8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carman does it again!, May 11, 2010
This review is from: Trackers: Book 1 (Hardcover)
Patrick Carman has created another masterpiece. This story, much like Skeleton Creek, is told in two parts: first the books and then videos to supplement the story. Who or what are the trackers? They are a group of friends who have cutting-edge technology and really want 'to do good'. They desire to use their skills and technology to discover truths and bring them to the light.
The Trackers are: Adam, he's the brains behind the crew, the one who creates all the gadgets that start to get them into trouble; Lewis, the cautious one, who has computer skills, but also is the one to always worry; Emily - great skill with remote controls and nerves of steel. And finally Finn - he is the athlete, skateboarder, and always pushes the limits, but he is also the one who helps to take the edge off.
The team has spent their time building tools to use for surveillance and investigation. But something has gone horribly wrong. And now Adam is telling his story to the authorities. The website with the videos is excellent and the videos are incredibly well done. I have read the book twice - the first time with just reading the transcripts of the videos at the back of the book, and the second time watching the videos. It does work without the online videos but they do add to the story.
Adam was captured by someone posing as the Glyph Master who drew him to a website with puzzles from a secret language he helped create. He was drawn in, and by the time he realized he was in trouble it was too late.
This book is great and looks like it will be the beginning of an excellent series.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A nice idea, but it doesn't come together well., January 10, 2011
This review is from: Trackers: Book 1 (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
In a nutshell, if you're a tech-oriented late elementary school or middle-school student with a good Internet connection right on hand and a high tolerance for the unbeliveable, you may find this to be interesting and entertaining.
The book tells a tech-oriented adventure. The narration makes reference to videos and things that help explain the plot, so accompanying the book is a web site, where the reader can go to watch the videos. The videos are fairly well done and do contribute to the story. The problem is, unless the reader has an Internet connection really close by they're going to have to wait until later to see the videos. This means either reading a chapter, running for the computer to watch a video, reading another chapter, running for the computer again, etc., or reading several chapters, then later watching several videos. Either way, it's disruptive.
So this isn't a book you're going to want to read, say, on a car trip, either.
The book's appendices contain transcripts of the videos, but it's not the same. Some of the videos illustrate things graphically that the written transcripts cannot.
As for the story itself, I wasn't really able to get into it. The plot is in the "super-smart whiz kids get themselves into something sinister" genre, and the main character (Adam) is just too unbelievable. As a young teenager his computer skills are already off the charts, so to speak, and he's building all sorts of clever gadgets, writing security code used by major corporations, and earning scads of virtual currency online. Oh, yes, and in one seventeen-hour all-nighter he repairs 24 computers that Microsoft, with all its resources, couldn't fix. Right.
Plus I don't like his attitude.
The story is told as verbal narrative: the main character is being interrogated and relates events that happened some time in the past. But it didn't have the feel of a verbal narration; the language and descriptions used in the narration are not the types that someone would use when speaking.
If this were done as a pure electronic book (combining text and videos) it would be a lot better.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Can't wait to read the next one...., September 15, 2010
This review is from: Trackers: Book 1 (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I chose this book with my nearly 13 year old son to read. Finding books that interest him are difficult because he reads well above his grade level but I don't want the subject matter to be too mature for his actual age.
We both ended up loving this book, full of characters of exceptionally smart teens, lots of twists, thrills....we both read it in one sitting because you just have to know what happens next. It's one of those books where you say "just one more page" and quickly find that you're at the end of the book without even realizing it. He has requested that I put this series on his Wish List and has done a bit of research to find out what else this author has written. In my opinion, that makes this book a success!
My 12 year old has passed it on to his little brother who is 11 who is also enjoying it. Technically I guess it falls under the "sci-fi" genre, but to us, it's just smart.
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