Brian S
Started off slow and fairly boring. Pushed through anyway. Jack Davis ended up being a character I'd read about again.
At the beginning, the quick shifts in point of view were disorienting. You get used to it, though. The story was excellent.
It was okay, but I couldn't really connect to the main characters. And without spoiling anything, I'll just say that the end seemed like a major cop-out.
I received An Accidental God via a goodreads giveaway.
As a semi-rational take on the legend of Biblical Abraham, this book left a lot to be desired. Casting these legendary characters as everyday people opened many opportunities. Most of those opportunities were missed, or only vaguely touched upon.
There's potential here, but perhaps somebody else should take up the challenge.
The only thing wrong with this book was that there wasn't another in the series for me to start up immediately.
Wondered which brand of Feminism this story would focus on. Fortunately, it wasn't the militant variety, though it was radical feminism.
It was interesting to see the radical male feminist struggle over his very unfeminine urges. Such as his desire to look at beautiful women, or his urge to protect the “damsel in distress.” Unfortunately, neither were really addressed. They were brought up as “issues” the character struggled with and left hanging.
The main character never seemed to grow comfortable with the fact that he was a male feminist.
I received a copy of The Samaritan via a goodreads giveaway. I know it's tempting to write off reviews of those, but my last experience with a goodreads giveaway had me writing a 1-star review. To say I had low expectations going in to this book would be an understatement.
As such, I was pleasantly surprised. This novel managed to hold my interest from start to finish. I enjoyed the premise of vigilante justice. I even found the bad guys interesting.
I took away one star simply because the author tended to go overboard on the physical descriptions of characters. It was never enough to detract from the overall story, but on several occasions, I worried that Besecker was “one of those authors.” You know the type: before the story goes anywhere, they've wasted page after page describing their characters to a tee. This wasn't the case in The Samaritan, but it was a close thing.
Speaking of the characters, I hope Mr Besecker revisits them in another novel. I especially want to learn more about Gray Taylor and his wife, Teri. There were big hints about something interesting in their past that I hope to read about.
Not quite as good as the Dani Ripper novel, but still good. And I enjoy the threads being weaved between this, Creed, and Ripper series.
Exactly what a John Locke novel should be. Irreverent, funny, outlandish, heart-warming... and too damn short!
I seriously hate it when Locke's novels end. Who knows how long it will be until we see Emmett and Gentry again?
Nice short story filling in some background on Mac. Since I've read the other two books in the series, I pretty much knew how it'd end, but it was worth the read anyway.
Like all Locke novels (with the exception of one true stinker that I don't entirely blame him for), I read this novel in one sitting. Aside from one lull, it was quick and witty the whole way through. Not the best Locke novel I've read, but even that's better than most other authors.
Topical. I wonder if the political stuff will go over some folks' heads, or if it will cause a ruckus among a certain subset of the population. Hopefully Locke doesn't receive any backlash.
Nuttier than a bag full of squirrels.
Take the worst characteristics of humanity, add a dash of patriotism, and write a story with a whole bunch of people fitting that description. These characters are absolutely despicable... but I love them!
Nothing at all went the way I would have hoped in this book. And yet, I still couldn't put it down. I read it straight through in one sitting, just like I do with most of Locke's stuff.
I took off one star because there were a few too many of the characters in the Locke-verse who had roles in this novel. If it's too much for me, and I've read all of Locke's works, it's too much for the casual reader to keep up with.
Still, I'll keep reading if Locke keeps writing. And I hope he does for a long time to come.
It's interesting in the way that some history books are. It's written like a history book. There's not so much a story here as a retrospective of events that never really happened.
You can skip just about 80% of the written words in this novel, and still follow the story. The author uses far far far too much descriptive text, and annoyingly long and repetitive introspective passages.
The plot, when you get to it, is a good one. But most authors would have condensed this entire novel into a handful of chapters.
Decent story. Nothing revolutionary.
If you've read any other alt-history in the WWII era, this won't show you much that you haven't already seen. Aliens don't play much of a role, other than prompting the story and slightly advancing some tech. There are a ton of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. So if that is something that triggers you, be warned.
If I could vote for something worse than 1-star, I would do it.
A horrible waste of time and dead trees. If this was an episode of a Trek television show, it would have been a “clip show”. You know, the ones that recycle footage from previous episodes to make up the majority of the content. Often this comes in the form of flashbacks, “remember when”. Usually this is to save on a season's production budget. Wonder what the excuse was for this novel.
Well, that's what most of this book was. Remember when. If you cut out all of the clips, you'd be left with a short story about some Bajorans, an assassination, and a description of the new DS9 starbase. So... about 50 pages or so.
In fact, if you were to compare this to a 1-hour television show, the first 50 minutes would have been “Previously on Star Trek: Boring,” with the final 10 minutes setting up a cliff-hanger. It wouldn't be good TV, and it's not good reading.
Look, I understand that there's a lot of backstory for the characters and events in this universe. But devoting that much space to it is ridiculous. I don't want to pay for stories I've already seen, or paid for and read in the past!
I don't need a play-by-play of Sisko's first encounter with the Prophets, with commentary by Kira. I don't need to read through Sisko and Yates playing “remember when” about their marriage. I want a new story! That's why I bought a new book! If I wanted this retread, I'd have gone back to read the other books.
As far as the whole “it's meant to setup other books” argument... It is my belief that every book should be its own complete story. Even if there are threads left open for sequels, each and every book should be its own entity, able to stand on its own. This book cannot do so.
What a waste. My advice, wait for this to hit the bargain bin, or buy it secondhand. Or better yet, pick it up from your local library.
A Promising Start
The Alexander Inheritance seems to be a promising start to a new series about refugees in time. It would be nice if there was more “show” instead of “tell” in future entries.
It was kind of slow in places. Some of the choices Asher made were sort of logically questionable. Even so, I'd read a sequel if one was written.
