Customer Reviews

The Oasis Project

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love who-done-its, so after reading the other reviews I decided this would be my next favorite book.

Unfortunately I found it very easy to put down and quite difficult to keep picking up. I thought the writing style a little bit light and "chick-lit" (no offense ladies). There are references to God in unexpected places and more than too many for my taste. I didn't think this was a Christian novel, so it was somewhat out of character for the book. There is also a love interest that seemed a little juvenile for a mystery novel not publicized as a romance.

I really wanted to like this book, and when I completed it, it was none too soon. Maybe I missed something? Guess it just wasn't the "thriller" I was geared up for.

** I received a complimentary copy of The Oasis Project as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit [...] to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team. **

The Oasis Project has a great plot but, for me, weak characters. Art Adkins writes in the omniscient POV, which is difficult to pull off even for seasoned authors. As readers, we're in everyone's head, all the time, and consequently I didn't truly care about or get to know any of them. It's also somewhat misleading. For instance, the "main" character in the opening scene never appears in the story again. We're led to believe he's important but he's nobody.

About 1/3 of the way through the story, Slade Lockwood, an ex cop, begins to shine through as the true main character. I wish that Adkins had spent more time developing his character and writing more from his POV. For me, that would have made an okay story riveting.

** I received a complimentary copy of The Oasis Project as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit [...] to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team. **

The Oasis Project by Art Adkins, published by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc.
The opening pages give an excellent description of a hurricane and how and where it begins. I remember the big one that took out the little town of Punta Gorda where I had lived for so long. The Waterbury family was murdered and placed in their boat during Hurricane Cleopatra. When the authorities found them, it was classified as an accident. This is where the mystery begins.

When Slade Lockwood moved to Cedar Key as a 20-year veteran with LAPD, he had no idea that his retirement at forty-one would turn into a "run for your life" situation, and strangely enough he gladly accepted it. By helping a stranger, he gained something he never had before, himself.

When the writer created Slade Lockwood, he developed someone who could leap tall buildings at a single bound and never quit until the job was done. Slade is a man who can fight, investigate, solve, kill if he has to, and find love that he could never have known until he moved to Cedar Key. As situations occurred, they left you spellbound as to what he would do and what would happen to him next.

The most outstanding thing Slade did was to unravel the greatest mystery of all time that will change the world. I was thrilled to be a reader of Art Adkins first book. He has done a superb job and is on his way to becoming one of the great writers of mystery suspense.[...].

I received a complimentary copy of The Oasis Project as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit Dorrance Bookstore to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team

I usually don't read fiction, and seldom read "who-done-its". I look for reading matter where I can learn something. But someone lent me a recent novel that I started, put down, then picked up and did not put it down again until I had finished the book.
It is a who-done-it written by a former California policeman, but, for the most part, set in Cedar Key. It has several murders, a Florida hurricane, and a sassy Cedar Key pelican.
The author knows his police work and I did indeed learn a great deal about forensic science.
The book is very close to the truth, especially in its description of Cedar Key-- Remember what you have heard about the drop-off into the Gulf from Cedar Key airport?
I do not want to spoil the story for you so I will not touch on the plot; I just may read it again.
--Maggie Morgan

The story line pulls you in and keeps you interested throughout its entirety. The character choices and use of technical language also appeal to a variety of audiences, rather than losing the reader to a specific genre. My only wish is to see a more complex and multi-dimensional side of Slade...one that may even surprise the reader.

The Oasis Project is a great read - full of suspense and with an ending that, although science fiction today, may well become science fact in a few years. I hope the right scientists read this book and become inspired to turn this tremendous concept into reality.

Slade Lockwood is the type of character that people like to follow and see what he is going to experience next. The descriptions of the locations make it easy to visualize where Slade is at all times. We all want to be like Slade because of his hero status. This book is fun to read and exciting to follow.

This is really one of the best books I have ever read. I also liked the second book and can't wait for the third! I am purchasing 2 of them for Christmas gifts this year.

October 3, 2011

A TRAGIC STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF A POWERFUL "GREEN" INVENTION LEADS TO MURDER AND MYSTERY IN CEDAR KEY.

By Cara Elder

In his first novel, Art Adkins introduces us to a retired decorated police officer, Slade Lockwood, who for 20 years worked for LAPD and had recently relocated to the Gulf Coast. We also meet his rescued pelican, Old Clacker, and the beautiful quaint town known as Cedar Key, FL.

The story begins with a category 5 hurricane which was born off the coast of Africa, following a path that took it through the Bahamas, the Keys and up the Gulf leaving destruction in its course. It was to make landfall in the panhandle of Florida and it conveniently covered up the murders of a family from Cedar Key on board their fishing boat, the Fair Rose.

Shirley Waterbury, student at the University of Florida, was to learn of the death of her parents and her brother while in class. She was told they succumbed while on their boat in the hurricane, thus an accidental death. Not accepting that her parents would ever defy Mother Nature, she realized that the facts just did not add up. She turned to an associate of her family's, Harry Sloan to contact someone who could investigate the deaths, which would be Slade Lockwood. He really didn't want to be involved at first, but his girlfriend, Katherine convinced him otherwise.

Even though Shirley's family had no apparent enemies, a trail of tragic encounters led Slade to believe that the deaths may not have been accidental. Through many twists and turns, the scientific environmental invention that her brother, Billy, had been pursuing was one which could yield worldwide power for the people in control of it. Shirley did not discover right away what that invention was, but through the weeks following her family's death came to realize that whatever the scope of this invention could be, it could fall into the wrong hands--there was a path of murders and attempted murders connected to it. The actual theories that Billy used were uncovered bit by bit as the investigation proceeded.

Slade, with his new friends from Cedar Key, Chief Singletee and Shirley Waterbury, along with his girlfriend Katherine and a rescued pelican named "Old Clacker", peal away the layers of information gathered by Billy. With the help of Professor Krancz of the University of Florida, and Professor Johansen who was in charge of the national science fair in Michigan that Billy was getting ready to enter, and long-time buddy June Stenger, they discovered the essence and weight of the actual life-saving development that Billy had documented and demonstrated in his science fair project. All the while a world criminal element was stalking Slade and keeping one jump ahead of his investigation and was prepared to eliminate anyone who got in their way to attain rights to this biological invention.

Discovering World Vision Quest and Matt Kyle was only the beginning in the dig to uncover why Shirley's family would have been killed. What was the nature of their business and why were they so bent on keeping Slade out of the way in his investigation? His digging took him to California where he had to walk the outer limits of the law, and to Anchorage, Alaska where he found as many questions as he did answers.

As this story unfolded and the nature of the biological breakthrough became apparent, there was a glaring question: why hasn't anyone ever discovered this before, or did they? In the real world, would this work and save millions of people?

The biological scientific facts exist and Art Adkins has used scientific research to establish the core of this mystery and how this earth-changing invention could be put to practical use in our environmentally conscious world.
The kicker in this story is found at the end as Shirley Waterbury finds information that was at her finger tips the entire time. It took Slade's investigation, though, for her to realize its existence.

I'm not sure what some of the other reviewers read, but I found this book a thrilling adventure which can be enjoyed by all ages. I also very much enjoyed his style of writing--giving a scenerio of a hurricane at the beginning of the story and allowing us to discover the importance of it later in the story and changing scenes to keep the reader off guard.

celder@cfl.rr.com
Poolside Book Reviews
[...]

I received The Oasis Project ebook from Dorrance Publishing, link: [...] The book was overall a good read; the beginning opened with the hurricane but in the end did not play a big part in the story. The characters were good. The story picked up and soon I wanted to keep reading to see what happened next.