Customer Reviews

Bureau 13: Doomsday Exam

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nick Pollota's Bureau 13 books are exciting, funny and just plain fun. If you want to spend a pleasurable few hours suspending your disbelief, this is the perfect book with which to do it. I vote it the award for book-that-should-be-a-movie.

Studying to become one of America's defenses against the paranormal, federal agents at the Bureau 13 Academy are thrown into the real world when a mysterious enemy lets loose every monster the Bureau ever had captured. And that was only to cover up the real crime...

Wow. These just keep getting better and better. I really didn't think Mr. Pollotta could top the first book, BUREAU 13, but he did it in this one. The big fight at the secret jail was funny and exciting (yes, I did recognize most of the monsters used), and the vampire football team was the most hilarious thing I ever read. And the terrible events at the motel had my heart pounding. For Fantasy humor novels, these have some really scary scenes in them. With things like BLADE and X-FILES on the big screen, why haven't these wonderful books been made into movies yet? Any chance there is a Bureau 13 fan club out there on the web?

This one is sort of what you would get if you made Simon R. Green's Nightside softboiled.

Except here, the Bureau is out to protect the public from supernatural menace, as opposed to protecting themselves from each other.

Unkillable monsters, rookies, and guys like this: " 'So an insane alchemist, with the most powerful book of evil magic in existence, has absorbed the abilities of a mutant vampire and is wearing an alien battle suit,' Raul muttered softly, as we walked along the lines of parked cars. 'Ed, this is big. Really big.'

'And extremely bad,' I added as we reached the car, an old luxury sedan with racing tires. Nondescript and powerful, it was tailor made for our needs. Couldn't be better."

bedevil the crew in this story.

There's appropriate levels of crazy a la Green, certainly: " Unfortunately by now, Mystery Man was double his original size, the cauldron had sunk into the floor to become a yawning pit from which fiery tongues of raw ethereal power lashed upward into his body. With each lambent energy whip, his smile grew and his voice became louder and more purposeful. He was already tapping the natural magical resources of our mother planet herself, after that would come the monsters, the people and absolute victory.

Even if not the same level of whacky monikers flying around, you do get some homage fromage: "After a moment, I recognized where we were. The observation tower on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. Holy Cow, we hadn't used this place in seventy years!"

An ok book.



3 out of 5

This one is a keeper. I've read it twice, and I'm holding on to it to read again someday.

This novel was my first exposure to the Bureau 13 books, and I went on to collected the others after reading it.

Many writers take a couple good ideas and reveal them slowly in a story. You're often left feeling short-shifted until you find that the writer was simply saving additional ideas to miserly hand out in future novels.

Not Nick. In this tail, he starts the concepts flowing and doesn't stop until the final page. He does this with the confidence that he'll simply come up with new ideas when he goes on to write future stories.

Bravo.

If it hadn't been written before the movie, I would swear this book was a MIB ripoff....
A hilarious, well-written book, with a solid plot, Doomsday Exam provides the best explanation I've ever seen for all of those tabloid articles.
If you are a science fiction fan, a mystery fan, an occult fan, or just an avid reader looking for a great book, you MUST read this one!

This is one of best books I have ever read. The book had me rolling on the ground laughing while enjoining the realistic combat. I hope I can get a hold of some of his other books. If you can find this book BUY IT

Mr. Pollotta's writting shows a ready familiarity with high-tech espionage/military tactics and equipment. His rich story-backgrounds provide a feeling of a real (but strange) world going on behind the front stage plotline. He takes old fantasy sterotypes and spins them in unexpected directions. His knowledge of obscure mythology seems as deep as his knowledge of cutting edge technology. Pollotta's writing style is very refreshing. His characters do not suffer from "protagonist invulnarabilty"--where the main character can save the universe without breaking a sweat. Pollotta makes his characters EARN their victories. When they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, it is not without receiving a few scars in the process. Pollotta's villains are vicious and, worse yet, smart. No melodramatic revalation of master plans here! Pollotta's main characters are forced to fight for every inch. This quality is rare (nearly unique) in fantasy fiction. It shows a great deal of tallent and effort by the writer. Hunt this book down and BUY IT! It will be worth your effort.

I'm a huge fan of gaming novels and this one series is at the top of my favorites list. If you ever wanted to read a novel of a great gaming session this series has that in spades. I, too, find this one even better than the first book (though the still out of print third book "Full Moonster" is my all time favorite). If you've read the Crimson Skies novels or the Dragonlance Chronicles than you know what I'm talking about. That sense of action and adventure you ususally only get by playing the damn game yourself.

Do yourself a favor and sit down and enjoy this fun read.

The second of Nick Pollotta's three books adapted from the game "Stalking The Night Fantastic" follows the formula laid down by the first. Ed Alvarez and his heavily armed team continue to fight evil with everything from wooden bullets to nuclear devices; and there are plenty of clever tactics to keep things fresh. The book is little more than a running battle, however, and the potentially very interesting Bad Guy is never developed, becoming nothing more than ultra-powerful magical equivalent of a James Bond villain. Mr. Pollotta's writing still sparkles and the jokes fly as fast as the ammunition, although there are plenty of blanks, misfires and shots wholly off target, but again it all reads like a gaming session. Everything is linear and from the point of view of the team (narrated as it is by Alvarez). The potential for really biting satire is never fully explored and there is a constant feeling that something truly exceptional is tantalisingly close, but when the dust settles you still come away happy. This is very much a rollercoaster novel: uneven, very brief and not entirely satisfying, but exhilarating and worth the cost of admission. Great literature it is not, great entertainment it is.