Customer Reviews

Bones: Buried Deep

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

The best I can say about this novel, which was "reverse engineered" from the TV series "Bones," is that I read it straight through. It held my interest sufficiently to keep me reading. That really is the best I can say about it. Did I like it? Well, not exactly. I didn't hate it, but, in the end, I wasn't much satisfied with having read it.

My complaints about it apply, pretty much, to nearly every novel I've read that has been written by a hired author engaged to produce a novel based on characters from a TV show. It's formulaic. It's lightweight. The characters aren't well developed at all. With the slightly oversized type and extra spacing between lines and the number of pages (compared to any novel by Kathy Reichs herself), it was more like reading a lengthy short story - kind of like the many Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys novelettes I read in my youth. There wasn't that much to the plot. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, clearly this is a novel to be tossed aside lightly, because even if you threw it with great force, there's so little substance to it the air resistance would keep it from going very far.

"Bones: Buried Deep" is written by one Max Allan Collins, an author hired to produce a novel from the characters seen on TV, and he did that. (He seems to do a lot of that sort of thing -- run a search on his novels and you'll find a large number of them that are based on the three "CSI" TV series. There are a smaller number based on "Dark Angel.") He's an adequate writer, but I suspect he had no real enthusiasm for this project. None of the characters is his brainchild. The dialog is less than intriguing and the narration, presented by an omniscient observer referring to all characters in this third person, tells you just a bit about what Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth are thinking and feeling, but not enough to matter. There just isn't much to the characters or what they say. It's telling that the copyright is owned by the TV production company.

If, from the foregoing, you were to infer that I'm not an enthusiastic fan of the TV show "Bones," you'd be totally incorrect. I thoroughly enjoy the TV show, which functions admirably as a TV show. It's one of my favorite things to watch on television, always entertaining, never disappointing. I'm also glad that the TV show introduced me to the name Kathy Reichs and inspired me to read the novels that she actually wrote. They're excellent. They outshine the Max Allan Collins's novel by several degrees of magnitude.

I suspect that once Reichs signed her contract to do "Bones" on TV, the production company began to mandate changes she could not veto or maybe it was the Fox Network, or both. They kept the name Temperance Brennan for the main character. She remained a forensic anthropologist by profession and one who gets involved in murder cases. But every other recurring character from Kathy Reichs's novels disappeared, and Temperance 2 was rewritten in every other way you can think of. Temperance 2 is not middle-aged, she has never married, so she isn't divorced as is Temperance 1, she hasn't a daughter in college, she's a martial arts expert, and she's particularly ill-versed as to popular culture. Temperance 1, on the other hand, isn't clueless about pop culture - she goes to movies and watches TV - but she might not know the names of the latest rock groups teens are listening to. She is opposed to guns and wouldn't have one and she's particularly ineffective when it comes to self defense. Her first home is in Charlotte, North Carolina where she's on the anthropology faculty at the University of North Carolina and where she assists the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation in crime solving, when called upon. But she spends a great deal of time in Montreal, Quebec, working in the provincial forensic laboratory, and a lot of Kathy Reichs's storytelling takes place in Montreal and adjacent areas of Quebec, and I find that interesting. I'm guessing that the network wouldn't go for it because American TV viewers have no interest in anything that happens in Canada. So they made Temperance younger, more clueless about things outside her profession, relocated to her to Washington, D.C., made up completely different colleagues, and involved her with an attractive FBI agent, because a detective with the Sureté de Québec just wouldn't do on U.S. television.

If you read Dr. Reichs's novels - and I've read 7 or 8 to date - you'll find her stories longer, more complex, far more replete with scientific observation, with far more interesting and convincing dialogue, narrated by the original Temperance Brennan. You'll know a great deal about what "Tempe" thinks and feels. You'll find the crimes more baffling and the ending far less predictable. I also believe you'll notice how well Kathy Reichs can write. Her prose is excellent stuff, intriguing to read. She evokes the environs of Montreal in recent years, for example, the way Raymond Chandler evoked the streets of Los Angeles in the 1930's and 40's. Her novels - and I've read 7 or 8 as of this date - are worth the $7.99. Collins' "Bones' venture costs the same, but should sell for half that.

As a footnote, I think it would have been better had they given Temperance 2 (the one from the TV show) a different name entirely. She really is a different character and there's going to be confusion now that they've got the TV show characters in print. They're using the "Bones" logo from the TV show on the cover of "Bones: Buried Deep" and they've put Kathy Reichs's name on the cover, too, right below Max Allan Collins's. On the most recent editions of the original Kathy Reichs novels, they've also put the "Bones" television show logo on the cover to promote the books, and, needless to say, Kathy Reichs's name is on them as the author. A lot of people are going to be confused by all of this, and there would be less confusion if the TV show's Temperance were called something else - Sobriety Shannon, maybe, Virtue Donoghue or Abstinence Fitzpatrick. Maybe they should have made her of different ancestry altogether.

By all means, if you love the TV show "Bones" and you find novels based on TV shows good entertainment, you should read this book. If you're looking for quality detective fiction, you might want to skip it. But whatever you decide, please don't confuse "Bones: Buried Deep" with the novels by Kathy Reichs. Me, I'll continue to watch the TV show - it's excellent on TV - and I'll continue to read Kathy Reichs's own novels and keep them separate in my head.

I am such a fan of the TV show, "Bones," and was thrilled when I found out there was a novel based on the series. I was so disappointed in the book, that if it had not been based on "Bones," I would have thrown it in the trash after the first 20 pages. The author, Max Collins, has nothing to do with the TV show, and it is so very obvious that he has none of the education and sophistication of the show's writers. The witty and snappy dialogue is not there. He has no feel for the characters: they are shallow and one-dimensional. There is very, very little description of the forensic techniques used in the show.

And the novel was just badly written. For some bizarre reason, Collins felt it necessary to describe the clothes of each character (even characters who only appeared in one paragraph) in three choppy phrases. In a scene in a restaurant, Collins described the clothing of the hostess, the barmaid, and the waiter--and they were all wearing the same clothes.

I was so disappointed that Kathy Reichs did not write this novel and sincerely hope that when the next novel comes out, they find someone else to write it.

I like that the novel Tempe and TV Tempe are distinctively different characters.

I enjoy reading Kathy Reichs Novels with Tempe, the former alcoholic forensic scientist. I enjoy her relationships with her ex-husband Pete, Canadian Officer Andrew Ryan, her daughter Katy, I even love Birdie her beloved cat. She's believable.

I also enjoy watching Bones and glad it doesn't follow the novels. A movie always falls short of the novel. I like Tempe on TV as much as I like on the page. I enjoy her relationship with her staff and Agent Booth. I enjoy the fact that she has no people skills and has no knowledge of pop culture. However, not knowing who Scully is kind of blew my mind. Who doesn't know of Scully and Mulder? Temperance Brennan I guess. She's not as believable as novel Brennan but enjoyable non the less.

Anyway, I guess my point is Max Allen Collins writing is forces and nothing like either novel Brennan or TV Brennan. I was pretty disappointed. He seemed to dumb her down which is probably becuase he doesn't have the same background as Kathy Reichs. She makes the science understandable for the average layman as well as beleivable.

Sad to say Max Allen collins falls amazingly short is all areas even the pop culture references.

I am a huge fan of Kathy Reichs' novels and of the TV Series, Bones. However, this book was quite a disappointment to me. I did not care for the way the author wrote dialogue -- Brennan's dialog is not that simplimatic on the TV program, and she certainly would never say, "Where at!?" The author way overused the joke where Brennan did not "know what that means."

All I could think of was how much better this novel would have been if written by Reichs herself.

I started to jot down the holes in the story but quit after a while.

At the beginning I thought this book might be able to somehow tie the novels by Kathy Reichs and the TV series, Bones, together. While some superficial attempt is made to do this, it's lacking and illogical!

In the TV series Temperance Brennen is not married, has no children and no pets, is a martial arts or at least self-defense expert and seems to enjoy violence. Oh, and her parents were mysteriously killed in a car accident which then introduced the idea that Tempe along with her family were placed in the Witness Protection scheme?! In the original books this character is divorced, has a daughter, a cat and sometimes dog-sits her ex-husbands dog. She abhors violence and is not even remotely able to do spinning kicks! She also has a sister who is a little off-kilter, a nephew who was involved in biker gangs and is in an on-going relationship with Andrew Ryan (an SQ officer from Quebec).

This book by Max Allen Collins tries to assimilate these two characters by saying that the TV Tempe is divorced, which is illogical in the series as she has mentioned in at least one episode that she's never been married. The phrase "I don't understand what that means" is used not only by Temperance, but also by Seeley Booth, Angela and Zach, which just gets annoying after the third or fourth time.

All in all, this book wastes time describing what characters are wearing rather than what is actually going on in the case and one of the Detectives makes the leap to a suspect, I think, just to get the story moving. It's a disappointment because this series, in it's original book form, was not only entertaining but also very plausible and engrossing.

This book-based-on-a-TV-series-based-on-a-book is just mindless entertainment for those airport lounges and long bus rides

It seems a little silly (no offense, Max!) but a book, written about a television show, written about a book, written as a fictionalized account of a real person's life? I tried explaining this to someone and it more than confused them.

Anyway, I'm a decades long fan of forensics novels and non-fiction, so I naturaly read Ms. Reichs' books. I enjoy them. I also enjoy the television series, although I look forward to later seasons in that the character development will be more complete and the cast will work together more fluently. This book was a fun, quick read, much the way the show is a fun, quick watch. I could not have finished one of Ms. Reichs' novels on the plane trip I took, but I easily finished this book. Sometimes, that's all you want out of your reading material, something a bit more substantial than a magazine.

There were only a few things I felt were truly lacking in this book and perhaps Mr. Collins can address them. I am confused by the inclusion of the mugging entirely. We never achieved any closure with it, and we never learned the reason behind it. When the end of the book hit, I was still waiting for that to be tied in somehow, and it wasn't. Also, my relatively untrained eye caught several errors (some glaringly obvious). Maybe another editor can do a quick glance through before the publication of the next book?

P.S. Deborah Wiley, um... why would you reveal SO much of the plot? Sure it was predictable (the shows tend to be as well), but you didn't "review" the book, you "cliff's notes"-ed the story and just left off the ending. Not really very nice to those who enjoy reading books without the whole plot outlined in advance.

finished this book in one day, I juss couldn't put it down!!!-when I really should've been studying I stayed up until 1 to finish it lol. Thank you so much Collins-you brought my ready-ness back (hehe)!

I would actually say this book is better than the TV series *ha guilty*, but then of course this book is waaaaaay too long to be filmed in a single episode so I understand. It's just that, there are so many twists and turns in the novel, I did not find it predictable at all!

As for Collins' charaterization of the main characters, yes both Brennen and Booth are pretty different than from the show. Booth's physical description does not fit David Boreanaz. Booth's personality doesn't really fit either- he's actually the one who WANTS and WENT for the whole partnership thing with Brennen, but in this novel he resists it (?!).

Brennen's personality DEFINITELY does not fit either, she's so much more social and outgoing, and may I say, at times quirky, not the super-obvious anti-social Brennen we see in the series. But to be honest, I actually find myself liking this version of Brennen-hopefully our Brennen in the series would eventually transform into this one.

More revelation of both characters' inner conflicts and backgrounds. They are really sweet, Collins' nailed the tension we've always dreamed of for both of them PERFECTLY! I was literally *smiling* through the whole novel. Now we are only waiting to see that in the show.

What's so great about this novel is that it focused pretty much only on Brennen and Booth, and their tension-yeah I'm serious, you should pick it up right now if you are in Bones withdrawal-RIGHT NOW!

First, note that this book is NOT written by Kathy Reichs, the original creator of the Temperance Brennan character. (Hopefully, Amazon will fix that error on the page.) This novel is a spin-off from the TV series BONES, and should not be confused with the novels written by Reichs.

Compared with Reichs's books, this falls far short, naturally. It's just a fun read for those of us who are utterly addicted to the TV series and need a fix to hold us over between episodes! Actually, this book doesn't do complete justice to the characters on screen, either, but it ain't bad for capturing the repartee and chemistry between Brennan and Booth.

Like I said, if you're addicted to the show like me, this book comes in handy when you're waiting for season 1 on DVD or stuck in the days that stretch long between Wednesdays (or thru the baseball playoffs!).

I am a huge fan of the tv show and I really enjoyed this book. I though that Max Allan Collins did a great job representing the characters from the show. He managed to capture some of the tension between Brennan and Booth that fans of the show have come to expect and love. I did have a few minor complaints about the book. First, I agree with some of the other reviewers that description of Agent Booth did not fit the description of David Boreanaz. If you are going to base a book on a television show, the description of the character should match the actor. The biggest complaint I had about the book was that some of the characters (such as Temperance Brennan, Jack Hodgins, and Seeley Booth) were refered to by their first names. On the show these characters would be called by their last names.

Overall this was a great book that fans of the tv show are sure to love!

I agree with Max. I have read his other books based on TV shows and like his work. The two reviewers do not seem to know there is a TV show based on Kathy's books. This book is based on the TV characters. In the TV show this is where Tempe works and these are the people she works with. I think it is an excellent TV show and this book portrays it very well.