Customer Reviews

The Crucifixion Conspirators

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I really enjoyed this book. The plot and characters were well developed and the story was very intriguing. I'd be fascinated to know how much about the Jesus "character" was fact vs fiction. It was all very believable. It's been a few months since I read the book and I'm still thinking about it.

I agree with the other reviewer who said the book could have been longer. I would have enjoyed even more description of the sights, sounds and tastes of the time and place. Additionally Frankel in colonial America would be a fascinating novel all in itself!

This was easily one of the best books I've read this year. I'm looking forward to more from this author! P.S. Thanks for the bigger than average print too!.

For a time travel fan, it is a must read. However, many of the fun things about time travel are avoided by the author in this story. He writes away explanations against paradoxes, as if to take away the worry of really writing intelligently about that aspect of time travel.
The characters are varied and interesting, but fall short on any sort of connection or empathy with them. I'd agree with an earlier review that rarely do you really feel he has put you back in time in early Jerusalem.

The twist on the crucifixtion is interesting, although again, he puts the charcacters exactly into the time frame that avoids having to address many aspects of Jesus and sticks with what is just easier to explain.
Also, a couple things in the book felt like he was going to go somewhere with it potentially thought provoking, and basically just dropped it.
It was worth a first time through, but definitely not one I'm going to keep on my shelves for a later read.

I thought overall the topic as well as the book were very interesting. The concept that is being presented is fresh, the characters are good and relatively well developed. I felt like the book should be about twice as long as it was. Needed more detail to really feel a part of the time being discussed. I felt that the book just dives into the time travel process without really making the reader feel the technology or the process of time travel. The second two thirds of the book is really in the top tier of stories I have read in the past several years. The first third is weak. The authors tried to develop too many characters in too little time. Then they started using new names for them and got me confused.

I enjoyed this book. The characters are believable, the plot fast and it runs along excellently. Above all I liked the ideas of who Christ might have been, far more believable than the Bible - and that is not to knock the guy. Grumbles: the first thirty pages I found weak, I preserved and very glad I did, but my biggest grumble is the book often read too much like a movie; I could have done with more paint on the canvas. Only at time did I believe I was in Judea at the time of Christ - the fine description of the blazing night sky apart, and the introductory tour aside - I was never transported back along with the characters. But the ideas and thoughts of this book will stay with me forever and not many manage that, and you know when you have read a good book when you start pressing it onto your friends which of course I did as soon as I finished.

This book's premise is based on the same research that Dan Brown's famous novel (The Davinici Code) is based on, and in many ways it is a more interesting story. Where Brown concentrates much of his story on esoteric art and puzzle solving, Conspirators is more of an action story with time traveling heroes. The time traveling technology is sketchy at best, but it serves its purpose well enough, which is to get a team of adventurers to the distant past to witness and record the crucifixion if Christ. What they find is both astonishng and controversial, at least to some team members. And they struggle with the fate of the information. The book was written 7 years ago and shows its age, especially in the technology area. Microcircuitry was certainly not the author's forte. If this story were revised and marketed better, I believe it would have mass appeal. Even though it tackles a touchy subject, the authenticity of the Jesus Christ miracle, with gusto, it does not preach or rant, but merely observes open-mindedly.

If you can remember this book is Fiction it is a great quick read.