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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great continuation of a great Series, April 12, 2001
This review is from: The Grail (Area 51, Bk. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
I actually started reading the series with Area 51, and went right back for the remaining books that were available. Read all 5 in a two month period and now have to wait for the next episode. This book left us with a more open end than some of the others. The way he has pulled in all myths, legonds, actual earth sites, deadly diseases and the like is wonderful. Mr Doherty has drawn lines that would crumble most old beliefs. I also like the way enemies are working together as humans of Earth to hopefully save all of humanity. It's still difficult to know who is good and who is not. I believe you can read his books starting at any one of the series and want to know what came before and what comes after.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Going Strong, March 10, 2001
This review is from: The Grail (Area 51, Bk. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
It's hard to believe that this is the fifth volume in this series. The prose is still going strong. Each explained mystery reveals another one as the plot takes continual twists and turns. Robert Doherty maintains a continuous tempo level as the story shifts from scene to scene. This is fine, high-energy writing. I read the first four novels within a month, and I've been awaiting volume five since then. It took me a bit to reconnect with the story once The Grail became available, so don't expect to be able to start out with this book. Track down the others in the series, they are all worth the effort. The Grail picks up with Lisa Duncan trapped underneath the Sphinx with the Holy Grail. Those Who Wait are on their way to a pyramid in China to awaken the alien Artad. The guardian on Easter Island preparing for battle and the Mission scrambling to take advantage of events. In the middle of all of this, Mike Turcott leads countless raids and adventures, stopping only read excerpts from the secret journal of Sir Richard Burton. All of this happens in a mere 318 pages, so the pace is furious. Doherty is a past master at the action book, weaving intricate plots and making sure everything fits together. Unfortunately, with this fast a narrative style characterization suffers. In Doherty's case it takes several books before you have a strong picture of the players. With the Grail most of the groundwork is complete and pretty much all the cast is on board. This is another good reason to take the time to read the rest of the series. You won't regret it. If you're a fan of the barn burning adventure story, with plenty of intrigue and alien paranoia mixed in you will wait impatiently for each volume as it comes out. Have fun!!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Area 51 series stumbles but races ahead, June 27, 2002
This review is from: The Grail (Area 51, Bk. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
This fifth book in the Area 51 series keeps the series moving at a thrilling pace and kept my rapt attention from start to finish, but the storyline itself does show some frays around the edges. While a lot of things go on simultaneously in different parts of the globe, not a whole heck of a lot seems to happen overall. The newfound reliance of the heroes upon a book written over a hundred years ago serves to slow the story down and make it less believable, and I was disappointed to see a potentially shocking ending sabotaged by a somewhat familiar ruse--it is as if the author chickened out at the last minute from following through on a bold, brave idea. Of course, the addition of King Arthur, Merlin, and the Holy Grail to the storyline fuels the fire of my interests to solar proportions. Some readers may be somewhat disappointed because this book, even more than its predecessors, seems to focus on laying out the groundwork for what is to come later--while I myself was enthralled to see the mystery and complexity of the storyline wratcheted up even higher, some may expect to have a few answers rather than more and more questions by this point in the series. Certainly, everything looks set to explode in the next novel because all of the pieces now seem to be in place for the long hinted-at global conflict between humanity and the alien Airlia. So many questions have been posed so far, it may take at least two more books just to answer them all. If you've read this far into the series, you are in it for the long haul, and we can only hope that the author is able to eventually give us a conclusion worthy of all of this intense buildup. I am still excited about this series, intrigued by some of the little hints and clues that have been dropped along my path, and more than ready to dive into the sixth book.
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