Customer Reviews

Invasive Procedures (Playaway Adult Fiction)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

This book is so poorly written that I returned it the same day I bought it. It's one of those cases where a well-known writer puts his/her name on the cover (actually the publishing house does) but the novel is really written by the other person, whose name you see in small type below. What's wrong with it? Well, first and foremost, all the characters are stereotypes to the point of laughability. The dedicated military doctor. The dedicated female doctor with a cute son. The bad guys. Geez.

Then the writing. This book was apparently adapted from a screenplay, which may explain some of the weaknesses, but I don't think so. The writer never misses a chance to explain to you exactly what the characters are thinking, which is mainly not a lot. Dialogue in scripts AND novels should advance the plot, and in this case a lot of it is simply stating the obvious (don't have the book any more, otherwise I'd give you a few examples). So we have stock characters with stock dialogue and a fairly ridiculous plot with a smattering of science thrown in.

Trust me, this book is in no way as good as a lot of science fiction being published today (try Richard K. Morgan, Charles Stross, Peter F. Hamilton, Greg Bear, Dan Simmons, Eric S. Nylund, and Neal Asher for some at the top of their game right now).

Orson Scott Card is a good writer, but I don't know what he was thinking in releasing this book. And it doesn't bode well for his attempt at breaking into movies, either.

If you are a fan of recent Michael Crichton books, you will probably enjoy "Invasive Procedures". It is a Sci-Fi story set in the present (the Sci-Fi is that there is medical science that we don't currently have) written by Orson Scott Card and screenwriter Aaron Johnston.

If instead you are a big Orson Scott Card fan, you may be a bit disappointed, as the hallmark of an OSC book, is the "Moral Dilemma", and in this story that is more a warning to science in general, than one the reader experiences along with the characters.


But here's the deal, if you are a fan of OSC, then you want to buy this book and you will be glad it was written, in that OSC is obviously honing his ability to write a screen play, and any "Enders Game" fan will understand the benefit of that.

So as to the book itself, again while it is not an "Enders Game", it is pretty much as good as anything currently being written, and out of the 40 or so books I've read this year, I'd say its in the top 5 for fiction. If you liked "Empire" you should enjoy "Invasive Procedures".

I picked this puppy up at the library (thank god) and finished it rather quickly. The idea of the book is pretty novel, and I was hooked by what was written on the book jacket, but the writing is just awful.

I realize that it's a science fiction book, so it's not supposed to be completely realistic, but it's not even remotely realistic. It just turns from interesting and mysterious to pretty corny to "Are you kidding me?" very quickly. The ending is pretty brash and quick, and I'm getting so sick of authors who portray women in this completely unrealistic, weak-woman, sobbing constantly, needing a strong man to protect her type of way.

No thanks.

I have been an Orson Scott Card fan since Ender's Game and I've read everything the man has written. When I saw this co-authored book, I quickly checked it out the library. What a disappointment! I guess I should be glad I didn't buy it. This book is truly a waste of time to read from so many perspectives. This book is actually a screenplay rather than a novel, and you don't get warned of that until the end. As such, there is absolutely no character development and no believability in any of the 'scenes'. It is just one big chase, action sequence. That might work in a movie, but in a book you have to care about the characters before you want to follow them around from chapter to chapter.

While the premise might originally have been interesting, the way it is played out is amateurish, tedious and unbearably sophomoric. PLEASE Orson, go back to novels and get rid of Aaron. This is not up to your amazing level of creativity at all!

As a huge fan of OSC, I hesitated to start Invasive Procedures when I saw he had a co-writer. After forcing myself to finish it, I can only say my instincts were sound. This 'novel' reads much more like the first draft of a screenplay, and is a huge disappointment. Only the broadest outlines of characters are present; a good director and actors might be able to fill in the white space and make us care about them, but the plot is fragmented and almost a parody of itself. I hope that this was a failed experiment by one of my favorite writers, rather than a shortcut to another book. I've watched too many outstanding writers fall into this trap of poorly executed collaborations (Tom Clancy is a sad example).

I bought this book at the airport because it had Scott Card's name on it. It was so bad I could not even finish it. Boring plot, unbelievable characters and poor science. Card was once on my list of good creative writers. This book is so bad it made me angry. I want my money back for this stinker.

Card's & Johnston's "Invasive Procedures" is certainly a riveting book. But, unfortunately, it's also a deeply flawed book:

- First, and foremost, the characters are mere caricatures. None of them is anything more than one specific corny behavior pattern attached to a name.
- Second, there's quite a bit of extraneous personal baggage injected into the text just so we can "relate" to the character (dead child, divorce, can't cook pancakes, husband's affair, divorce, remote parents, divorce, bullies, etc. -- the really disturbing thing is that his kind of stuff keeps appearing more and more in books).
- Thirdly, the plot is moved along primarily through the repeated stupidity of the characters (which is really odd since the main actors are supposed to be darn near geniuses). I can't say too much about this since most of what I could say would be spoilers. But, in general terms, keep your most important prisoners unconscious until it's too late, and lock them in secure rooms with guards in that room.
- And, finally, the science is internally inconsistent (on its face, this doesn't sound like much -- but, it's very bad in a science fiction book revolving around that science).

But, despite all the above, I still found the book to be engrossing. There was one point near the middle of the book where the faults rose to such a level that I seriously considered putting it down. But, after that, it mostly settled down to a dull ache. So, I'm torn in how to rate this: on one hand, I'd like to give it a good rating. On the other, I want to give it an abysmal rating. So, I'll split the difference and give it an OK three stars out of five. If you've got a couple of hours to waste and can find this in the library, give it a shot. Otherwise, don't bother.

I'm not sure what happened here. The book started off great, but then they ran away with the plot, creating majorly hard-to-follow twists and plot holes. I found the characters 2D, very disappointing compared to OSC's larger than life populations of Ender's Game, etc. I don't recommend this book unless you're a hardcore OSC fan. And even then...it's not really worth your time. Personally, I wouldn't bet on any Johnston stuff, either.

... by all means, read this book.

From a barn going up in flames "... like it'd been sprayed with kerosene..." from a single spark on a rainy night, to a Good-guy / Bad-guy showdown on (that's right folks) the roof of a train.

I am an avid Card fan, but this book had nothing of him in it. One of the things that I enjoy the most while reading Card is his ability to create incredibly three dimensional characters and situations that draw me into the story. Be it Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Horror, Card has never failed in this respect, until now.

The story was also peppered with glaring holes, contradictions, and incredibly predictable "twists."

This was a major disappointment and I implore Mr. Card to never put his name on the same publication as Aaron Johnston again. Anyone looking for a quality book please read "Folk of the Fringe," "Homebody," or (of course) the Ender series, but please don't let this book turn you off from an otherwise wonderful author.

I have read every book that OSC has written, and there is NO way he wrote this boring piece of garbage. It was only unpredictable because the main characters are complete idiots that do irrational things. "lets go investigate what could be the superhuman bad guys headquarters!" "think we should call back-up since we are alone in the middle of a secluded wilderness and no one knows where we are?" "naaaah we'll be ok!!!"
give me a frickin break, i can't believe i wasted my money. i got 3/4 of the way thru and dropped it when one of victims threatened to drop the medicine bag off a cliff. looks like i will be getting all OSC books at the library now, no more of my money for him...and that Johnston guy who really wrote it will NEVER be read by me again. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!