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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
That Maniac!, November 27, 2006
This review is from: The Tesla Testament (Paperback)
The "Tesla Testament" is veteran intelligence operative and computer engineer, Eugene Ciurana's first published thriller and an amazing book on several levels. The action is instant, brutal, and beautifully unapologetic. But far from being a mindless thriller, this book is packed with amazing information drawn directly from the author's own knowledge and life experience. In addition to an unspecified stint with the intelligence community, Ciurana has years of experience as a computer engineer working for Swiss banks and for the oil industry. He is also a professional Mui Thai fighter and has several different sky diving certifications. The man brings his experience to the pages and the result is something like an action movie and several scientific research problems packed together.
PLOT
From the opening pages this book hits you hard and pulls no punches. An Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization storms a San Francisco science convention and takes hostages. Little do they realize however, that two of the hostages include retired NSA operative, Francis Montagnet and his fiancée, Suzy. Through cunning, and savage Mui Thai techniques Montagnet foils the attack but is unable to save his fiancée from the terrorist's line of fire. Heart broken, Montagnet leaves America in order to resume one of his former professions as a computer security engineer for a Swiss bank in Geneva.
A peaceful exile, however is not in the cards for Montagnet. The same terrorist organization that murdered his fiancée has now stolen some seemingly harmless classified documents that predate the Second World War and is obviously up to no good. The NSA cajoles Montagnet out of retirement and puts him on the trail of the terrorists who are clearly planning an attack of greater magnitude. Montagnet's resulting investigation becomes a combination of scientific inquiry, bone-crunching violence, mass killing, and some of the most gory methods of torture ever to hit the pages of a modern novel (let's hope Ciurana isn't writing THAT from first-hand experience!)
To complicate matters, Montagnet collaborates and falls in love with a beautiful Russian scientist named Varenka who is able to help him fill in the missing pieces of what the terrorist are up to with the stolen and seemingly harmless old scientific documents. It turns out that they are re-creating a weapon of mass destruction that was actually developed and tested by the famous inventor, Nicola Tesla in 1908 before being dismantled and subsequently forgotten. Teaming up with Russian oligarchs and oil companies the terrorist plan to disguise this weapon as a mobile oil rig and deploy it to strike an unknown target somewhere in the United States.
In the final showdown, Montagnet and a team of Navy SEALs parachute onto the oil rig to stop the terrorists who have already deployed their weapon with lethal results. The steaks are particularly high for Montagnet because the terrorist have captured Varenka and imprisoned her on the rig.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK
In so many places where this book could go wrong it actually gets things right. Sure, a large part of the plot centers on an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization, but Ciurana is much too smart to get caught up in the emotionalism of contemporary global politics, particularly with respect to the War on Terror. The terrorist group in this book is murderous and fanatical but isn't reduced to an evil caricature. The terrorist leader in this book, like the terrorist leaders in real-life has a legitimate set of grievances. Far from making him likable or justifying his homicidal choices, the grievances make him believable. We believe this is a real human being bent on killing all of us and this makes him more terrifying. And while Montagnet works for the United States Government he is hardly a sanctimonious patriot or a blind believer of his president's failed policies.
I also really like the way Ciurana writes about contemporary Russia from the perspective of politics, business, crime, and every day life, Clearly this is an environment with which he is familiar and writes about well. As we follow Montagnet and Varenka through the dingy apartments or ordinary Russians or the tacky mansions of powerful oligarchs, the experience is entirely believable.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the doom's day weapon originally developed by Nicola Tesla and later reproduced by the terrorists. While doom's day weapons are both a silly and necessary component of modern spy thrillers this one is actually a fascinating piece of scientific trivia and...well...not all that far-fetched. Readers with scientific curiosity should definitely perform a search on Google for "Nicola Tesla". Actually, if you really want to have fun, you can perform searches on practically all of the scientific, intelligence, technical, or martial components of this book and you'll get some very interesting information. And of course, you can search for "pr3d4t0r".
THINGS THAT DON'T QUITE GRAB ME
One or two things about this book did not quite grab me. For one thing, the language is extremely simple (really it reads a lot like dialog in a screen play) and the editing could have been more thorough. The romantic scenes are also a bit trite and somewhat disjointed. Sometimes Ciurana describes the neuro-muscular activities with an almost cardboard formality ("She reached for his member") and at other times with shocking directness ("He fingered her..." Well, let's just say it starts with a C, ends with a T and has a vowel in between that is not a U.). Finally, I have to ask why, oh why, did Ciurana give his protagonist a French name? This guy is a ruthless killer, brilliant hacker, brutal fighter who can hold his own when sparring with Navy SEALs and yet...his name is FRANCIS MONTAGNET!
These minor issues aside, however, I loved reading this book and thought is was a blast. It will be great if Ciurana decides to extend the adventures of Francis Montagnet into a series, and don't be surprised if one way or another, this book makes its way to the screen.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great recommendation - a fun adventure, December 9, 2007
This review is from: The Tesla Testament (Paperback)
Great job, Amazon! I bought this book following a recommendation after purchasing The Pillars of the Earth (Deluxe Edition) (Oprah's Book Club). Both books arrived at the same time and I chose to read The Tesla Testament first because it's less than half the length of Pilars. I'd never heard from this author, and I figured that I could always put the book down if it didn't deliver and go back to good ole Follet. Instead, I was sucked into a great read and didn't put the book down until I was done, very late at night.
The Tesla Testament trades the suspense of a mystery novel for fast-paced action from beginning to end. The story takes place in the contemporary world. Some bad guys get a hold of Tesla's long lost documents and manage to build a doomsday device. The leader of the bad guys and Francis, the story's hero, fight each other with their wits and fists on various throughout the story; neither ever has the upper hand on the other until the twisty showdown at the end, and even then it's not clear who will win until you get to the last chapter. This isn't quite a spy novel, nor a fanciful adventure; instead, this book has elements of both. Like another reviewer mentioned, this feels like a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones.
What's good:
The contemporary setting. The main characters play well against one another, their motivations are clear, and they're all sympathetic; even the baddie has moments where you can't help but take his side. The descriptions of how the early 1900s technology is weaponized in the early 2000s. The occasional discussions about computers are accurate. The fighting and chasing scenes have a distinct flavor of authenticity. Plot-driven, good character development, innovative ideas all play well in this story.
What's bad:
The hero is shot at in a few scenes; he's hit only in one of them, not mortally wounded, and he makes a good recovery after the fact. Otherise, the bad guys must be the worst shooters since the Star Wars soldiers. Some times it seems like they wouldn't hit an elephant at ten paces! The hero seems a bit too lucky once or twice during the story, in that he's never injured so badly that he can't get himself out of a scrap. Given the amount of firepower thrown at him, that gets a bit unbelievable in a novel. That's more appropriate for a Bruce Willis or James Bond movie.
The recommendation: if you want to have an entertaining few hours and a gratifying ending, and if you like action/adventure/espionage/contemporary stories, this book is for you. A good counterpoint to Follet's book, like Amazon suggested.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read, October 11, 2006
This review is from: The Tesla Testament (Paperback)
CIMEntertainment recently gave me a review copy of the The Tesla Testament by Eugine Ciurana. This worked out perfect for a flight home from Vegas as I usually pick up something on my way through the terminal.
The book is an early James Bond style that mixes with the current fix on terrorism the USA seems to be glued to.
In the story the primary character finds himself part of a series of events that puts him in-line to stop an atom-bomb style technology from being proven true and used on the masses. The technology, much like the atom bomb was experimental during the second world war, however these technology experiments did not proove as fruitful as the manhattan project. The project was shelved until a mole extracted the details of the experiments and sets the story into a path that leads to near distruction for the assembly of United Nations delegates.
The series of events in the novel are well put together and entertaining, much like Hunt for Red October in terms of realism to fantasy... which for a geek at heart goes a long ways. The heart of the story is interesting and seems well suited for a movie you might see as a block buster. Of course with all praise however, comes some critique.
The writing is a tad blocky, and to often the foreshadowing is is a bit to clear... this approach seems to remind me of the writing style to The Da Vinci Code. With this novel I was much entertained by the story but frustrated by an expectation for more from the writing.
All-in-all, an interesting story.
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