Customer Reviews

The Center

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

GREAT LEAD CHARACTERS DRIVE THIS BOOK. I COULD NOT PULL MYSELF AWAY FROM THIS BOOK AFTER THE SECOND CHAPTER. IF YOU GET PAST THE FIRST COUPLE OF CHAPTERS WITH ALL THE MEDICAL JARGON YOU'LL LOVE THIS BOOK AS I DID. YOU WILL ALSO WANT TO MEET MAKS.

As a fan of Michael Crichton and used to his style, I can say Shobin's style is not quite as smooth, however this book kept my interest more than any Crichton book ever has. It was exciting and shocking in parts. All books can be somewhat predictable, but this one was full of surprises. Now I need to go back and find and read more titles from this guy.

This medical thriller by David Shobin, will keep you rivited to your chair. This is one of the most believeable book I've read in a long time. You won't be able to put it down.

Loved the book. Action packed suspense that keeps you glued to the pages waiting for the next move. If you like Robin Cook you'll love David Shobin. So full of twists and turns you'll think you're on a roller coasteer at Disneyland. You'll fall in love with Chad and Maks. Keeps you guessing with a surprise ending. Happy reading.

I feel that this is one of the great foreshadows of the direction modern medicine and David Shobin enchanted and horrified me with this wonderful novel. A must read for everyone!!! One you stop you can't put it down. The plot was fluid and the imagery sent shivers. Another great work from an even greater artist!

While quite suspenseful, this medical thriller was unrelieved by any sense of how technical things work outside the medical field, as well as any sense of how reasonable people would react to many events in the story. The ending is a rather unbelievable cheat, too.

Shobin envisions a humungous medical center completely computerized in all its functions. While that might occur in the very distant future, it would be a very long time before humans relinquish all roles. At the very least, there should be physicians and computer technicians supervising the center's work, ready to intervene if necessary.

It doesn't occur to the author to have the legal system act once a "show cause" order has failed. The author doesn't have police or the two main characters investigate the attempted murder in the bombing of a boat. The author has computer screens going blank suddenly when one is getting too close to crucial information -- this is triply bad: Not only is this physically impossible with current designs of computers, but something similar such as the Internet connection disconnecting at the time would be far more plausible and just as effective for the story. Also when this happens too often, it is very much a smoking gun, which nobody seems to notice in the story. Similarly, someone is electrocuted while typing in a name into his workstation; the investigator very carefully presses the very last key of the name, and a lightning bolt zaps the (already dead) victim. The author fails to ask what physical equipment did it, when it would be obvious at the scene.

I think this should be enough. It really tries my suspension of disbelief to encounter such things repeatedly in the story.

This is one of the most poorly written books I've ever read.
The initial concept of a fully automated hospital was interesting, although I'm not sure patients would be flocking to be treated by robots, with no human contact. The character development was poor, and it is particularly in the area of dialogue that Shobin falls flat on his face. The theme of replacing people with technology mirrors Shobin's strengths and weaknesses as a writer: He deals well with the technology, but very poorly with the people and their interactions with one another.

The Center is thrilling from the time the 4 year old is placed into the Crematory to the time that Chad & Maks begin their fight with with the robotics of the center and they all dive out the window after making the explosion to make the window. The plot twist and turns so much you have no idea where the story is taking you. I sat on the edge of my seat through out the whole book. I cried in the beginning and the end. A must read book for the mystry buffs and thriller fans all over.

So, there's this fully automated robotic hospital that's running all on its own, no humans involved, save for the patients. And the hospital is evil. Get this, it still uses floppy discs! Somehow, the human genome project, government agencies, and your typical self-important surgeon become involved with the plot about this evil hospital.

Toss in precocious little kid, a hot skinny blond who eats things like "small salads from the local deli", and a fellow doctor more evil than the hospital is, you've got a great cast of idiots.

The author likes to think he's smart with all his out-dated computer talk, but all it did was make me skip over pages in order to get back to the mostly stupifyingly silly action. Not to mention, these doctors who helped design this robotic hospital take pride in the fact that they use "seven year old" desktop systems to do their jobs.

There's also some Ghost in the Shell type scenes and accessories. The brain trust can dress the main characters in suits that use stealth technology and wire tiny laptops into them, but still floppy discs! The discs just slay me, sorry.

I might have given this book two stars, if I'd laughed out loud more.

I love thrillers and read many. This was by far one of the worst. The writing itself was ok, but the plot was pretty much a joke from the very beginning. I read the whole thing, hoping it would get better, but it never did. Many of the things that occur in this book are so beyond the realm of possible or probable that I couldn't buy into it at all. It felt a lot like a romance written by a man who has no concept of what women think or want...combined with a medical thriller situated around a facility that could never, ever exist for so many logistical reasons that I don't care to type them all out. It just doesn't work. It is written as a present-day thriller set in the real world, but the plot lines are pure fantasy - and not interesting enough to make me want to ignore the impossibility of it all. I am not one to be very critical of my pleasure reading, but this truly stunk.