Customer Reviews

Critical Mass

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am big fan of Mr. Strieber but this story just does not hit its mark. The plot is topical and could have been exciting and suspenseful but the story seemed hurried and not really developed. Nor are the characters fleshed out and seem very typical and one diminsionable. In fact, some of the dialogue is quite corny and contrived. Fleshing out the characters and making the book somewhat longer would have helped. This is more of a "book to a movie" type of story. Wait for the paperback.

Whitley Streiber's new novel, "Critical Mass," is more than a thriller, more than a spy story, more than science fiction.

It takes on the premise: what if terrorists DID nuke an American city and had devices in place to terminate Western civilization? What if America could counter extremists with an equally devastating weapon of reprisal?

The hero, Jim Deutsch, is equal parts McGyver, Jack Ryan, Indiana Jones, and Bourne. Add in Jim's love, a Moslem woman, Nabila, who works for American security. A cast of characters from the Pope to the American president to a host of foreign extremists completes the page-turning tension.

Streiber is at his best with the small details of horrifying death [the people] "tumbling toward the flame, in the dust, in the chaos," and "The wall exploded inward. . .burying the smoking chucks of . . .bodies in the fiery debris. So each soul started with a question, entered a moment of horror, then knew death."

Moreover, he uses the clarity of the theme of people in power, those who could prevent catastrophe, those who do not act. And he warns that this time is coming, that nuclear proliferation is a threat to life as we know it. As he did in "Nature's End," Streiber presents the facts of environmental and human disaster, using the evidence that is already in front of us, but personalizing it with characters we care about.

Although the narrator states, ". . .nuclear destruction remained something that was really beyond imagination, and its effects were far more terrible than its planners had anticipated," it is clear that Streiber is calling for action NOW to prevent disaster SOON.

This is a terrifying, realistic, absorbing book

I have enjoyed a number of Mr. Strieber's books, but this wasn't one of them. At the end of the day, there was just too much that was not believable. In short, it's about terrorist organization who managed to penetrate the US government and to acquire nuclear weapons - one of which it uses on Las Vegas early in the book. I find it unbelievable that such an organization would be unknown to everyone but the Russians (as is suggested) and that they would be able to get as much nuclear material as they did. The way the president acted throughout the book never made much sense, either.
A lot is never explained - how did the terrorists penetrate the government as deeply as they did? How did they get a recording of that the President was saying? The actions of the Russian government were also totally unbelievable.
I didn't find the hero of the book to be very interesting - nor his ex-wife for that matter. Overall, I wanted to like it and the fast pace was good, but overall it just wasn't a very good book.

At far as the violent scenes went...

It's as if he was perusing a 1000x microscope over certain scenes instead of just telling us what happened.

So if your sensitive to over the top gore, skip it.

Other than that... the first several chapters were really interesting. And the ending ok.

SUMMARY: What if a militant islamic group, unknown to any of the international intelligence agencies, planted nuclear bombs in major cities, and threatened to detonate them until everyone in the western world ceded to their command to follow fundamentalist islamic law? What if only one lone CIA agent was on their trail from the start and the only one who had the power to save Washington,DC and the entire government from being destroyed?

It's a big, outrageous apocalyptic premise. But even given the current terrorist climate, unlike other reviewers or even the blurb on this book that says this "explores an unthinkable real possibility", I found it impossible to suspend disbelief in the way this tale unravels.(Despite the fact, that I'm often a fan of the overtop premise and action that make up this thriller genre.).

Particularly bothersome to me:
- a very, big issue is made throughout the book that industrialized countries, including the US, lack a "continuity of government" plan that would be activated in the event that the majority of government institutions and leaders are destroyed in a catastrophe. I don't know about other countries, but the US has a very advanced plan created in the Kennedy era, so it's just plain not accurate. But, still it's a major focus of the book and is the incentive for much of the action.
- The reactions to the crisis by the President,government officials and the press are beyond incredible. Actually, the reactions of every leader of all of the countries involved are pretty much beyond any reasonable suspension of disbelief. Particularly, in light of real behaviour during and after 9/11.

BOTTOM LINE: While the action and the need to find out what happens will keep you turning the pages to the end, the lack of ability to believe in the motives and behaviour of the characters - make this just an average thriller.

Critical Mass starts off with the premise of terrorists using a nuclear weapon against the US. Unfortunately, the characters are somewhat forgettable. In addition, we're left with too many coincidences such as the main character, who is a contractor for the CIA is divorced from a Muslim female who happens to work in the intelligence community along with her brother who is a bit too fundamental for US intelligence work. All 3 characters, apparently independently are working the same problem. Why the CIA has someone tracking down nucs within the US borders is never made clear. Homeland Security appears completely compromised, while the president is an almost laughable caricature of a world leader. There's also an overdose of geopolitical posturing that even includes the pope. Las Vegas as ground zero also seems a bit of a stretch since it has less than strategic importance and even as a symbol, there would likely be a difference of opinion.

In short, this is an overly ambitious thriller that simply does not have those elements of endearing characters, believability, or authenticity.

This very confronting novel portrays a believable nightmare scenario should a terrorist group manage to smuggle nuclear bombs into key targets around the world.

I felt the book could have benefited from a bit more polishing - it made me appreciate the value of a good editor. Some chapters were brilliant, with powerful, evocative prose, such as the description of the first nuclear attack, yet others seemed rushed and not anywhere near the same standard. Further, some of chapters seemed to be out of sequence, or at least introduced facts out of order. If you can ignore these blemishes, then you should enjoy this confronting (and hopefully fanciful) yarn.

The subject of this book, the fictional account of a threat of nuclear annihilation from an extremist Muslim organization, is not generally what I would choose as reading material, however, as usual, Whitley has crafted yet another page turning thriller. It starts slowly, but the suspense builds and builds until you just can't put it down. A fantastic book with haunting descriptions of events which will be burned into my brain for time immemorial.

I enjoyed the start of this book, but after a time, I found it very difficult to stay interested. I never did finish.
The author does not stay with a main character but jumps around. The plot seems disjointed. Unlike some other reviewers I did not have difficulty with the idea that a nuclear attack could happen. I believe something like that is plausible. What I had a problem with were things I have come to expect as the simple parts of a good novel.
At the start of the book I appreciated the author's depiction of events, but then I recognized the same repetitive pattern in his scene descriptions, and what I had originally taken for attention to detail became predictable and tiresome.
I did enjoy some plot twists that I did not expect, for example: how people would react to a nuclear explosion that was caused by their own people.
Overall, however, the book covers too much ground with too few pages.

As far as pacing goes, this is one of Strieber's better books. The plotting is sharp and filled with enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning the pages until the end.

The downside is that the main characters are so caricatured that it becomes more like a Hollywood "treatment" than a novel, with too many complex motivations left hanging in the wind by the end of the book.

The what-if part is Whitley's concept of what might happen to the US if their own military technology was turned against them.

I think a good idea for his next novel would be to have aliens swoop down, pick up all the politicians, soldiers and religious fanatics and transport them to a barren planet where they could fight each other until only one was left standing, thereby restoring the earth to a state of peace and harmony.