Customer Reviews

Ancients: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Like many reviewers, I felt that the 1st book in this series, 'Event' was surprisingly good--especially for a first time novelist. 'Legend' was about 50% Less entertaining, and I am truly sad to say that 'Ancients' is 30% Less what 'Legend' was...and I gotta tell you, I really did NOT want to dislike this book--and while as the dust settles I don't think I would put 'Ancients' in the category of DISLIKE, but I am reluctant to heartily endorse it, either.

Again, 'Event' was truly a great escapist/action/adventure novel with a healthy dose of sci-fi/paranormal thrown in for good measure (ie think the X-Files on a boat-load of steroids and you'll get the picture). The idea of a Group of people organized to keep track of items of historical value that also tend to double as Paranormal/Biblical in nature and you have quite literally the seed of a series of books with boundless potential for sheer adrenaline-flowing excitement...which I can honestly say 'Event' really was. The problem that many authors come across is they work SO hard to come up with their first novel that they end up throwing almost ALL of their creative juices into writing it leaving well, not a whole lot left for the sequel, and even less for book #3 in the series. Such is the case with David Lynn Golemon (IMO).

Now with that said, I really truly believe that all hope is not lost here. I think that David has true potential to bring this series back from the brink of absolute oblivion here -- IF he works as hard writing book #4 as he did writing book #1. Invariably it happens with almost all authors: they write a string of great books and seemingly out of nowhere they release something just aweful, only to follow it up with yet another great book. Just look at Tom Clancy for example. He had an amazing string of fantastic techno-thrillers, all in-a-row! Then, sadly, it almost seemed as though his storytelling talent just up and disappeared (don't believe me? has anyone read his last 3 books?)...not to mention Tom has apparently disappeared from bookstores as well since his most recent novel was SUPPOSED to be released quite a while ago and still nothing...but I digress. In a nutshell, there seriously IS potential with the Event Series, and based on how great the first book was, I KNOW that DLG CAN write a great tale...whether or not he can return to that former greatness?? Well THAT remains to be seen. I am giving the series ONE more chance before giving up altogether, so PLEASE, Mr. Golemon, don't let me down again.

David lynn Golemon's 3rd novel, although not as good as his first two, still manages to be a pretty solid and fun thriller to read.

Yes, it is full of grammatical errors, but still was chock-full of James Bond-like characters and out-of-the-ordinary situations that are just as good as such writers as James Rollins and Matthew Reilly, to just name a couple.

This is fun escapism, with over-the-top sci-fi-ish/military action and adventure that will make you stay up at night turning the pages. However, being the weakest of the three books thus far, it has a surprise ending that makes us anticipate the next book to see what happens to a major character that is believed dead.

There have been numerous thrillers about the lost city of Atlantis, but this one was fresh and inventive. Yes, the major characters could have been fleshed-out more here, and the love for Collins and Sarah is finally shown here, as it is forced from them, but Ancients still becomes somewhat too big for its britches, especially at the last 1/3rd of the book. Hard to picture the immenseness of the devastation that movies can now show with state-of-the-art special effects.

But despite its problems, Ancients is worth the read. Legend is the best thus far, with Event a close second. Ancient fits nicely as being 3rd. Hopefully the next novel will be placed firmly more in line as being the best thus far.

But if you like solid thriller escapism, then this one is for you.

I'll say right off that the editing job was mind-numbingly bad, in fact outside of spell checker, I don't think this book was edited at all. On top of that, they didn't even bother to clean up the paperback version, even after being lambasted in the hard cover for such bad editing.

Where to start? First off, a 40+ page prologue was a bad sign. It could have been cut down to half that size if not smaller by smart editing. Then there is the fact that the author tends to repeat words and phrases over and over again as if he's beating a concept into your head. I know that bad habit, as I have it myself, and luckily, I have people around me that catch it. It's too bad he didn't have anyone around him to do the same. Then there is the grammar, missing words, words out of context. The list goes on. Most annoying is the constant head hopping, sometimes within the same paragraph. Add all the passive phrases and telling, and you have one heck of a mess that any editor worth his salt would have caught in an instant.

That being said, it was a great story. Mr. Golemon does some very good descriptions, I like the interaction and humor between characters, and the action rarely slows down. I also liked his overall concept and the way he laid out his theory on Atlantis. However, I think he jumped the shark with the scene where they are swimming in 150 degree water. The average hot tub is set to 104 degrees, where your hot water heater is rarely set over 140 degrees because of scalding. A person, especially a soldier, laden with just even a uniform, would have been scalded and cooked within seconds. Maybe even that was a typo.

The other biggie was a certain death at the end. It either screams "sequel" or is just a bummer, and I hate bummer endings. I suspect sequel, and will look forward to leafing through his next one before I buy it, just to make sure that certain character is back.

I honestly think Mr. Golemon could be a great adventure thriller writer, if he had the proper people to support him. It is as if his publisher was deliberately sabotaging his efforts. I don't blame him for all the editing errors. When you are too close to something, you can't see the forest through the trees. You need a second set of eyes, even third and fourth sets of eyes to get out a product that is worthy of publishing. The fact that even after being lambasted on this site by reader after reader for poor editing on the hardback, this publisher decided to reprint it in paperback as is, instead of jumping up and fixing at least the second run.

I would love to recommend this book to others, but all I can say is wait for the next one and hope that he finally got someone at his publishing company to take him seriously.

I was doing some other business on Amazon when I caught a glimpse of that tepid review from Publisher's Weekly. I was dismayed to see the bulk of reader reviews were generally negative, too.

I'm not sure what book you all were reading...or perhaps what books you normally like to read. Maybe you've all got "lost continent fatigue" from all the other Atlantis themed books out there. In any case, you're all just wrong, wrong, wrong about Ancients. Not only is it a solid entry in the series, but it's possibly the best yet; leaner and faster that the first two books, with a truly earth-shattering climax.

If you're a DLG fan, you'll probably read this book regardless of the reviews, and likely already have. If you've just stumbled across this title in a search for other books, well then you owe it to yourself to start at the beginning. If you do, you will notice thematic differences in each book. Event deals with an alien predator species unleashed in deserts of the Southwest. Legend deals with Amazon gold and strange mutant creatures. Ancients is Atlantis and secret societies plotting to dominate the world. Ancients also strays a bit from the rigid military structure of the Event group, which I suspect may be why some of the readers felt let down. Personally, I liked that it was a little less "Clancy" than the first two books, but then I did my time in uniform and am not enamored with military thriller the way some folks are.

There were a lot of Atlantis themed books released in the last two years, and I felt this was one of the best. Similarly, it's one of the best Event Group books, and I look forward to many many more.

The Event Group, a super-secret sect of the US government operating out of an underground bunker beneath Nellis Air Force Base, is called to action once again. This time, they face an enemy who has not only the desire to control the world, but the means to destroy it. The Juliai Coalition is a secret organization of the descendants of the City of Atlantis who have carefully preserved their bloodline while they wait for the opportunity to control the world. Now, with a device created by the ancient Atlanteans themselves, they are poised to make their move. Only the Event Group's discovery of a treasure trove of old scrolls from the Juliai Coalition gives them a hint of the destruction that awaits the world, and only the Event Group can stop it.

There were some really good ideas at work in this novel, but they were not enough to save it. First, the idea of villains using sound waves in their attempts to control the world is not new. Craig Dirgo did it much more convincingly in "Tremor" and I seem to recall at least one other adventure book that used the idea, as well. Ancient Atlantis also isn't a new theme, though this is the first time its people have been painted as villains. These are not the worst issues with this book, however. Probably the most glaring flaw is that none of the characters in the book have a personality. They are more than paper-thin and below one-dimensional. There are only three women in the Event Group, and even they were so flat it was hard to tell them apart. Forget it with the male characters. The only clues to telling any of them apart were their names.

Overall, it just felt like the author tried to cram too many ideas into this novel, and none of them got enough attention. The author went to the trouble of creating a sunken city linked to hundreds of miles of underground passageways full of 15,000 year-old artifacts, and I just told you almost as much about them as exists in the book. So many wonderful opportunities were wasted there while we were dragged through the usual Washington rigmarole with a stressed-out president and his advisers making the usual snap warmongering decisions they always make in second-rate adventure thrillers. There was also zero intrigue. The bad guys made a habit of standing around announcing their plans and discussing how to thwart the Event Group and then doing just that. The Event Group and the United States military were always a step or two behind, and always managed to be understaffed and outgunned, no matter how many times they were attacked by the Coalition. The scene where they dive on the USS Arizona was full of remarks about how it was a hallowed place deserving of respect...just before the Event Group blew it up and swam off to do something more important. It was just plain dumb, but no more so than any of the other poorly written action scenes. I've never been in the military, but the descriptions of the weapons and battle scenes were cheesy even to me.

Golemon sucked me in with his awesome debut, Event, but since has failed to impress me. His second book, Legend, was a disappointment, and this one was simply a mess. It felt like a high school student followed an adventure novel how-to flow chart, and what could have been an intriguing storyline missed on all counts. The publisher didn't waste any time proofreading it, either. There were more pages with typos than without. I want to say this book felt a lot like Matt Reilly without the italics, but Reilley's books are a whole lot better.

Not only was the editing in this book awful, but I feel like the author pulled a "James Rollins" on me (who went from writing about strange places and strange creatures to his Sigma Force series). I enjoy the Rollin's Sigma Force books, but I wish he would throw in another "Amazonia" or "Excavation" every now and then. Don't get me wrong, David Lynn Golemon and James Rollins are my two favorite authors, but I wish that these authors would stick with what made them so popular, at least occassionally. Please let me say again, I love the first two Golemon books and could not wait to get my hands on "Ancients", but where were my strange creatures? Why could I go pages and pages without any interaction between the actual Event Group members. I felt like the book read more like a book about their enemies than about the members of the Event Group. In "Event" and "Legend" their was almost constant interaction between the Event Goup members; I'm not sure that Jack and Sarah had a full conversation the whole book "Ancients". I also missed the (almost nice) bad guy, Colonel Henri Farbeaux. PLEASE Mr. Golemon, bring back the strange creatures the old enemy and interaction between your main characters; that is what turned us all into such big fans.

this entire series is sooo great. Not a minute of dullness. I have read 3 and want to get them all. great work Mr. Goleman