Michael W. Ruth

Horrible AI narration

Revisado: 03-24-25

Remind me never to download a book that used AI narration. Every character, man, woman, different accent, nationality, sound exactly the same. That’s bad enough, but the pronunciation of words and the inflection points in sentences is horrid. Don’t even get me started on how it handled acronyms. Every time the book referred to the “conn” of a submarine, it called the damn thing a “Connecticut”. When the troops were “dug in”, the AI said the “Dugan Marines”. Took me a minute to get that one. I was thinking “what are Dugan Marines”, until that lightbulb in my head went off, for the 400th time, and I haven’t even finished the book yet. If this AI were a real human narrator I urge their termination, or at least find them and strangle them to death.

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Average attempt at a spy novel.

Revisado: 11-25-24

Why is there always a love interest in every damned novel? A solid author will learn to depart from this trope.

Who builds a super secret facility harboring what is probably intellectual data worth over a trillion dollars in a place that is easily destroyed by a simple forest fire. They built this without even minimal protection. For brilliant people there’s a LOT of dumb that goes into that decision.

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Most convoluted book ever.

Revisado: 11-18-24

Too many characters with a plot so Byzantine one couldn’t keep track unless penning a diagram that looked like a spiders web to connect everything. I listen to books while delivering mail. The plot can’t be so dense as to have to focus 110% on it. One of the worst books I’ve ever listened to and an insult to the Bourne character and series.

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Like a D- Hollywood movie

Revisado: 08-23-24

I found it to be a reach as far as plausibility. Especially given the fact that a potential major war was at stake, yet the CIA and FBI agents didn’t tell anyone much of anything as to what they knew or suspected. Even before they were entertaining thoughts of a mole, they still kept everything to themselves. For a CIA agent supposedly at the top of the game, I found his actions to be EXTREMELY unlikely.

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Did you ever despise a protagonist?

Revisado: 03-13-22

I've read/listened to all of the Dick Francis novels and thoroughly enjoyed them, but I must admit it's been awhile since I consumed those beautiful works of fiction. This is my 2nd Felix Francis novel and while it certainly sounds like a continuation of those wonderful marvels that his father scribed, I can't help but feel the protagonists in these seem like they are lucky to have survived at all, given how absolutely not "on guard" they were once they poked the hornet's nest. I mean, he made Sid Halley look almost inept in Refusal, and in this one, maybe its misogyny, but I couldn't help but extremely dislike the main character.

Certainly I can posit that it's my lack of understanding about mental ailments, but Chris I would have had committed until she figured herself out and I would have had her under observation 24/7 by video, geotagging, or whatever I needed to keep track of her. I would have sat her down until I saw her eat and watched her afterwards to make sure she didn't purge. Some of my strongest emotions during either listening/reading literature or watching a film are empathy, sympathy, sadness, or anger (and probably a few others). For Chris, I had little but disdain. I just couldn't find it in me to cheer for her in any way. Perhaps it was the way it was written, certainly I have seen mental illness portrayed in fiction before and cheered on the patient, reveled in their ability to fight back and beat it, or felt their pain when dealing with it. But with Chris, I just wanted her to fail, though I knew she would not.

I have a few more Felix Francis books to go, I just hope he portrays his protagonists as a tad more intelligent and less inept, or at least thoughtless about their personal security.

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The luster of Bourne wears ever thinner…..

Revisado: 08-11-21

The narrator just ruins it for me. His accented voices are decent, but as Bourne he sounds like a 12 year-old. The story is average, but it also starts to veer into the unbelievable. The first few books were gritty, tense, and captivating. Now it’s almost gotten to the status of the sillier Bond flicks.

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Silly premise and execution

Revisado: 11-06-20

What pilots in their right mind, knowing they would be likely to be executed, would fly their B-2 in to Cuba? I would have just told the kid he might as well kill us all now, there ain’t no way the commies are getting ahold of this aircraft. Plus the narrator voices some of his characters like they are mentally slow.

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Weak attempt at a quasi-zombie novel.

Revisado: 12-12-14

What would have made The Beginning of the End better?

With the antipathy we have for lawyers in the USA, I certainly would have selected a different profession for the main character.

What was most disappointing about Manel Loureiro’s story?

Our "hero" just doesn't seem like the type that would survive 10 minutes, much less months. His ability to survive is just "to good to be true".

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Performance was adequate, but it supported my impression of a weak main character that could only survive this long by beating impossible odds, like being a lottery winner.

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

I wanted this main character to die almost from the beginning. The fact that anyone would put their life in danger for a damned pet in the midst of the fall of mankind just made me despise him. Times like these require hard choices, hard men or women, not idiots like this in love with their cat.

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