Customer Reviews

HIDDEN MICKEY: Sometimes Dead Men DO Tell Tales! - The Action-adventure Mystery novel about Walt Disney (Volume 1)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Really that about sums up this fun, trivia filled romp thru Disneyland and the history of how Walt got started.

The two main characters remind me a lot of the protagonists from Sideways.

What also pleasantly suprised me is that the authors managed to come up with some Disney factoids that even I didn't know.

True, the authors are not going to be waiting breathlessly by the phone for a call from Sweden come the day the Nobel Prize in literature is announced. But who cares?

It's treasure, it's Disney, it's fun!!!

When I found out about the National-Treasure-at-Disneyland concept for a book, I thought it was a brilliant idea. I still do actually. Being a Disney freak, I couldn't wait to check it out. What I ended up with was an obviously self-published book badly in need of some editing.

The female love intrest provides a slightly different point of view from the two male leads, but she does not appear until the story is halfway over. There are no real antagonists to speak of until almost the end of the book and that character is immediately sent away. The author goes on for pages at a time about subjects that do not move the story forward in any way. There is an entire chapter devoted to a car show for no apparent reason except that the author likes to show off old cars. The point of view jumps randomly from one character's head to another and frequently information is presented that none of the characters know about.

The biggest problem I had with the book was the regurgitation of facts. Everything learned about Disney (or anything else) is thrown into the story, often as simply an info dump. Frequently, these info dumps are from no one's point of view. Just because information is known by the authors does not mean it needs to go into the book. For example: On page 418, a sentence begins, "If Lance had taken the time, he would have learned..." and then it goes on for a paragraph about a type of horse. The horse has nothing to do with the story, and this is not a textbook. Bottom line: Lance didn't learn it, so niether should we.

On the positive side of my 3 stars, I did enjoy the story. The intrigue of snooping around through Walt Disney's past was entertaining and fun. The epilogue was surprising and fit in well with Disney lore. If they were cheaper, I would even consider reading the sequels. Hopefully somewhere through the series, the authors will spend as much time learning the craft of writing as they do learning about Disney.

This book was written by two people, but reads like it was written by five. Sections of the books have different styles, the characters are inconsistent and the pace doesn't match.

There is a huge twist in the end that ruins the book. It's a cheap cop out way to end the book, something that we writers are told to avoid. It not only breaks a character's personality, it breaks the logic of the book.

This is a national treasure wannabe, without the logic behind hiding the treasure.

The books also fails with the characters. they are flat, and become annoying. One of them gets girls attention way too often and easily to a fault (of the writers).

The characters are too old. I could imagine them in their late 20's, but they're in their mid 30's. Too old for what they do.

As an avid Disney lover, my initial reaction to this book was "wonderful". It was very well written and the dialogue did not seem forced or fake at any point. The characters were fleshed out nicely and I think it would do well in a sequel.

This book has a lot of action and thrills with a little supsense thrown in for good measure. I'm sure Walt himself would have been proud of the effort put into this book not to mention the sheer fun in reading it.

My teenager can't wait to read it next, and keeps asking how it ends, which I refuse to divulge.

Congrats and nice job to the authors.

I loved this book! It was well-written, with lots of descriptions. My heart was pounding through-out the book, wondering if the treasure-hunters were going to get caught. The places that they traveled to were so descriptive, it felt as though I were there with them, myself! The characters' personalities were exactly as I had thought they would be through-out the book.

My heart was pounding as I read the last chapter. The surprise ending made me jump!

Nice job! My best friend is already reading it now. She also loves it.

There is a new and popular action/adventure category as represented by the 'National Treasure' films and such television series as 'Unnatural History'. The first full length novel of this new brand of entertainment is "Hidden Mickey: Sometimes Dead Men Do Tell Tales!", a collaborative 482-page work of imaginative fiction by Nancy Temple Rodrigue and David W. Smith which is set against the backdrop of Disneyland. Three friends accidentally come across the long lost diary of Walt Disney and finds hints of a hidden treasure. Following a series of complicated clues which they must decipher, they set off in pursuit involving scattered historical records and subtle connections. What they will find is as imaginative as everything else that the great Walt Disney left as his enduring legacy to the world. Superbly written, "Hidden Mickey" is an attention riveting novel from first page to last and highly recommended, wonderfully entertaining reading.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I felt like I was right there with the characters as they travelled the world over searching for the clues Walt had left for them. The action and plot twists keep me on the edge of my seat. And the ending was one I did not see coming - in more ways than one.

When I first heard plot of this book (National Treasure type of treasure hunt at Disneyland), I was very excited to read it. The basic idea of the book is great, but the writers needed to take a lot more time refining it. The truth is they wrote the whole thing in three months, and it shows.

I liked the clues, and the locations the two main characters went to. Those were very clever, the problem comes with the fact there is NO ANTAGONIST. They just go just location to location basically doing what they need to do without any real problems. There is no drive to keep story moving, they kinda go at there own pace. What made National Treasure fun (both of them), was there was driving force and someone trying to stop them. When they do finally add an antagonist it's about 90% in and it makes no sense. When that person does show up they get rid of him/her 3 pages later...it's a joke.

Also, there is a major problem with dull parts of the book. One of the authors likes cars, and he/she (not sure which), spends a pointless chapter talking about cars just because the author likes them. I wish the editor of this book had sat that person aside and said no one cares about this crap, and we are cutting it out. Also the very beginning of the book should have been trimmed as well. They spend 10+ pages describing Disneyland like we have never been there. I guarantee if you picked up this book you have a good idea of what splash mountain is.

I have now read almost all the books in the series (so far), and I can tell you this one is the most realistic of all of them. What I mean is the next books bring in time travel, and mystical stones. So if you want to read a history of Walt Disney's early days told in a treasure hunt format you will like this book.

This suspenseful treasure hunt fed my love of "all things Disney", left me addicted and wanting more. I just ordered the second book!

Adam and Lance are excited about the latest MouseAdventure challenge at Disneyland. They've learned that one of the clues will take them into Walt's apartment on Main Street. As Disney geeks, they are thrilled.

While they are there, Adam stumbles across a book hidden in a chair cushion. He quickly discovers that it claims to be Walt Disney's diary, and a clue in it leads Adam and Lance off on a wild ride through his life. Each stop they make leaves them Disney memorabilia and the next clue. Where is this all leading?

Before I go anything further, I want to make clear that there is a good idea in here, and I enjoyed parts of the novel. But there were so many flaws that I was ready to be done with it long before the end.

The plot is a huge problem. For starters, it's way too repetitive as each clue, Adam and Lance have to stumble around for a while going down false trails until they figure things out. It's rare that we feel we are actually advancing the story and not just taking another stop along the way. While the author's try to close many of the plot holes, they leave some big ones at the end, especially one that I guess is supposed to set up the sequel since it is introduced on the last page. (And it was stupid!) On top of all this, there are long data dumb passages and a 20 page chapter that only yields two pages of character development.

Then there are Adam and Lance themselves. I never once buy their friendship. Supposedly, they've been close friends for years, but the stunts that Lance pulls on Adam are more mean than good natured teasing. I often had a hard time buying the characters.

At one point, the action takes us to the part of the country where I live. And the authors get a detail wrong. Granted, it's a minor issue, but it was something that could have been solved with a quick check of any map, real of internet. Makes me wonder what else they got wrong.

The point of view switches between the lead characters so often you get whiplash, and the rest of the writing is also pretty pedestrian.

If I am going to read a novel that is almost 500 pages, I want it to draw me in and make me feel like it is worth my time. This one could have done that if it had been edited. But the authors self-published and it feels like they didn't have a good place to get truly constructive feedback on the story.

Which makes me sad. I wanted to like this book. Instead, I wish I hadn't wasted my time and won't be continuing the series.