long ago, I rudely criticized a kindle novella for being patterned after the format of a TV series. So along comes Yesterday's Gone a serialized novel that is blatantly patterned along a similar style. So why was unnamed novel so terrible and Yesterday's Gone pretty damn good.

The first obvious reason is that this serialized novel is well written while Novella X was not. But more importantly, despite the authors' use of "episode this" and "season that", Yesterday's Gone is patterned more in the tradition of a literary serial than TV. In the foreword, Mr. Platt acknowledges his love for serialized movies and TV shows but also states his main inspiration was Stephen King's The Green Mile. Yet King 's inspiration was not TV but the literary tradition of serialized novels championed by Dickens, Collins and others and it shows in King's great novel and in this more humble but still exiting endeavor.

So let's get down to business. Yesterday's Gone is about a group of survivors the morning after almost everyone has disappeared from earth. As expected, "Episode One" takes a lot of time introducing the characters but it doesn't ignore plot. Creepy things are happening ever so subtly which hooked me in to the story. There's a nice buildup of tension that leads to a cliffhanger moment at the end. Yesterday's Gone will remind readers of King, especially The Stand yet the authors appear to be leading us to something more original and hopefully will not let us down.

Episode One is free for the Kindle at Amazon and so is Episode Two. If Episode Two is as good as the first, I'll be investing in the entire "season".