Customer Reviews

Final Theory: A Novel

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

Rumors fly that Albert Einstein formulated the unified field theory, but feared its release would lead to even more lethal weapons than the atom bomb; if true he took it to his grave. However some people think otherwise and he did discover the unified field theory and that a few still living know it.

Thus diverse players from the Feds to other countries to unscrupulous scientists and even a ruthless Russian mercenary seek the remaining direct link survivor. An intruder batters elderly theoretical physicist Hans Kleinman trying to make Einstein's assistant talk. Instead the torture sends Hans to the hospital near death. When Columbia University Professor David Swift visits his mentor, Hans babbles some enigmatic commentary in his native tongue about "Einheitliche Feldtheorie" with a numerical sequencing of equations that seem to combine the vastness of space with the nano of atoms just before he dies. However David becomes the new target fleeing for his life as he trusts no one not even the FBI except his former girlfriend Princeton physicist Monique Reynolds.

This is an action-packed thriller that takes off from the opening sequence and never slows down as David becomes the target of nasty folks who want to control the next weapon of pandemic destruction. The story line is fast-paced yet provides enough scientific theory to support Einstein's efforts to develop the Unified Field Theory equations. Fans will relish FINAL THEORY as this one never takes a breather while using as the plot's prime concept the reversal of the universally accepted belief Einstein never achieved the equations to prove his theory.

Harriet Klausner

The author combines a background in astrophysics and a career in journalism to lend remarkable realism and phenomenal narrative to this unique thriller. A rich menu of interesting and plausible characters traverse many intriguing locations, described with superb clarity, and all interwoven in a plot as clever, surprising and entertaining as any you will experience in this genre. The science backdrop is presented in a manner as satisfying to the layman as the PhD. For the reader less enamored with the thriller genre, the book is a beautiful work of prose, packed with literary gems. For the thriller buff, you might as well succumb to Mr. Alpert now rather than later. Any first novel this extraordinary is going to be followed by dozens more--and a mass readership. Absolutely five stars.

The idea of a hidden Einstein Theory of Everything is a wonderful premise. And there are definitely things to like about this book. The writing is more than adequate from a style perspective; not great, but very good. Alpert does a little too much spoon feeding (telling the reader things that are blatantly obvious, as if the reader isn't smart enough to figure it out), but not enough to make the writing itself unpleasant. He also did an admirable job of working in twists that are so important to a story like this. The pacing was good, and the science was very nicely incorporated with a minimum of info-dumping. Then there are the problems...

It frustrates me to no end when an author won't do even the tiniest bit of research in order to get the details right on issues they know nothing about. For example, a character engages the safety on their revolver. Puh-leeze. Revolvers don't have safeties. (The only revolver that has a safety is an old western style single-action, definitely not the thing you tuck into the small of your back as did the character.) Things go from bad to worse when he approaches the issue of computers. A character "smashes" a computer on the floor and, voila, we have parts everywhere. Among these parts, he is able to spot the hard drive because it looks like a turntable with glass platters. He of course proceeds to smash the platters into tiny shards. Good grief. It takes five seconds on Google to see what a hard drive looks like. Or hey, walk into any computer store and ask them to let you hold one. Then get back to me on whether you saw platters and were able to "smash" them. Every time an author does something like this, it yanks you out of the story and it takes time to reestablish the immersion. I find this way too often with authors who obviously have zero understanding of things of the real world, whether the topic is cars, guns, computers, etc. It's frustrating, and so easily avoidable.

The more troubling issue with the book is the ultra-poor character development, both on the micro and macro levels. On the micro level, there's just little there to make one bond with the individual characters. They're stereotypical and wooden. On the macro level, the evil government is after the poor innocent little people while an evil Master Killer stalks them, as well. Yawn.

Finally, although it contributed absolutely nothing to the story, the author had to take time to inject his liberal politics. The evil vice-president with a crooked smile has to run the country for the "boob" from Texas. Again, yawn. Maybe the author found this cathartic, but it's an incredibly stupid thing to do in a book that has nothing to do with politics. By including elements like this, he added nothing to the story, but did manage to insult any conservative who happened to have bought and read his book. Nothing quite so smart as alienating half your potential market for no reason other than your own need to "vent."

All in all, it was a first book that had vast potential but in the end fell way short of the mark. Perhaps the author will read some of these reviews and take them to heart. Or perhaps not.

I rarely throw a book away before I finish reading it. This book has teenage style level. The author obviously is writing in a way that he thinks will make a great movie. The writing is juvenile. How he found a publisher is amazing. Fortunately I got this book from the discount table. It is there for a reason. Unbelievable action in a Hyundai, even a contortionist couldn't do the things the "hero" does.
The author must be your traditional far left nut case as he bashes every law enforcement agency in the book. The idea for the book was fine. The execution, however is dreck.

I picked up this book at a sale because the cover design with a 3D graphics of a running man was very interesting to me. This book does have a good title and a good teaser on the cover to entice an implusive purchase. I was never quite interested in science but no matter how I have tried to avoid the subject all my life, Einstein and his brilliant discovery of the law of relativity are just too big a legend that even a science dummy like me can't be completely oblivious about it.

The title itself is quite powerful in selling the book, afterall, I was very curious about what Einstein's final thoery was all about when the backcover mentioned that the story was based on real physics... Anyway, I started reading the book since June 2009, and I only finnished it now. So whether this book is as fast paced and astonishing as the cover describes, you tell me....

May be my lack of background and interest in science makes me unable to appreciate this novel. To me, the is just another lame story with a big title that took advantage of Einstein's fame to make an easy profit. The story is nothing innovating despite the fact that it borrowed Einstein's unfinnished Unified Field Theory hoping to build a clever plot. I said "hoping" because the plot of the story is anything but clever. The story is a typical running, hiding and chasing ritual that too many novels, TV shows and movies had already employed in their thrillers. What a bore. This story is about some professor who holds the key to uncover the secrets and applications of Estien's Unified Field Theory that will bring major destruction to the world, thus becoming target of the government and the villains who want to get a hold of this powerful science. The chasing and running really starts from the very beginning of the story.... and it keeps on forever... and this is why I never was able to read it for too long without walking away....It has been painful for me cause I have this habit of never abandoning a book. Everytime when I returned to continue the story, the characters were still running and were still being chased....

As far as the "real physics" go, I really don't understand how the author wants the Unfield Field Theory to work in terms of destorying the world. The author tried to elaborate his imagination of such an application with diagrams and tossing in lots of physics terms like, the protons, neutrons, accelerator....etc. etc... I still couldn't picture how it would work. To me, it would be just another WMD that isn't too new or innovative, I just pictured it as a nuclear explosion that happens out of thin air without any bomb dropping. I just wish the weapon and application could be more exciting and shocking to me...

The book does have a twist or two but these twists aren't exciting enough to compensate for the same uninspiring copycat plots that have been used by so many other movies and TV shows in the thriller or adventure genre. So all these months, I have been reading about a guy running away because he got access to an extremely powerful and dangerous weapon, and during the course, there were lots of gunfires, kicking, hitting, fighting, falling, bleeding, etc., etc.. In the end everybody will be okay and the world will stay fine. As unimpressed as I am, I have to say the book makes me want to read more science books on "real physics", cause I'm sure the real physics will be so much more exciting and interesting than this lame novel. This is one story I don't think anyone should waste time reading, cause all of us have just seen too many of the same stories, just this time, the guy is having access to Einstein's final theory instead of a treasure buried underneath Egypt....

Final Theory: A Novel

I just finished reading the book, Final Theory. Overall, I liked it, although it was quite predictable.
I buy this type of book for entertainment, and I thought that is what this was. However, I am confused as to what the author is trying to be....and accomplished, best selling fiction novelist, or a political novelist regardless of total sales.

By injecting his opinions about the Bush administration with innuendo, he isolates a large portion of those that read this type of book. Of course, those that joined the "hate Bush" crowd will disagree. Also, his insults to the people of West Virginia, to Christians and to the military are just stupid in this type of novel.

I know, for myself, I probably will not be "looking" for his next book because of that. When I am looking for an escape book, a catagory that this book falls within for me, I just don't read embedded political opinion toward any current or recent administration.... from either side, left or right. I don't read books from the arrogant, unintelligent left (like this one) or the inflexible right.

But, overall, had it not been for this confusion, and since I enjoy "science novels", even when they are junk science like this, I would have looked forward to seeing what else Alpert could offer. I have always felt that good novelists just get better over their first few years of writing. But, political "opinionist" don't get any better. They just get tedious.

This book will make good kindling for the fire pit tonight.

Alpert knows his physics, and he always makes it interesting. Unfortunately he could have done a lot more with his basic premise about Einstein's lost "unified field" theory, it's almost a shame to have wasted such a good idea on this ultimately slight and forgettable thriller. The book is also marred by its puerile politics. It's OK to portray Cheney and Rumsfeld as evil, but presenting them as cartoon stick figures undermines the plot's already thin credibility. Having the FBI villain casually murder a muckraking New York Times journalist and then drive away listening to Rush Limbaugh might have made a funny Saturday Night Live sketch, but here it comes off as just plain dumb. The descriptions of the military are simply inept - the Black Hawk helicopters that ferry around Delta carry multi-barrel miniguns, not M240 machine guns, and anyway the M240 doesn't fire an "8 mm round". Obviously Alpert didn't care enough about the subject to get those details right. The description of hardware and procedures at the Fermilab particle accelerator, on the other hand, has the ring of authenticity. But Alpert's real problem is that he doesn't like people very much (a problem for a novelist). Nearly every character in the book who is not an academic turns out to be an evil moron of one sort or another. I'm torn between hoping he returns to science journalism and wishing that he would try his hand at a physics thriller one more time, but take things a little more seriously.

I gave this book a second star only because cosmology and particle physics are among the great interests of my life, and no question about the author's knowledge here. But "juvenile" doesn't begin to describe his plot line. It reminds me of a short story I wrote as a six year old, with no substance to it at all. What bothered me most though, is that aside from the science, everything in this book is a cheap caricature. To begin with, his depiction of Mingo County, West Virginia is insulting. My roots are there, my family owns mountain property there, and I spend time there. Mr. Alpert, we do wear shoes, watch TV, shop in modern towns and go to modern schools. Even the Hatfields and McCoys are civilized now--I've met some, and one is buried next to my Uncle in a very nice, modern cemetery. Alpert's depiction of the FBI as an organization of brutal Bozos is hackneyed beyond belief. His depiction of the military as incompetent, amoral fools is the same. His thinly-veiled depiction of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld is pure left-wing meanness. And his depiction of Christians doesn't do justice even to the strangest of cults.

Einstein spent a significant part of his life on a unified theory, where classical physics and quantum mechanics could be coupled into one series of equations. Final Theory's plot illustrates that Einstein was successful, realized the political implications of bringing this theory to the forfront of science, gives the equations, in parts, to three friends before he dies, and tells them to not release it to noone.

The concept is exciting and the novel begins with fast paced action, indicating the novel will surely entertain. Although some facets of the story line did illicit some imagination and fun reading, the majority of the action scenes were juvenile at best. (A history professor simultaneously takes on both the FBI and terrorists who are attempting to find the equations at any cost. I don't think so.) The book isn't bad, just farfetched. 2.5 stars

I've always enjoyed Michael Crichton's novels - exciting, well-written plots, often with a scientific concept that taught me something. Believe me, Mark Alpert is no Michael Crichton. The concept was fascinating enough for me to order the book but the plot - though interesting - was more like a "cops & robbers chase", and the writing juvenile much of the time.Nor does he do a particularly good job of explaining the unified theory. It was also clear that Alpert wanted to inject his strong political views, which he did. There are numerous snide comments about the War on Terror, Fox News, the Patriot Act, Gitmo and botched counterterrorism efforts, as well as none-too-subtle negative characterizations of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Republican fund-raising. The "romantic" ending is also symbolic of this author's values. All in all, very disappointing. I wonder if those quoted on the book's jacket were reading the same book as I.