12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nonstop action that will keep you on the edge of your seat, November 21, 2009
This review is from: Riddle of the Sands (Paperback)
When you open Geoffrey Knight's The Riddle of the Sands, prepare yourself, because you are about to be taken on a nonstop, no-holds-barred adventure that will keep you balanced on the very edge of your seat. This is the second installation of Mr. Knight's Fathom's Five series, picking up where his novel The Cross of Sins left off. The Riddle of the Sands might be considered to be a stand-alone story, but readers not wishing to find themselves a little confused (albeit still entertained) will definitely want to read The Cross of Sins first, because the first novel introduces the main characters and provides important back-story.
This novel is just plain fun. Along with gorgeous men and lightening-paced action, The Riddle of the Sands has an irresistible thread of humor that runs throughout it. Whether we're witnessing a Texas cowboy having a face-off with an irascible camel, our heroes stripping down to the buff to blend in with a museum display, or young Will Hunter goggling at the size of the sexual appendages on dozens of fertility gods, we are almost guaranteed a smile.
Don't expect much time to stop and catch your breath as you read this story. The action is constant, taking the reader from the tundra of Siberia to the Brazilian jungle to the deserts of Egypt, from a bathhouse in Cairo to the streets of Paris and Warsaw. Our heroes face madmen, crocodiles, booby-trapped rooms, and even a ticked-off housekeeper. They are in constant danger, and they tend extricate themselves from one situation only to land face-first into a mess of even greater magnitude.
If I were to extract a theme from The Riddle of the Sounds to go along with the fun, I would say that it is one of father/son relationships. Not only does this tell the story of the character Jake and his young friend Sam, whose relationship resembles one of parent and child, it focuses on the youngest member of Fathom's team, Will, and his tempestuous relationship with the father who disapproves of and denigrates him and dips briefly into the character Luca's search for the father who abandoned him as an infant. In addition, the central riddle revolves around Imhotep of ancient Egypt and a son who does not appear in any history books.
This story has a cinematic larger-than-life feel to it. As I read The Riddle of the Sands, I felt almost as if I were in a movie theatre, popcorn in hand, watching open-mouthed as The Mummy meets Indiana Jones and the heroes face constant danger. The plot follows several different paths as the members of the team split apart and then reunite over the course of the story, and while this has the potential to be confusing, Mr. Knight keeps it all very well organized and tightly choreographed.
Similar to the previous novel, The Riddle of the Sands ends with a number of cliff-hangers that will make readers clamor for more. Next in this series is The Curse of the Dragon. If this novel runs true to form - and I have no reason to believe that it won't - then we are guaranteed a well-told tale filled with action, adventure, humor, and just a touch of romance. Oh, and lots of naked muscular chests.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Just plain awful, April 3, 2010
This review is from: Riddle of the Sands (Paperback)
Really, REALLY bad. All the 5-star reviews must be coming from the author's friends, or people who are very easy to please, because this is HARDLY a 5-star book. As erotica, it fails -- there are only two mediocre sex scenes (three really, but two of them happen simultaneously), with no erotic tension or build-up, so they're not all that hot, and they're all in the first half of the book. The rest of the time, the characters are constantly taking their shirts off to reveal their rippled abs or wide shoulders, and that's about as hot as it gets... which on the printed page, is not very compelling. Sadly, the cover art is the most erotic thing about it. As romance, it fails even harder -- the author seems to be attempting to build romantic tension between two of the characters, but that ends up going absolutely nowhere. As an adventure story, it's downright awful -- cliched, corny, cartoonish, derivative and basically just super lame, but WITHOUT any camp or humor to redeem it. Looking for compelling characters? There are none -- they are all two-dimensional (at best), and their motives for doing what they do are unclear, especially the villains. In short, it's like a bad Saturday morning cartoon that takes itself way too seriously. I have to assume this is a sequel to something else, because it totally fails to explain who the characters are or how they know each other -- it assumes the reader already knows, which is just bad storytelling.
Bottom line: if you want a compelling gay erotic/romantic read, or else a good adventure tale, or good storytelling, or well-drawn characters, or even something with just an ounce of intelligence or wit, this has none of those things.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good but..., January 2, 2010
This review is from: Riddle of the Sands (Paperback)
This is a great adventure...fast paced, erotic, exciting. It has a bevy of hot bods and bouts of hot sex. Unfortunately, it also has predictable and repetitious plot lines, twists and situations. If anyone's naked expect a fight and a flight sans clothes. Gets annoying after a time or two.
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