35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dismaying effort, September 2, 2008
This is the third book by Golemon and I wish I could say that he is getting better with every outing. I thought that the first book "Event", about an hostile alien incursion in New Mexico, was surprisingly good for a first novel. I didn't have high expectations for "Event" when I started it but I thought it was a great deal better than most of the James Rollins/Clive Cussler style adventure examples out there by the time I finished. I actually really liked the book on balance and would give it four stars. I enjoyed many of the action scenes especially and I decided to keep a watch on Golemon to see if he was a writer that was going to get better and carve out a name for himself.
The second novel, "Legend", brought back the cast of the first novel for an adventure in the Amazon, racing against criminals to procure a wonder substance from undiscovered Incan ruins. The novel unfortunately wasn't quite as good as the first; it stretched my credulity and suspension of disbelief a little too far for me. It was however a good read and worthy of three stars.
This latest book, "Ancients", is a disaster. It was bad in many ways, but I'll focus on the biggies and try to make my comments serve as constructive criticism. The antagonists in this novel were evil ancient Atlanteans who have a secret sonic weapon that can cause massive seismic damage. These antagonists were one-dimensional, alternately stupid or shrill, and so irrational they were just not believable. The protagonists were the same group from the previous two novels but instead of developing these characters even more they came across a little wooden and robotic. There was a missed opportunity to add layers of character development here. The plot didn't feel plausible, especially the part where the Atlanteans had been around as a homogenous group for so long and were pulling all the strings of power in the world. If they had that much power and wealth it didn't make sense for them to pursue their goal of world dominion. They already had it. The science really bothered me too; diamonds the size of beer kegs and crystal power just weren't believable. The biggest problem with the book though was that the proof-reading was non-existent. However, I don't blame Golemon for the poor copy-editing. St. Martin's press, the publisher, must be trying to cut costs or something because there were far too many typing and grammatical mistakes in this book. When you shell out full-price for a new hardcover I believe you have a right to expect there to have been professional copy-editing done. The lack of it in this book was extremely distracting and alienated me to the point that I may not purchase any more books from this publisher. Overall this was a lackluster and seemingly rushed effort by an author who isn't living up to his promise. To the author, whom I would like to see succeed and whom I believe has strong potential to do so, I would suggest taking a little more time with plot development and character development, but especially focus on creating intelligent, resourceful, but most of all, believable, villains. You'll do very well in this genre with more plausible plots, good character development, and interesting villains (like Farbeaux from the first two books). Over the top action is just meaningless special effects without these attributes. To the publisher I'd say you had better hire a copy editor if I'm going to pay $25 for a new book, otherwise I'll not be buying books from St. Martin's Press again.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Make it Stop!, August 24, 2008
Bummer. This book started out like a 5 star winner and quickly devolved into a 2 star "will it ever end" kind of book. Some of the worst editing in recent memory makes this tedious to read. The plot has a lot of potential but then slides into a formulaic approach that just goes on and on. It's a shame since the first 2 installments from this author were very readable. Maybe if he gets a new publisher or a better proofreader things will improve in the future.
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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Where was the editor?, August 25, 2008
I was so looking foward to reading this. But by page 190 the lack of editing became so distracting I could not continue. It's not just typos, but lack of verbs and nouns that leaves you to guess what should have been there instead of being able to get into the story. I felt I was reading someone's first draft where all the sentences have been jotted down quickly without thought of placement or continuity.
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