Pamela G.

Right book for right time

Revisado: 08-06-18

My younger self, back when I was studying French, would have enjoyed this book more than my today's self. There really is a right time, with the right book, for the right reader.

The story was okay, a couple of college girls in France studying abroad, learning french. They meet a cousin of a french friend, one of those older guys that come from one of the old established families. Of course our main character Brook falls in love with him, but they become more of a threesome. He's not one to be tied down anyway.

minor irk is with the two friends age: Brooke and Sophie. At one point around Christmas time they are nearly 21, then a couple of weeks later they are referred to as 22. Which is it? And the French guy is "so old" with being a whopping 25. Okay, 5 years at 20 is a difference, but not that much.

Great book for college age who is interested in travel, or studying abroad.

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Mired by unimportant detail

Revisado: 05-29-15

I didn't like this book much. I kept going, somewhat slowly, even though I was tempted to stop nearly the entire way. The writing style annoyed me the most. There were details, but not the right kind. For an example, in one scene we're told that the family was happy they found parking near the back on the way into a science fair. So? Why do we care where they parked? Is this to add atmosphere, to make the book more realistic? I don't know, but what it did for me is think, why is this important? Is it going to come back up later where they need to quickly get into the car, but since they parked so far away it made things worse? No, that never came back up, it was unimportant. It was useless detail. Certainly you need specifics, but the right ones, and this book was off through the entire thing, filled with useless detail and not filled with detail you want.

Some of the story line was interesting, about genetics and specifically engineering children that are super smart. But it wasn't explored very thoroughly, only cursorily. Since a medical doctor wrote the book you would expect more specifics here, but that was missing.

Part of the backbone of the story was about the Basques and the ETA, a Basque separatist terrorist group. That was a unique story line for me, so it kept up some of my interest. I kept hoping for more information about Basques, but didn’t get much. In fact the author never mentioned that there are Basques in France, just Spain so it made me wonder if the author really understood Basque heritage.

Anyway, there’s a whole lot more I could say about why I didn’t like the book, but I won’t. I’ll just say that you can easily skip this book. Since this was book seven in a series that increased my disappointment. I certainly won't be looking for any more in the series, nor anything by the writer.

One note on the narrator, Joe Hempel, he was superb. It was probably what ultimately kept me listening. For full disclosure, I did receive a free audio copy of this book generously given by the narrator, but in no way did it influence anything in my review.

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Good Premise but not enough follow thorough

Revisado: 03-12-15

Would you try another book from Tony Bertauski and/or David W. Dietz, III?

I'm less likely to try another Bertauski book.

What could Tony Bertauski have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

If the book explored more the machine vs. human aspect that may have made for a better book. The story was more about action than philosophy, and this one needed a little more of the later.

What does David W. Dietz, III bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

For me having an audio book means more time is found for reading. I might not have tried this book if it wasn't an audio version. David Dietz gave me a free copy for an honest review, and I do appreciate that. I was disappointed in the story line, not with the narration.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I was disappointed with the story. I like the idea behind the story and some might think we humans are leading towards this, which is nanotechnology inside our body to fix where the biology goes wrong. In the book they call the tech biomites. And sometimes is isn't the biology that goes wrong, it's just someone wants to change something about their body, like maybe eye color. The book explores, perhaps and not very well, where is the line between human and machine. In the book they shut people down, i.e. kill, when they become half-skin, or have 50% biomites. There isn't any consideration on why a particular human was seeded with biomites, but once they do they seem to replicate, much like cancer. This, as a story was interesting.

But there was something about the book, about the writing style that annoyed me. In the beginning it was the repetition of information. As the story went on it didn't seems so obvious, but still there was something about this book that just didn't work. The occasional drop in of someone else’s story maybe. Put there for some unknown purpose but didn't really help overall. The extra dreamland of the main character also seemed to have no real purpose. Perhaps these aspects made the story weaker.

Also, I didn’t think the book ended well. It felt like the story wasn’t over. I get that authors do this to begin a series, get you hooked to keep reading. But I just read another book by a classic SF author, and it was also the first in a series as well and it didn't leave you hanging. It didn't resolve everything, of course, but there wasn't this huge obvious ploy to get to the next book. To me it's a sign of weak writing. The author can't trust the reader will stick around for the next book unless there's a big cliffhanger or nearly everything is unresolved.

Any additional comments?

When the character showed anger the volume on the recording got way too loud. And there were several spots where you could hear the puff into the microphone, which pulls you out of the story a little.

Also, it's nice to have a chapter break at the end of the part. Sometimes the part ended in the middle of a chapter.

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