Customer Reviews

The Grail (Area 51, Bk. 5)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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!!

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.

I really enjoyed this book, particularly the parts where Burton's manuscript is translated. The Jack the Ripper angle was intriguing-- this author seems to be tying together just about everything from Jack to vampires, to aliens. I also like his Atlantis series under the Donegan name. I do wonder, though, about how this will all shake out, particularly the whole immortality angle.

Area 51: The Grail is a military suspense novel written by Robert Doherty. In Area 51: The Grail, the fifth book out of the Area 51 series, Mike Turcotte is on a quest to save the human race from an alien civil war. Area 51 is a secret military outpost inside Groom Mountain, Nevada. The aliens, the Airlia, are from the distant past, when Atlantis was thriving. This time, Mike Turcotte and the Airlia are racing to find the Holy Grail. The Grail was said to have mythical powers. Anyone who drinks from it becomes immortal. As Mike gets close to finding the Grail, Lisa Duncan, his love, finds it first, inside the Ark of the Covenant. Lisa opens the Ark and takes a drink from the Grail and becomes immortal.
Mike's travels lead him to Mount Sinai, but the Airlia is already there. Mike gets inside the mountain and finds Lisa hostage by the Airlia leader. One of the soldiers shoots Lisa to kill the leader. Lisa is brought back to Area 51, where she is presumed dead, but she sits up on the table with a hole in her stomach. The Airlia escape with the Grail.
I liked this book because it suggests that the some of the items thought to be mythical, such as King Arthur's Excalibur, could actually be real, just waiting to be found. This gives hope to some people who have none.

by Matthew W., Miller PLace, NY

The speed in the plot becomes faster and faster and at the end we do not know any more which character is working for or against the Airlia and if, on which side they are. This series is so intelligently made because it "logically" explains events and myths that have long been enigmas in history, modern or ancient. Myths of the Bible, historical events of ancient Egypt and the statues on Easter island are interwoven with events of our modern times like Mallory's and Irvine's disappearance during their attempt to climb Mount Everest in the 1920s. This is the stuff aficionados of this kind of literature really like. But lets not forget - it is fiction, although you sometimes forget it while reading.

"The Grail", book 5 in the Area 51 series, was a bit of a letdown in comparison to the "The Sphinx". While better than the other earlier books, the author seems to be trying to incorporate too many elements and artifacts into the overall storyline.

This one, like all the others, picks up where the previous novel ended. Lisa Duncan has discovered the Ark of the Covenant, but the aliens have found her. She also finds something else within the Ark that the aliens want. Other sub-storylines exist, but none which really do much to advance the overall story, hence the 3-star rating. Mike Turcotte is on the run as usual, the Easter Island saga doesn't advance, etc.

If you want to read some truly "out there" fiction, the Area 51 series will fill that desire. However, the author has now tried to incorporate too much into the series. If you ever wondered about the connections between Easter Island, the Ark of the Covenant, Atlantis, Jesus Christ, the Grail, the pyramids and Sphinx, vampires, Noah's Ark, Mount Sinai, Excalibur, etc., you'll get a kick out of how the author tries to tie everything together. Some of the connections worked early in the series, but now some of the connections seem too disjointed. The series is supposed to be finished by book 7 (after Exclalibur). Hopefully the author will tie everything together by then in a semi-logical, quasi-fictional way. Then again, he may not as there's the rumored sequel series to Area 51 next year...

A truly enjoyable read. Picked it up in the airport in Chicago and had it done by the time I got to London. I've read the other books in this series and enjoyed them all-- this one is even better than the Sphinx. The ending there left me hanging andthis answered my questions. Very thought provoking.

This book was without a doubt one of the most intrigueing I have ever read. Combining dozens of historical mysteries and myth with tantilizingly plausible and intellectual futuristic explanations, the author obviously has a broad and comprehensive depth of knowledge in history and archeology but brings it all together with an impressive flow of action, and pace that kept me turning pages. I haven't been able to put it away... I am actually tempted to read it again.

Another good book in the on-going series. Once again the story is clarified but still leaves many, many unanswered questions. The pace of this book is a little quicker than the others with a little less detail but overall provides a page-turning experience. Like many of you I'm almost ready for all the answers!