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52 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where have you been all my life, Warren Fahy?, April 27, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
It is hard to find the words to express how much I enjoyed this novel. Arguably it has flaws. I don't care; I LOVED it! Here's hoping this inventive debut is the first of many, many best-sellers from Mr. Fahy!
After a couple of prologues, Fragment opens with an American research ship coming to remote, unexplored Henders Island. The Trident, actually the setting for a semi-educational reality television show, had planned to bypass tiny Henders when an emergency beacon coming from the island turned it around. Botanist Nell Duckworth gets separated from the rest of the landing party when she spies some highly unusual plant life on the beach. The others move on, inland to the jungle. Nothing is like anything these scientists and crew members have ever seen before, and they're broadcasting live as they go. Within steps, all hell breaks lose. There are screams. Cameras drop. There is confusion everywhere. The network breaks the feed. Back stateside and around the world the debate begins: Did you see Sealife? Was that a hoax?
Only one cameraman makes it back to the beach, chased by enormous, eight-legged, red-furred monsters. To Nell, they look like spiders crossed with tigers--spigers. She and Zero, the cameraman, barely escape with their lives. Cut to a few days later... The United States Navy has warships ringing the island. There is a complete media blackout. Agencies ranging from NASA to the U.S. Army have been brought in to get a team of scientists safely onto Henders to study this island ecosystem which diverged from our own evolutionary path more than 250 million years ago.
Does that sound far-fetched to you? If Fahy has a strength, it's taking real science and using it to make the most implausible of plots utterly believable. That's not fair, actually. Mr. Fahy has many strengths, the first of which is a wildly inventive imagination. On Henders he's created an entire world, right here in the midst of our own. Another of his strengths is pacing. I read this novel in a day. From the opening chapter he had me hooked, but as I rapidly approached the dénouement, I literally could not turn the pages fast enough. Fragment started out fast-paced, and just got faster and tenser without ever flagging. As for plotting, yes, some elements of this novel are derivative. Already comparisons to Jurassic Park are flying around, and surely Mr. Fahy owes a huge debt to Michael Crichton, mostly, I'm guessing, for inspiration. He is not retreading the same old territory here. I could guess where some of the plot elements were going, but I could never guess what would happen when we got there. He blew me away every single time.
What are his weaknesses? Well, one is the sheer amount of science he's relaying to his readers. I LIVE for that stuff, but that can't be said of the average lay reader. I think he does as well as anyone, but it's still a lot of science to exposit. The greater weakness is character development. Some of the characters were straight out of central casting, and time and time again, Fahy passed up opportunities to, for instance, make a bad guy more complex and less of a caricature. Most characters were not terribly fleshed out, and some may have acted inconsistently. And do you know what? I don't care. Sure, that one element could have been stronger, but in no way did it take away from my enjoyment of this novel.
If this is fledgling author Fahy's first effort, I can't wait to see his follow-up! Fragment is a wild ride, but more than anything else it is just so much fun!
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Okay, this blew me away..., June 27, 2009
I read all the reviews and thought, "well, okay, this looks like a pretty good summer book".
Huh...I couldn't put it down (not to sound too cliche). I thoroughly enjoyed this and actually laughed out loud once or twice. It's not a preachy book, most of the characters are likeable, the premise seems possible and is handled with skill.
My only question...how long do I have to wait for another book by this man?
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Suspense, action, and mystery will keep you turning the pages, May 9, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The idea of a lost island that has been left untouched by the rest of earth for billions of years is what drew me to this book in the first place. I was hoping that it wouldn't be another Jurassic Park -- and it wasn't.
"Fragment" doesn't take long to get the action started and once it starts it doesn't really stop. Suspense hangs over every chapter and there is an urgent dark foreboding that makes the story feel like a countdown to very bad things to come. I was hooked.
Fahy does a pretty good job of explaining the science by weaving it into the story, though there were a few times when I felt like there was a little too much scientific explanation when I really just wanted to see what was going to happen next. I did, however, love that Fahy doesn't leave unexplained plot holes. Things that didn't quite make sense or seemed too coincidental at first were explained later on, putting to rest a few nagging questions I had (such as how an island like this could go unnoticed and unexplored for so long given satellite technology).
This is a great book and I think fans of Michael Crichton's work will like Warren Fahy's work. I'm anxious to see what he has in store for us next.
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