Customer Reviews

The Mission (Area 51, Bk. 3)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

The thrill and adventure of the Area 51 series shows no sign of diminishing in this third novel; so far, this series seems to get even better with each new entry. That's easier said than done; already the author has thrown together strands of a diverse set of conspiracy theories, touching on the Egyptian Pyramids and ancient sites in MesoAmerica and China, the lost civilizations of Atlantis and Thule, ancient astronauts, life on Mars, an alien invasion, Majestic 12 and other secret government agencies, Nazi scientists, secret alien bases in the world's most inhospitable locations, etc. The good guys, whose numbers are dwindling with each book, have exposed the secrets of Majestic 12, shuttled all over the planet trying to locate and stabilize ancient alien command centers, and destroyed an alien fleet coming to attack earth. After basically one day of rest, the situation becomes even more dire and more complicated. Whole tribes of villagers are dying en masse in the Amazon River basin. With the help of a Russian operative, presidential scientific advisor Lisa Duncan, Special Forces officer Mike Turcotte, and their allies at Area 51 (strangely running the whole show with virtually no government intervention of any kind) discover that the alien enemies have now unleashed the Black Death (a souped-up bubonic plague with a 100% kill rate) against the population of earth, planning to rescue a few humans who will do their bidding and return them to earth when the rest of the population has died. In their race to stop the further spread of the virus and to hopefully find a cure or antidote, they are aided as well as stymied and confused by strange individuals of unknown origin as well as unknown loyalties. This novel leaves many questions unanswered, which only further heightens my desire to pick up the fourth book immediately.

In this novel, the story is a little more streamlined, as a large part of the action takes place in the Amazon jungles and underneath an ancient Chinese tomb. Turcotte has to find the source of the virus in order to identify it, and eventually he (and the world) finds himself in a race to find the Mission--the enemy's hidden bioweapons factory--and a cure for the Black Death. Other exciting things happen--e.g., a nuclear explosion, a dangerous attempt to link up two space shuttles with the hulk of the alien mothership in orbit. Enough complexities and twists are injected into the plot to keep it exciting and compelling yet not overly complicated. The characters aren't very deep, and their personal interactions outside of the job at hand are a little contrived, but the story itself is more than sufficient to maintain the reader's attention and deep interest at all times.

"The Mission" is the third in a series of 4 (soon to be 5) books by Doherty relating to fictional events surrounding the existence of aliens on Earth. The premise of the series is quite interesting. Area 51 is a top secret government installation that has been studying aliens for a long time. Actions by the researchers have re-ignited a civil war between two alien factions that landed on Earth a long time ago. The story ties the aliens into many of the mysteries of ancient times, e.g., the existence of Atlantis, the Ark of the Covenant, the building of the Sphinx and the Pyramids in Egypt, and even the building of the Great Wall of China.

What I found most interesting about the series is how Doherty ties together many of these historical enigmas into Area 51 and the history of the aliens. The work seems to be researched quite well and the first two books in the series (Area 51 and Area 51 The Reply) are both entertaining and satisfying.

This book, however entertaining, suffers from a fatal flaw in my opinion. Many subplots in the book are begun but not completed within the book's pages. Whereas the first two books are pretty well self-contained (i.e., the story ends at the end of the book), subplots in this book and the 4th book (Area 51 The Sphinx) are not completed before the end of the book. They leave the reader hanging until the next book is purchased. By the time I got half way through Area 51 The Sphinx, I became tired of everything dragging on and not knowing how many of the subplots will end. I wonder if they will even end with the publication of the next book (Area 51 The Grail).

I have sworn off reading any more books in the series because of the unsatisfying feeling I had at the completion of Area 51 The Sphinx. It is a shame, actually, that such a great premise and a great start to a series seems to have degenerated into a tactic just to sell the next book in the series.

Why? This book is the best in the AREA 51 series so far! At the end of the REPLY, was the mothership in space destroyed? No, it seems it has survived a nuclear strike(yes, this is ALIEN technology) and is still OUT THERE . . . meanwhile, in Bolivia, a plague virus is raging out of control. WHat is the cause, and what is the link with the fourteenth century Black Death outbreak? Were humans slaves to alien control then? Some amazing and alarmingly plausible theories are present in this story. Also the action element is well put across. You get the reverse-engineered alien spacecraft joining forces with the US military, you get a space combat mission(laser guns are old hat and out in this case, too infeasible - Doherty describes the MK-99 kinetic energy projectile gun which might be possible one day), and the startling discovery of controlled, enslaved humans engineering a terrifying plot. Read it and keep an open mind!

very well written and lots of research done ...this author has a good way of jumping back and forth between characters and keeping your interest ...I would recommend this book to all area 51 types

Following the REPLY, this book brought the plot deeper by introducing The Mission, a mysterious group affecting the course of human history. Juggling both the currrent plot line of a biological threat and delving into history, the author keeps a tight grip on the story.

There are days when I put down a book and feel really happy that I have read it; because in some way it has enriched my knowledge, made me think, or simply been a great source of entertainment. There have been books that drove me on to get to the finish because they were so exciting, and books that I have taken time with and savored right to the last word. Almost all of them had something that stayed with me.

I can find nothing that remained with me after reading Area 51: The Mission, except for a sense of guilt that I had taken time out from my life and spent it reading something that gave me nothing at all back....not even enjoyment. The only thing this book did achieve was to help me fully understand the saying "A waste of time".

That Robert Doherty is an accomplished writer is obvious. His skill is the only thing that is clear in this book. Unfortunately, he is obviously expending his time milking the earlier novels of this series (which I have not read and am not inclined to) and setting himself up for another sequel to Area 51. The virus idea is apparently the only new idea in this novel. But his "new" twist is one that is generally being overworked, and one that has successfully been used by others with results far more suspensful and thought provoking......not to mention coherent.

I generally keep books I like and reread them from time to time. Not so with Area 51: The Mission. In fact, I do not even know anyone I would give it to.

Perhaps this is a very harsh review and there are some people who obviously do like the book. However I see it as a waste of time, and also a waste of real talent. I think a writer with the skill that Mr. Doherty obviously possesses should treat, and use their talent much as a gift. In my opinion he has almost abused it and for reasons that are profit motivated. While I am all for the profit motive, I am not in favor of something that cheats me while putting coins in anothers pocket. While no one forced me to read this book, I still object to the fact that there was no "fair exchange" involved in this purchase. In fact there was a loss. While money was added to Mr. Doherty's account, time was withdrawn from mine. We all live and learn, and what I have learned is to perhaps chose my reading material more carefully in purchases that offer a fair exchange.

I'm sorry, but I read all the 5 star reviews and thought this must be a great series. BS, not even close. Try anything else on Area 51. Try the bestselling author Jim Marr's new book, 'Alien Agenda.'

A friend gave me the first book in this series and I've since devoured the next two. Fast paced action, mixed with legends and modern myths make for a fun read.

I don't think I've ever read book where such interesting subject matter was handled in such an uninteresting, colorless and passionless way. I can accept that the background of "Area 51: The Mission" is a dull hodgepodge derived from Graham Hancock, Von Daniken and other writers, but it's all presented like a laundry list of conspiracy theories, with no emotion attached to it. This might have been tolerable if the book didn't feature characters who are such ciphers that any sense of wonder or mystery is completely diluted. The characters have so little personality or individuality that when they come across truly mind-boggling evidence of alien vistations, they react with the same kind of emotion as if they've stumbled over a Howard Johnsons. Most of the dialogue is so flat and lifeless that I "heard" the characters speak as if they had taken elocution lessons from Ben Stein. There are interminable "talking head" scenes, one briefing after another. The author's apparent fascination with acronyms--UNACO, MEDCAP, USAMRID, and those are just a mere sampling--became extremely tedious. This was a contrived and transparent effort to give the proceedings an air of authenticity and didn't work...at least not for me. Other than being sluggishly paced, there is a serious lack of detail in the descriptions of characters, action and locales, almost as if the writer decided it was easier for him to let the reader fill in those blanks. Due to this, the book comes across more like a treatment for a movie than a novel. Also, rather than offer a cogent recap of the events in the first two Area 51 novels, the writer offers only disjointed references to what went on before. If this was a deliberate ploy to motivate a new reader to rush out and buy the other two books, it failed miserably in my case. This is very predictable fare. Axler's "Outlanders" series deals with much the same material, but in no way so implausibly, and the stories are told with intelligence, wit and verve. In fact, the similarities to "Outlanders" are so marked, "Area 51: The Mission" comes off as a pale imitation of several books in the "Outlanders" series--minus the excitement, sharp characterization, colorful attention to detail, passion and rich entertainment value. I really wanted to like this book, but if this one is indicative of what the other novels are like, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass. Sorry to be so harsh, but this book simply didn't cut it--not as a thriller, not as science-fiction and most definitely not as action-adventure.

This book fell far short of my expectations in several areas. First, this is the third book in a series, and it is understandably difficult to accomodate both readers new to the material and those familiar with it, but this book fails dismally in the former case. While going into fairly detailed descriptions of things that should be familiar to most, like what an aircraft carrier is and how big it is, terms from the series like "foo fighter", "bouncer", and "talon" are used throughout the text with explanations coming late, if ever. Foo fighters are first mentioned on page 4, for example, but only in chapter 5 (p.61) are we told what they are. Another example of this is the use of the acronym NSA throughout the book - on page 180 we are suddenly told that NSA stands for National Security Agency, and on page 199 we are inexplicably given a history of that agency and its mission since the time of President Truman, almost as a parenthetical aside.

This kind of choppiness is a symptom of my second complaint, poor editing. The editing has more problems than that, though - details of names and locations mysteriously change over time. On page 254, two parties announce their radio callsigns as "Gallant" and "Sparrow", but on page 279 "Sparrow" begins talking to "Horseman"; the name has presumably been changed mid-stream to protect the innocent.

My third objection is to the liberties and inaccuracies taken with history. In any novel of this genre it is expected that history will be re-interpreted - Hogan did this brilliantly in "Inherit the Stars," his intro to the Ganymedan Giants series. But re-interpretation does not justify the inaccuracies and distortions in "Area 51: The Mission", and logical inconsistencies and self-contradiction are inexcusable. A brief history revision lesson (pp.138-145) tells us of the Empire of Axum, and states that "Axum was accepted by historians as one of the earliest empires in the world, founded around the first or second century before the birth of Christ." So much for Artaxerxes, Darius, and Alexander, and the empires of Persia, Babylon, and the Greeks, not to mention the Roman Empire which was in full swing at the same period. The next paragraph tells us that "Even long after Christianity came to Axum, the Queen of Sheba was reported to be a sun god worshipper... her visit with King Solomon was well recorded...." Come on! We're told that the empire was founded centuries before the birth of Christ, but Christianity came to them anyway, and that the Queen of Sheba, despite meeting with King Solomon (c. 950 BCE), is resisting Christianity 8 centuries later, centuries before Jesus is born! And it gets better - she met with Cing Ho from China in 656 BCE (p. 309). If we are supposed to deduce from all of this that the Queen of Sheba (and Axum) lived for 1,200 years or more, it would be nice to be told that explicitly instead of having to wade through this gibberish. There are more inconsistencies, but they relate to the plot, so I won't relate them here.

On the whole, this sad novel looks like a bunch of author's notes that were haphazardly slapped together and rushed to market. I hope that Dell and Robert Mayer, a/k/a Robert Doherty, will take more care with future works.