Customer Reviews

The Golden Elephant (Rogue Angel)

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

 

 

PLEASE ... PLEASE .... PLEASE ... Bring back Mel Odom!

Doesn't Viktor have a clue about what we LOVE about Annja Creed?!

I have loved this series. I HATED this book. The publishers have missed the mark using multiple authors writing under the same pen name about the same characters. Mel Odom just gets Annja. Viktor was okay for a couple of books, but he sure messed up this one. I'm trying to give the other authors a chance, but they really need to study Mel Odom's characters. We like character development. However, start from the core values. We do not want a completely different character as our heroine.

In this book, Annja was whiny, unaware, unfocused, undisciplined, lazy ... need I go on? And the protagonists were silly. There is so much more development that can be done with Roux and Braden.

This was easily the worst in the series. As a huge Rogue Angel fan, I hate to say it, but this installment by Victor Milan was awful. Annja is completely out of character - acting like a silly school girl, crying in a strangers arm about a dead woman she met once, laughing and hugging a woman she couldn't stand minutes before. And the rest of the characters were completely lifeless. The story iteslf was random and disjointed, and the badd guys were completely predictable. The only surprises were the bad dialog.
I usually don't write negative reviews, but I had to warn other fans against this one.

This is easily the worst Rogue Angel book, because it doesn't keep in line with the heroine we have come to enjoy. In the past she's been as respectful of other cultures and religions as well as exciting.
The girl we've followed thus far would not have so disrespectful as to break into an inhabited monist for no other reason that to look at the bottom of a statue in order to get to a bunch of relics.
She defends her self and would break into something to save someone or to reclaim something taken by "bad guys" but she wouldn't infringe on a perfectly innocent monks practicing their culture and religion peacefully.

I have liked Victor Milan's other contributions to this series, and I see what he was trying to do with this book.

The Rogue Angel series is generally fun, but kinda predictable. Someone will almost invariably die a horrible death, sometimes just after meeting Annja, sometimes not. Annja then searches for an item, while some deadly foe kills her sources of information/compatriots. At the end, after a big battle, Annja reaches her goal and stops the villain. It's a workable formula for action books, dating to Ian Fleming's Bond books and I'm sure further back than that.

So basically, it comes down to whether or not you like the formula or the characters. Annja is a bit more gullible than usual at the beginning. True. And yes, it's out of character for her, but it seemed to me it was more that the author was trying to stretch the character instead of breaking her. Usually, she's mostly flawless, and that makes the books a bit rote. Here, she's more human, and to me, more likable for it.

I'm giving it four stars because I really liked the character Easy Ngenwa, and the people she meets along the way. Her "hunting party" of people who get her into Burma were deftly drawn, and the Protectors were neat. It wasn't five stars because Victor was a bit bored in places, like where he mentions one group of people (the Prometheans) Annja wouldn't have remembered since they blocked her memory of them for self-protection, and some of the motivations were muddled.

I love this series but have to agree with the other reviews. I love to re-read this series but this one will not be included. The character was changed too much and not for the good.

I enjoy the Rogue Angel series for what it is, pulp fiction adventure. I understand that to release one every month requires more than one author, and while Mel Odom's contributions are certainly my favorite I have devoured most of them eagerly. It would appear the author of THE GOLDEN ELEPHANT never bothered to even acquaint him or herself with the character or her story.

Annja Creed is courageous, strong and curious while the stranger in this story is anything but. This stranger is fluttery, weak and boy crazy. All of the characters in this book are cardboard thin stereotypes. Laura Croft is copied out of whole cloth and we aren't supposed to recognize her because the author made her African American. I can only conclude the author didn't take this seriously, was a truly horrendous writer or more probably both.

P.S. One of my favorite Tim Bradstreet covers.

Whoever had the idea to use a second writer on this book has a few screws loose. Amazing how Alex Archer changed accents when writing the book. The fight scenes were week, plus the dialogue was chopped up to the point it felt like two heroes were in the plot development. It was confusing when reading to jump from one version Annja to another. I wish I never purchased this book. If Alex was responsible for this mess then I hope he was under the weather; any other excuse will not hold water.

I agree with the other reviewers that Anja did act a little out of character, thanks to being written by a different author. Gold Eagle does that with all their series. They will use ghost writers throughout a sries run. But I did enjoy this book as a good, rapid paced action adventure and would give it more than a measly one star. I hear the next book in the series is better and just ordered a copy. So I hope it is as good as one reviewer siad.