Bill Penn

Haven't bothered to finish it

Revisado: 06-22-17

As the other reviews have said, this book is an unexpected failure in the series. What might've been a half of a chapter in a previous installment has been stretched out for no discernible reason into a full-length book. There's very little character development (at least in the seven hours I've slogged through). I accidentally fell asleep while listening, and forty minutes later, I woke up, and (spoiler) they were still chasing dragons. Pretty sure that's what they're doing in the three hours I haven't listened to yet.

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Right-wing pundit gets it all wrong

Revisado: 06-14-17

The prelude offers crazy claims about Obama using federal agencies to punish conservatives, and posits a left-wing conspiracy to achieve full power. Discusses the "Clinton administration" continuing this effort. This screed might be an interesting way to look inside the minds of a certain type of conspiracy theorist, but if he gets so much wrong so early on, could you really trust the author to be accurate about anything at all?

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Starts good. Gets better

Revisado: 12-02-16

I'm not finished yet but I'm enjoying the experience. I think any details would spoil the story, such are the unexpected turns, but I guess the only helpful thing I could say is that this is a vampire story, but not a prototypical one. At a certain point in the story, if you're a fan of "Name of the Wind" you'll start to really enjoy this (though the writing, though really good, is not up to the Patrick Rothfus level).

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Disappointing final quarter

Revisado: 11-09-16

It's difficult to review this without spoilers, so I'll be necessarily vague. Even so, spoilers.

It starts out as a tale of how modern technology makes it far more difficult for the powerful to keep the lid on cover-ups. Our main character leaks some documents he had stumbled upon which point to actual evidence of past alien visits to Earth. He teams up with a chirpy PR agent who helps him get the story out there.

Right about where you think the story is ending with a satisfying conclusion, (spoiler ahead) our team is visited by another character who suddenly (and for no apparent reason) confesses something that starts us down a whole new path, and then things get more complicated. The motivation for the confession is unknown -- it's as if the publisher told the author that they needed another inch of pages to make the spine of the book thick enough for the cool artwork they've already planned.

I would still recommend the book, as it's a good story in the first half, but as soon as the unexpected character bursts in through the kitchen door, put down the book.

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Enjoyable and interesting

Revisado: 10-19-16

If you enjoy SF with good ideas and some humor, give this a try. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

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Helped wash away the bad taste of Tom Cruise

Revisado: 12-21-13

For Reacher fans, this will help you to finally wash away that sour taste we all got after watching the cocky bantam Tom Cruise try to play Jack Reacher in the movie "Reacher." However, I can't see this book being of any interest at all to people who aren't already fans.

The story was bland. Not much happened. We get long drives on dark highways described literally turn by turn. I can understand the suspense of driving as a fugitive, when every turn and every headlight might mean trouble, but in a novel, it gets tiring after a while especially when (spoiler alert) absolutely nothing ever happens.

Also, it got tiring to hear the phrase "50/50, like tossing a coin", because not everything is an even probability.

However, it was great to hear the familiar "Reacher said nothing" phrase again. And there was enough action to let us know that Reacher is still Reacher.

We also get to see a different side of Reacher briefly, while he contemplates an alternative way of leading his life, but when that works out differently, we see him shut that down, and we feel his sense of loss before he covers it over.

Overall, I would recommend this book to hardcore fans of the Reacher series. This book had some depth and its fair share of great "Reacher" moments.

If you're a new(ish) fan who hasn't exhausted the oeuvre yet, I'd suggest holding off on this one until you've finished the rest. Otherwise, it could be a disappointment.

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Amazing. I want you to listen to this.

Revisado: 04-07-12

First, the narrator. I don't know if all Audible subscribers have a choice, but being in Japan, I was given the choice of the USA and the UK versions. They differed by only one minute in length. I listened to both samples (which covered the same part of the narrative) and chose the British one because it seemed more expressive, and the characters depicted in the short portrayal seemed to me to be better differentiated. Just in case anyone is curious, I'm an American from Boston.

Also, as an aside, I completely loved the moments when the narrator's father sounded just like Eddie Izzard.

At the moment, I'm just a few chapters in on the second of the four segments of this novel, and I am already disappointed that it will someday come to an end. This novel by this narrator is astoundingly good. If some recommendation or other has brought you this far, then this is without any doubt the best book you will listen to this year.

While listening to this book on various busses, subways and while cycling and walking, there have been moments so tender that tears spilled from my eyes, which is embarrassing. There have been moments so fierce that I've probably pumped my fist. I've actually laughed aloud. I've grinned fiercely. This is a talented storyteller telling a tale that's well constructed. The characters are alive. I'm so happy that I am experiencing this story.

I came upon this book through a "This Week in Tech" podcast in which one of the pundits said that someone influential in the tech field had once said that he judged people by their reaction to this novel. If a person didn't like this novel, the story went, then that person was deficient in some essential way that made that person not worth doing business with. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but that was enough to make me want to listen to the book.

All I knew about the book was that it was in the fantasy genre, the writing was supposed to be good, and that it was a kind of "coming of age" tale. I couldn't figure out in the beginning whose coming of age it was supposed to be, so the tale evolved around me in a very interesting way. I think this is a good way to experience the book, so I'm not telling you any more details about this book.

Just so that you have a perspective on where I'm coming from: I'm mainly a sci-fi reader, not space opera but the techie sci-fi, but I also like good spy novels. I'm not really much of a fantasy guy outside of what I read before college. I also like modern fiction and good writing in general; my favorite writer is Milan Kundera, but I'm eclectic in my tastes. Having said that, I'm telling you that this is really good writing (regardless of genre).

If you like quality writing, great characters and a good storyline, and if you are not squeamish about sword fighting, and if you enjoy a bit of speculative fiction (whether sci-fi, fantasy or magic realism), you will love this book. I suppose there are some people who won't love it, but, has has been said before by others, those aren't really the type of people I think I'd enjoy knowing anyway.

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Tom Clancy writes "The Passion of the Christ"

Revisado: 03-19-12

This book was a slow climb up Calgary Hill as insurmountable yet apparently easily vanquished foes inflict injury after injury on our unstoppable hero. I was initially excited to start in on book one of a new series, but this soon turned into a comic book for me; I just could not in any way find this tale credible. There were a few wry laughs along the way, but the biggest one was unintentional, I'm sure: A woman who had helped our hero witnesses him kill, and from then seems to consider him "an animal" ... by which the author means she was distant, maybe disgusted, but this woman was A VETERINARIAN'S ASSISTANT, she *loves* animals!

OK, your mileage may vary with this book and its series. I'm giving up on it. The guy just runs along like a video game character, blasting left and right, with dumb luck playing such a major role. If you're into assassins and you want to start an interesting series, I'd recommend skipping this and jumping into Barry Eisler's series about John Rain. Rain is also kind of super-human, but the books are filled with tactics, planning and intelligence.

However, please read the other reviews. The author has obviously made a career out of writing books in this series, so there must be people who like this type of story. I just know that I'm not one of them.

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John Rain is back

Revisado: 02-13-12

Barry Eisler does a good job reading this book. His voice for John Rain made me think of the Japanese guy who played Rain in the movie version of the first novel. If you're a fan, you know that the readings of the audiobooks have been uneven -- worst was when the narrator of the John Reacher books read it, and made Rain sound like a 6'5" slugger. In this novel, the characters sound the way we'd expect them to.

This is classic John Rain, familiar without redundancies. The narration alternates well between first-person John Rain and third person narrators to follow other characters. I don't want to give any of the story away, so I'll just say, if you like John Rain, you will be very happy with this novel.

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Recommended but with caveats

Revisado: 05-12-11

The story takes place on a planet 150 light years from Earth. We meet Jack, a prospector for the mining corporation that holds exclusive rights to exploit the uninhabited planet's resources. The day the story starts is a busy day for Jack: he discovers a rich vein of valuable minerals, and later discovers a new type of creature trapped in his house.

This book is an engaging remake of a classic story. It's the sci fi we loved as kids (new planets, amusing creatures, cool gadgets), modernized (how was it that none of the classic sci fi ever really got the idea of modern computers or the internet?).

However, if the old style sci fi was often called "cowboys in space" due to the shoot-'em-up frontier town attitudes of the main characters, this modernization brings in the current craze for courtroom dramas: call it "lawyers in space"? So, if you hate John Grisham novels, you'll dislike a good chunk of this book.

Also, there are times when you're wondering how the characters could be so stupid as to not see what is plainly obvious, so it's the experience of knowing ahead of time what the characters are taking their time discovering.

Finally, understand that the novel is only 7 hours long (7:19). At the end of Part 1, the novel is finished. Part 2 is actually the novel that this one was based on. I haven't listened to that one yet. If you're not the type who would go watch earlier versions of modern re-make movies, then you may not be into listening to what is (probably) nearly the same story twice, so if you've budgeted for 14 hours of listening, please understand that you're actually getting only half of that.

This is a touching story with a modern twist to it. It'd make a good movie.

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