Michel

Falls flat (again)

Revisado: 09-06-23

Mr. Campbell seems to have lost his way since Hank switched universes. The humor is dragged out too long and just ends up falling flat. The story line just drags on and is lacking the comedic twists and turns so prevalent in earlier books. False Profit left me really disappointed. As other reviewers have already pointed out, the audio editing is just plain embarrassing. I sincerely hope future books will get back to the comedy and action of Suck My Cosmos or Stank Delicious.

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A new reality for Hank.

Revisado: 10-23-21

Bravo for breathing new life into the series and opening a whole new reality of possibilities for Hank! I look forward to many new entertaining installments for Hank.

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The Dresden Files for a younger listener

Revisado: 08-28-21

If you are familiar with the Dresden Files, you will immediately see some similarities in this story. However, this book seems to be geared more towards a younger crowd as the dialog is a little over the top at times with cliches and movie taglines. The best way to put it would be Harry Dresden during his obnoxious teenage years - if he were a vampire instead of a wizard. It's not a bad book and I will probably buy the next book and see if the author can mature his characters into something more substantial.

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If I had a dollar for every time he said Ranger...

Revisado: 08-18-21

The GOOD: Interesting story idea which gives the book a not so common twist. Elite soldiers fighting using modern weapons fighting mythical creatures and blowing them apart. Without spoiling too much, the story has some good turns and twists.

The MEH: The story dealt very little with the events leading up to the disaster. The author should have expanded on these events and could have made for very interesting tidbits throughout the book. Unfortunately it was pretty much ignored with the exception of a few paragraphs. Most of the plots and characters are somewhat superficial.

THE BAD: Ranger, ranger, ranger. Way too much Ranger related bravado repeated over and over again. It takes away from the story flow. The author has a habit of going off on a tangent in the middle of an action sequence. This happens a lot throughout the book and really hurts the story flow.

I haven't decided if I am going to purchase the 2nd book yet. I like the story line but the writing style is annoying a lot of the time. It's one of those books you listen to in the background while doing other things.

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Just plain old boring

Revisado: 09-11-19

This story is more of a documentary on post apocalyptic life. Granted, you don't need zombies or Mad Max for every post apocalyptic book but I found this story just plain old boring.

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Excellent book

Revisado: 12-28-17

A very well crafted story with an excellent and thought provoking ending. Well worth the credit.

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Good but not great - some spoilers ahead

Revisado: 06-10-17

I enjoy WW3 stories and their sometimes complex what if scenarios. The Red Line is no different but takes some giant leaps of 'what if' in order to make it to WW3.

The good:
Value for your credit - 17 1/2 hours of story.
Despite it's many small flaws, the overall story is entertaining.

The bad:
I do not have a problem with far out scenarios but this story fails to properly build up to these. Very little time is given to, for example, make the current Germany fall back into a Nazi state or why the United States fails to retaliate after a tactical nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. To me these are not deal breakers but they did make me scratch my head and think how unrealistic the story was getting at this point.

My other main issue was the over dramatization in certain parts of the story. This was mostly the case in characters who knew they were about to die. To me that just didn't fit into the general flow of the story. For example, a heated tank battle is raging and in the middle of this the author takes about a minute break describing the last moments of a single soldier. Think a Kung Fu movie with certain parts in extreme slow mo!

Final thoughts:
I do not regret buying this book. If this was Walt Gragg's first attempt at a WW3 story, it was certainly a good try. I would encourage him to read the reviews and give it another shot.

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Book to listen to while doing something else

Revisado: 08-10-14

I'm not going to comment on the story as the summary does this well enough. I do have 2 big complaints.

1. The production of this audiobook was obviously done during amateur hour. For example, narrator reads the last sentence of chapter... (0.001 second break)... narrator speaks "Chapter 2". Another example is the volume increasing when people shout.

2. Sound effects. PLEASE, do NOT add sound effects to audiobooks!

The story itself is not bad at all but it could have been much more enjoyable if the production had been better.

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Complete and utter waste of time!

Revisado: 12-20-13

Should have been called “Boring Diary Of A Genetically Modified Kid”.

This is one of THE WORST SciFi books I have ever come across! I am absolutely clueless on why so many other people are giving this book even mediocre reviews as the whole story makes no sense from start to finish.

First you seem to have ‘super human intelligent kids’ but no real time is devoted explaining this apparently important part of the story. Next we get to hear about Ender’s (main character) troubles about being picked on in school and at home. Suddenly Ender gets picked for ‘special training’ and gets whooshed off to an asteroid at the ripe old age of 10. Apparently all adults in this story are idiots and only pubescent kids are the real brains. Why? No one knows because it is NEVER explained.

Really hoping the story would finally start to show life, I was again disappointed to hear hours of Ender’s life on the asteroid. Ender receives his brilliant military training by playing what amounts to zero G paintball. I kid you not! Having apparently learned all he can while still being picked on of course, he graduates and goes home, sits on a self built raft and discusses life with his sister.

Grand finally space battle… Returning from his seaside trip, Ender boards a space ship and has to do more simulations on how to attack. The description reminded me of multi player asteroids. But wait, there is a twist! Turns out the simulations were not simulations but Ender actually commanding the REAL fleet. He kills the evil bugger queen with his Molecular Disruption Device.

Come on! The author could not even come up with a better alien name than ‘buggers’ and ‘Molecular Disruption Device’? The book came out in 1985 and we are already had great SciFi like Blade Runner, Star Wars and Back To The Future.

Let’s also not forget Ender’s brother Peter and his sister Valentine who plan to take over the world at the ripe age of teenagers by writing anonymous political commentary on the ‘nets’. Being genetically enhanced super kids and idiot adults populating our planet, they succeed.

Seriously folks, stay far, far, FAR away from this one!

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Average story but bad narration.

Revisado: 10-26-13

I am easy going when it comes to narration but Jeff Bower did not do a good job at all. His voices for males sound like females. Some characters sound like little girls and others just sound like they have a cold. To make things worse, there are sound effects, like echoes, for various voices. Why are there loooong silent pauses between chapters? Audiobooks should NOT have sound effects!

The story is average so far. It starts a little slow but picks up about half way through and spins a web for future plot lines. Overall it's an average story but with good potential.

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