Customer Reviews

The Athena Project

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(38)
1 star:		(55)

 

 

Terrible! One of the very worst books that I've read, and I'm a Thor fan. What ever possessed Brad Thor to write a story about a beautiful, sexy spec ops team of women? AND, chasing after a WW II Nazi invented transporter device capable to sending EMP bombs anywhere in the world, undetected. This is like some sick, twisted collaboration between Clive Cussler, Matthew Reilly and Barbara Cartland. Our hero, Scott Harvath, makes an appearance but as nothing more than a nobody gopher with his balls cut off as he caters to the whims of the sex-kittens. No reason to include Harvath in this other than as an attempt to tie Thor's other stories into this. From the awful story and ridiculous characters I would expect Thor to want to distance himself (and Harvath, his cash cow) as far as possible from this garbage. The "girls" in this story have been carefully selected for their athleticism, determination, work ethic along with their large breasts and long legs (and I'm not kidding). We are led to believe that they are as tough as any Delta, SEAL, Recon or Spetsnaz soldiers and they prove it by kicking ass on every special forces guy that comes along without breaking a nail and giving the constant Cussler-like witty dialog as bullets fly past their heads. Apparently all of the trained soldiers shooting at them cannot maintain their excellent marksmanship in the face of such beauty and large, Kevlar enhanced, breasts. Oh sorry, no body armor here. It would only clash with their uniform of choice; slinky evening gowns wherein they somehow manage to conceal their 9mm Glocks. I particularly loved the scenes with the constant sexual banter over who's sleeping with whom and how they are the "...smartest, best looking, hardest working warriors (they) know". Sadly this is clearly a work up to a sequel and perhaps (God forbid) a series. Oh, Thor, what have you done?

I am a big fan of Brad Thor, though this is not his typical novel. In Thor's last novel, Foreign Influence, a Delta Force team of women named Athena helped Thor's protagonist, ex Navy Seal Scott Horvath, in dealing with terrorists. In this novel, which is relatively short, Horvath puts in only a few cameo appearances, and Thor's usual political discussions are missing. Instead this novel focuses on Athena's efforts to stop the use of a machine invented by the Nazis, and now in the hands of the wrong people, from being used against the United States.

Think of Charlies Angels, except now there are four women instead of three, and they are not only beautiful but deadly. Instead of the faceless Charlie, their control person is a Delta Force commander named Rob Hutton. The four team members can just as easily engage in silly banter among themselves as turn deadly serious when they focus on their different missions.

This is a fun, fast moving and action packed novel. I disagree with the negative reviews complaining that the Athena team members are like comic book characters, that their conversations are meaningless, or that their actions are completely implausible. The ending is not exactly a cliffhanger, but there are loose ends that I expect will be further pursued in a sequel.

If you liked watching Charlies Angels, then you will like this novel. If not, then read some of Thor's other novels. For me, I welcomed the change of pace from his other novels and found this very entertaining.

I can't remember when I read a book this bad from an author that generally writes pretty good books.

In his latest book, Brad Thor features an all-female team of Delta Force members that are asked to undertake one of the nation's deadliest counterterrorism assignments, codenamed The Athena Project. In brief, the four woman team is tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives that were used to kill more than 20 Americans during a terrorist attack in Rome. Then, the team learns that an even larger attack has been set in motion, and the greatest threat they face may be the secrets kept by their own government.

Sound good? Well, the old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" has rarely applied more than to The Athena Project. I won't spend a lot of time in conveying my opinion of this book -- since it has already taken up too much of my time by reading it -- other than to tell you that Thor provides virtually no meaningful character development of his main and minor characters to help differentiate them from each other, the dialogue he has them speak is awful and child-like, the plot (which has its fair share of action) is too implausible, and its conclusion is predictable.

'Nuf said to forewarn as to why I'd advise you to skip this book (no matter how big a Brad Thor fan you are)? I hope so -- because I'm pretty sure that if you do decide to read this book you'll soon be posting a review on Amazon of The Athena Project that is similar in many ways to mine.

Half way and I just had to quit. Couple days later I tried again and regret it. What a trite piece of junk this clunker is. The story is just barely cobbled together without much thinking. The Delta stars are 4 beautiful and sexy females and this author can't write women very well. Their dialogue is just like mens locker room banter dialogue. Women don't joke around like men. Women are women--not men. Then the secert Nazi WonderWeapons are just a hoot and nearly comical. Geezzz, make it just a little plausible? A little touch of realism. Too much fantasy here for me.

The first real letdown is right in the beginning where the 4 starlets are going to kidnap a dangerous weapons dealer at a party at his home which is covered thick with security. An international weapons dealer is going to have plenty of security and multi-layered, but for some reason the 2 girls are able to swim into the nearby boathouse undetected. All they have to do is bend the bars to fit through. No money in the security budget for a couple cams? C'mon. That is just lazy thinking and writing. Of course the arms dealer is going to have cameras and motion sensing and maybe even thermal detectors in the boathouse next to his house. And of course he doesn't and the 2 girls just swim right in and breeze into the house and get the guy despite all the security in the house. In reality these 4 girls would not last very long going up against experienced operators.

I have read better thrillers by Brad that were much better--this one just doesn't have it.

Forget this book and watch old re-runs of Charlie's Angels.

For me, there's nothing like a woman that drives a Jeep. For others, there's nothing like a woman that collects teddy bears. Some guys like women who can strap on a parachute and jump out of a plane. Still others are drawn to woman who can shoot out the tires on that Jeep, plant tiny cameras in those teddy bears, and blow up the plane she just jumped out of. If you are the latter, then this book has your name AND social security number written ALL over it. We got a tiny glimpse of the Athena group in `Foreign Influence', not a lot, just enough to whet the appetite. This time around we get to savor all four of these ladies in their entire explosive, Kevlar bra wearing, HALO jumping glory.

Alex, Megan, Julie, and Gretchen are the four angels that are part of the covert group called the `Athena Project'. Quiet, deadly, dark, and sexy. The phrase "use what you go to get what you want" takes on a whole new meaning when dealing with world Mob bosses, terrorists, and double agents. Taunt and firm they may be, but don't underestimate them because you will pay with great pain... or your life. But this isn't some fake feminist, affirmative action, equal rights, useless N.O.W. whining type of operation. Oh no. The only difference between them and our boy Scot Harvath; when I think of them in a thong I don't dry heave.

`The Athena Project' seemed to be written in the same spirit as `The Last Patriot'. While not as politically heavy as his other books, `Athena Project' does have that mystery/ancient secret/suspense/butt-kicking thing going on and it's extremely entertaining. No matter how many people our brave Black OPS soldiers quietly eliminate, there is always some idiot waiting in the wings, under a rock, or hiding in the mountains who think they can do a better job of helping the evil forces bring about the end of the world. This time you have the never-seem-to-go-away Nazis who have created a sort of sci-fi type weapon that is biblical in its power. At one time it was thought to be gone, but it's back and in the worst hands you could possibly imagine. Brad Thor takes a number of different story lines, weaves them to create their own tale, all the while giving us clues to a much larger and extremely chilling puzzle of a terror plot.

The ladies are tasked with a couple missions ordered and a few they couldn't help BUT get mixed up in. The opening mission is classic, especially with the way they escape and bring their hostage with them. They have a unique violent way about them and you have to love the bantering humor. Seriously. These women are about to do some incredibly insane Black OPS thing and they're talking about dating guys with no teeth or who is more likely to kiss a married man! But make no mistake; one second they are laughing about a Georgia good-ole-boy and the next second they have double-tapped a terrorist. Boil this entire review down to a few words, "heck-yes-I-enjoyed-this-book-and-having-Brad-Thor-put-out-two-books-in-one-year-and-having-to-read-about-FOUR-sexy-women-that-pack-heat-is-an-absolute-thrill". And one more quick thing: While the name `Brad Thor' is enough to get me to read, he goes one step further when he writes, on one page at the beginning, "all the science in this novel is based on reality". I have NEVER read a book that has started as such, and had it suck. That streak continues.

This is my first and last Brad Thor novel. While reading The Athena Project, I felt like I was reading a book written by my teenager. The only thing that kept me from tossing it was the humor in discovering how much worse it could get. It did not disappoint.

The characters are pathetic. The dialogue in this novel is amatuerish and unrealistic. It reads like a guy trying to make "girl talk". The heroins will be in a gun battle and discussing their dates later that night.

The story is unrealistic and implausible. The action quickly jumps from one scene to another with very little description. It leaves the reader puzzled as to how such an immense obstable is overcome in one paragpraph. My favorite is when the heroins and their pistols are ambushed by 8 Czech special forces soldiers with machine guns. No problem. They dismiss the soldiers and take a prisoner in a page and a half. Wow! Did I mention that they didn't get a scratch.

Hopefully, he will put a little more effort into the next one.

The Athena Project is a story of a team of all-female operatives of the counter-terrorism team, Delta Force, who find themselves in the midst of a mission much larger than they every expected. When twenty Americans are killed in a terrorist attack in Rome, Athena Project operatives, Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper are tasked with capturing a Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives from his home.

But following the arm's dealer's interrogation, they are tasked to check out a secret bunker once used by the Nazi's during WWII as a scientific research center. They find the gruesome remains of inhumane experiments from the 1940's but all the equipment and technology has been removed...recently. Now, propelled on a mission to discover the culprits behind the clearing of the bunker and the whereabouts of the supposed technology that once laid inside.

Simultaneously, there is a storyline taking place in Colorado where a foreign spy is close to penetrating the mysterious secret the U.S. government has hidden beneath Denver International Airport, but she doesn't realize that she is being played by the man she thought she was seducing.

I actually finished the book back in early January, but I had a hard time figuring out what about the book that bothered me. I considered it an entertaining read, but something was making it feel eh to me for lack of a better word. That was until I saw an episode of Chuck ("Chuck versus the C.A.T. Squad") that I immediately realized what it was that was disappointing.

In The Athena Project, as in the Chuck episode, the four girls are all stunning beauties who are skilled weapons experts and tactical killing machines. They both use their feminine wiles to infiltrate and get close to their targets and then their cold-hearted training to carry out their mission; however, in The Athena Project there was a lack of humanity to the characters. When I say humanity, I don't mean compassion, but more that they are so beautiful and so great at what they do that they seemed invincible. More like a superhero than a human spy with vulnerabilities and character flaws. In addition, I felt there was a lack of character development to the main cast of characters that made the four operatives interchangeable. I found myself many times pausing to remember the backstory of the character I was following and not being able to pinpoint which one it was. There was so little to separate them from one another that it was as if they were one person.

Again, even in the single episode of Chuck the four women were distinctly different from one another. Each had their own issues, their own pasts and their own problems. Why is it that I felt more connected with four characters in a single hour of TV than I did with four protagonists over an entire novel? Somethings not right with that situation.

Other issues I had with the novel involved the pacing and the seeming superlative secondary story arcs. Throughout the novel, the story seemed to be building to a climactic and epic ending; however, the ending was rather predictable and almost boring. There were parts in the middle of the book that had me on my seat more than the ending. Also, the entire story in Denver was interesting but there was no resolution as to why it existed in the first place. The dynamic between the two spies (one American, one Russian) both tasked with getting close to the other was intriguing, but the story arc was almost thrown away with a quick conclusion, and when it was done, I found myself wondering what was the point.

This was the first Brad Thor novel I've read, and I know there is a number of books around a character who had a cameo in this novel, Scot Harvath, but as a first time reader. I find myself wondering if I want to try another one of his books. Where this novel falls short with protagonists that are more caricatures of female spies and the plot is weak and underdeveloped perhaps his other books stand out as resouding successes in a genre that is greatly entertaining.

I apologize if this review is a bit negative. I generally like to stay constructive, but I'm afraid I may have been too harsh on Brad Thor's recent work. It takes a lot to write a novel and I applaud his effort but I feel this needed a better editor to point out those substantive issues before publication. Let's hope my next read of a Brad Thor novel is a more positive one.

Rating: C

As a last note, this novel is probably a perfect in-flight read. It would be a great one to pick up at the airport and read as you wait for your flight to take off. It's fast paced, entertaining for what it is and brainless enough to not exhaust you while you travel.

Um.....NO! This was easily my least favorite of Thor's work. With the introdution of the all-female team in his last work, Thor makes the ladies the central focus of "The Athena Project", and it FAILS in every way. The story also has 2 or 3 different issues going on that never really connect naturally, it just seems very "forced".

Go back to Harvath, I have had enough of every author these days forcing a tough female (or 4) on us!

I have read all of Brad Thor's novels. I have every book he has written in hardcover editions except for the Lions of Lucerne, so I am a serious fan of his work. This novel is so lame I use it as a doorstop instead of displaying it in my bookcase with the rest of his novels. The dialogue is so bad it is embarrassing. It reminds me of Saturday morning cartoon dialogue. How an author is able to write such interesting books and then put out this piece of garbage, is beyond me. I can only guess Thor was trying to convey that women can fight the good fight and be just as effective as men in the war on terror. Unfortunately, in the process he makes them appear to be superficial, trite, and immeasurably boring. Thor has always described key women in his novels as stereotypical Barbie Doll archetypes. I just dismissed this as a personal character flaw from someone who places far too much emphasis on female appearance. And what the heck, if he wants to describe most of the women in his novels as Baywatch alumni, I am not going to cry over a little artistic license. However, Thor makes a fatal mistake in believing all he needed was a gaggle of good looking warriors and he would have a relevant novel on his hands. He forgot one thing....people read novels for the story, not the description of pretty characters. Thor fails miserably with the Athena Project. Pass on this one.

Overall, perfect Thor book. Quick read, and alway kept me wanting to turn the page one more time before turning out the lights. The only downside to this book, would be keeping up with each of the TAP members, and remembering their profile while not getting them confused. Mr. Thor's other books allowed you to focus on one main subject.

Great book, and loved reading it.