Customer Reviews

Tsar (Hawke Series)

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(79)
3 star:		(60)
2 star:		(35)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

When I was reading the first third of this novel, I honestly did not think I would enjoy it enough to even finish it. But, I decided to read a little more and then a little more because I hate to give up on a book. The second third of the book began to interest me much more, perhaps because I had begun to recognize the characters and understand the situations they were in. The final third of the book was very exciting and fast paced. I wanted to find out what was going to happen in this series of incidences which had the potential to change the world forever.

Tsar is a book which places before the reader a premise of what if.... What if there was an incredibly powerful man who literally sat behind "the red curtain" in Russia. A man who had a mind so warped and twisted that he had no moral compass which would keep him from committing horrifying atrocities in order to rule as the Tsar of Russia. A Russia which meant a forced reuniting of the individual countries which had broken away from the old Soviet Union when they had the chance. And what if this man had devised a method of using a common item, a simple item, and yet use it in such a brilliant way that he could actually control the entire world just by entering a code into a machine and pushing a button.

I enjoyed the last third of this novel immensely. I had to read through the first part (which I didn't like at all) to get all the characters in place and then the second part (which began to capture my attention more) to lead up to the real action packed events. It was, for me, as if I read three different books. Luckily the last third was strong enough for me to give this book a four star rating.

I have never read any other books by Ted Bell. Consequently, I was not familiar with the character Alexander Hawke. As any worthy hero must be, he is larger than life and capable of pulling off miracles. If you enjoy action thrillers with the emphasis on political intrigue, spys, double agents, and military units trained to perform impossible feats, you will probably enjoy this book.

Having read many of the reviews already posted on this book I must say that I am also dissapointed in the knowledge of the general reading public.

I trust the reader will agree with me that the best Fiction comes out of fact!.....Having said that this author essentieally lost me in the first paragraph. First of all- There were NO Soviet Battleships involved in the Cuban Missle Crisis! The Soviets did not Have any Battleships in the first place. I am of the impression the Author does not know what a Battleship is. We did not have any in the Crisis either! The only Soviet Navel vessels involved in the Missle Crisis were Soviet Submarines.......Number two- The authors grasp of geography is pretty poor. Cuba is NOT in the South Atlantic! The South Atlantic is below the equator. All the incidents between the U.S. and the Soviets took place above the Equator. In addition, the rise and fall of the tide in the Bahamas is about 6 inches! Therefore the entire scene in the Blowhole is impossible!

Since the authors grasp of fact is incorrect right from the get-go, I can not recommed this book.

Four years ago, I reviewed "Assassin", another novel by Ted Bell. I said of it: "I found myself finishing this novel only because I wanted to see how bad it could get. It got pretty bad and after the last page, I cursed myself for wasting the time."

I'm older and wiser and Ted Bell is no better a writer than he was in 2004. This time, though, I was a lot smarter: I stopped at page 42.

In the first 42 pages, Bell establishes himself as someone incapable of creating coherent plot, being historically accurate or forming credible characters.

Take for instance, the first chapter. In just five pages, Bell has Fidel Castro "importing" Russian "ICBMs". Castro didn't "import" them and they were intermediate range missiles, not intercontinental. Then Bell has what he tries to make into a larger-than-life character named Hawke who is single handedly going to penetrate a Soviet installation on an emergency basis to steal information about a sophisticsated system. Utterly unbelievable in every respect.

But the best part is when a sniper - presumably a Soviet agent - takes a shot at Hawke, misses of course, and then sprays the area blindly. Hawke tskes him out with one shot. After all, he was carrying only one bullet. The entire five pages are just ridiculous - and that's just the beginning of the book. It gets progressively worse.

There are others who can pull of this kind of thing. Clive Cussler is one of them. Cussler's plots are elaborate fantasies, his characters outrageously incredible - but Cussler can pull it off. Bell cannot.

Next we are introduced to the son of the aforementioned spy who, of course, is described in great physical detail and is, as you might expect, more resplendent than any god of antiquity - and, er, better endowed, if you get my drift. That's important, because we are introduced to him as he lies nude on a secluded Bermuda beach. Of course, the most beautiful woman in the world - bare breasted of course - appears unexpectedly from the water, obviously a passenger from the luxurious yacht just offshore. Yes, yes, this is the world of the perfectly formed spy meeting the perfectly formed woman who just happens to be the daughter of the most evil man in the world, the Kremlin's mysterious new "Tsar".

By page 42, I had had it with the ridiculous plot, the silly characters and the hackneyed writing. Generally, I am open to the possibility others will enjoy novels I don't like or might be forced into reading something because they are snowed in at the airport. If that happens to you and this is the only reading material available - don't do it. Attempting to read this nonsense will only make you feel more pity for yourself.

Jerry

Easily the worst read in the Hawke series. For all of you who read Tsar and it was your first Ted Bell novel, please read the series from the beginning-I assure you that you won't be disappointed. I typically enjoy the whimsical adventure yarns that Mr. Bell creates, but the air ship, Happy the Baker and the silly computer plot took too much away from Hawke's usual exploits. All the other Hawke novels have a certain edge to them with almost surreal villains who don't hide behind curtains and ride in air ships so I hope Mr. Bell finds that formula again for his next novel.

I haven't read other books by this author or featuring this character, and I don't plan to. I had to force myself to finish this book. The characters were flimsy cliches, the dialogue was horrible, the plot was ridiculous. The book seemed to run on and on before anything happened, many of the scenes were disjointed with the characters not seeming to share crucial information, and some of the details were just too improbable. One example--a woman in the story has two daughters. The 9 year old reads books about prostitutes, but the 4 year old sits in a high chair, is spoon fed, and can't string more than two words together. I have a 9 year old and a 4 year old, and believe me, normal children (as the ones in the book were supposed to be) don't behave like that. I wouldn't loan this book to someone I didn't like, it was that bad.

I'm waiting for a spy novel featuring a guy who is broke, lacks resources, is ugly as a mud fence and has no real connections. It seems all the characters I'm seeing are either from wealth or nobility, with more gizmos than James Bond. They can get what they want, when they want it and of course answer only to the president or prime minister.

This book is another in that school of writing. Alex Hawke is a second generation spook from a wealthy aristocratic family. He has tremedous personal resources and he is the ultimate operator. He meets and falls in love with a wealthy Russian girl whose Father is a supremely powerful meglomaniac with designs of restoring the Soviet empire AND the Tsars. Much of what happens is predictacle, but it is an enjoyable read. The book moves quickly and the action scenes are vivid.

I recommend the book if you just want a fast paced story to entertain you. If you are looking for complexity or characters who struggle with great themes (see John LeCarre) this is not for you. This is solid, but very predictable

I really wanted to like this book. The timing of its release in light of Russia's recent incursion into Georgia and newly signed cooperation/protection agreements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia seemed perfectly timed and almost prescient.

But, alas, as you've probably gathered from the title of my review and despite two attempts to read this novel (40 and 90 pages respectively), it was not meant to be. It appears from the other reviews that I'm swimming against the current here.

First, I found the basic setup too derivative - a former British naval officer working for Her Majesty's government going up against a megalomaniacal villain. Having grown from a tweener to my current 50-something state during the "Bond era," this (at least what I read of it) had that "been there" feel to it.

Second, and parallel to the first point, an homage is an homage. However, when they start stacking up, it comes across as either satire (I didn't really sense any tongue-in-cheek signals from the author) or a total lack of imagination. Two cases in point jump out (there are others). 1) Anastasia Korsakova's first appearance, emerging from the ocean, is more than a little reminiscent of Ursula Andress's similar appearance as she steps from the sea in Dr. No - right down to the white bikini. (At least Honey Ryder (Andress's character) had the common sense to wear her bikini top while collecting tokens from the ocean bottom as opposed to Korsakova's emergence with "her deeply full and perfect pink-tipped breasts" exposed. Do people actually write like this?) 2) Korsakov's presence behind a curtain at a breakfast meeting, addressing his minions in a "familiar disembodied voice" which "boomed from hidden speakers" seems extremely reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz (?). This seems like an odd reference for a serious spy novel. I thought that perhaps I was being too critical until several chapters later Korsakov's own personal hitman refers to him in this way.

Third, and finally, I found the writing to be too fantastic. Not fantastic in the sense of commonly used vernacular to mean "great," but fantastic in its more traditional sense as something based upon fantasy which strains belief. Things and events in the book such as Hawke's precariously perched beach cottage with the firepole from the bedroom to a sea grotto beneath, the breakfast comeuppance of two minions not in alignment with Korsavov's grand scheme of things (what - no blood spatter on the other minions or their food/drink?), the method in which Strelnikov eliminates a criminal following a stay of execution (a bit of overkill?) became flashing warning signs to me to "just say no!" All in all, I felt like I was reading a story treatment for some proposed over-the-top, beyond belief Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

So, despite my previously stated desire to like this book, instead, I have relegated it to the slag heap of my personal reading history and moved on. As the title of my review states there are too many (good) books and too little time to trifle with books such as this.

I decided that I wanted to read this book after I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about it the other day and referring to it as one of the most important books he's read in a long, long time. Apparently, he learned a lot about Russia and the peril that Russia poses from this action-packed spy-thriller.

Quick summary:
The Russians are evil again and they want to take over the world or, at least, expand back to the borders of the former Soviet Union. Russia is led by a very powerful but shadowy 'Count' who, being shadowy, lurks in the shadows or hides behind curtains and he gets people killed if he doesn't like them too much. The Russians MIGHT have succeeded if it wasn't for the son of one valuable British agent from the Cold War. Alex Hawke is a handsome man with black hair and blue eyes and a hint of cruelty at the corner of his mouth who works out (hard) every day, has a hole in his beach house floor so he can drop into the Ocean in the morning before he opens his eyes, sleeps on the beach in the nude, in Bermuda, in December and he meets, while naked and on the beach, the most beautiful daughter of the secret ruler of Russia who is almost naked too. Then, you have this explosive substance that's 1000 times more powerful than nitroglycerin and is distributed through hundreds of millions of very cheap home computers that are sealed (scary) - so no one can see the explosives - and are in the shape of a brain. Oh, and some airships.

Overall, it kept me captivated for the first 50-100 pages because it's so... good. I suppose the author thought it was important to come out with the book ASAP without spending much time on plot construction, character development, stylistic niceties or fact checking. But, let's see what we learn from the first few pages:

- Castro 'imported' Russian ICBM's in the early 60's. [He didn't. The missiles had stayed under Russian control at all times and they were NOT ICBMs. They were medium-range and could not even reach New York.]
- The not-ICBM's were NOT 90 miles from Miami, as the author claims. [Miami happens to be 229 miles from Cuba. Key West is 90 miles from Cuba.]
- Hawke fought "Hezbollah jihadists in the Amazon". [This is very interesting but Hezbollah happens to be an Iran and Syrian-backed socio-political movement of Lebanese Shi'a (Wikipedia) and its reach and ambitions tend to be confined to Lebanon and Israel. It is classified as a terrorist organization by the US government but there are no known terrorist activities attributed to Hezbollah outside of Lebanon and its mortal enemy, Israel.]
- We learn about a "light December rain" in Moscow. [The AVERAGE HIGH temperature in Moscow in December is -5C and the average low is about -10C. There seems to be no historical record of a 'December rain' in Moscow.]
- Zeta is `the last word in the Greek alphabet' [Alphabets have letters, not 'words' and, in any case, the last letter of the Greek alphabet is Omega. Zeta is the sixth.]
- Someone to be executed in a federal prison for a federal crime gets a `stay of execution' from a STATE governor? [As far as I know, STATE governors can't interfere with FEDERAL executions.]
- A `comsat satellite'? [Is the author thinking about "Comsat" which is, I believe, a division of Lockheed Martin? It would be unlikely for 'the Russians' to be using 'comsat satellites' as part of some improbable scheme of blowing up things via remote control. The Russkies have their own.]
- "A bloody billion dollar Bushehr reactor for Iran which will produce enough spent plutonium to produce sixty bombs minimum" [There is no such thing as 'a Bushehr reactor'. Bushehr is a town in Iran not a reactor brand and the Russians are building there A reactor. As for its ability to produce 'sixty bombs minimum'... I believe we need to know over what timespan and how big the bombs were going to be. Is it in a day? In a week? A year? 10 years? 10 kilotons? 10 megatons? Not to mention that the reactor will be operating under the Nonproliferation Treaty mandated supervision so Iran won't be able to get any plutonium out of it without the whole world knowing it did.]
- The Russians "could bring Europe to its knees in under an hour by simply turning off the oil and gas taps" [This is, actually, so funny, it motivated me to read 10-15 more pages.]
- Pravda was one of the Russian president's favorite newspapers. "There were three newspapers arrayed there beside his place setting. Pravda, the New York Times and the London Times.". [The problem is that Pravda went out of business in 1991. The paper was closed down in 1991 by decree of President Yeltsin. In 1999 Pravda Online was launched but the book talks about a newsPAPER, not a Web site.]
- The Russians were upset because we were `putting missiles into Poland and Czechoslovakia'. [There is no such country as Czechoslovakia any more. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In addition, we are only `putting missiles' into Poland. The Czech Republic will host a Radar station, not missiles.]

Overall impression: there is not much character development beyond some notes on their fitness, the action is boring, the plot is predictable, the scenery descriptions are long-winded and the 'facts' are questionable even though I can see how they would be quite acceptable on a cable news or radio talk show.

Could this be a good, at least, 'airport' book? I seriously doubt it. I tried hard to find a reason for granting this work 2 stars but I could not find one because I can't think of any good reason for anyone spending time reading it.

After reading the description for this book, I thought for sure it would be one that I'd have a hard time putting it down. Even after receiving it and reading the one-line reviews on the back, I was sure I'd like it. Glen Beck, for instance, said it was like a Tom Clancy with some Robert Ludlum. I like both author's books, but, unfortunately, can't say the same about Tsar. After getting nearly half-way through the book, I still didn't find much that was grabbing me. Maybe its just the fact that I prefer more fast-paced books that keep me wanting to read them all the time. This book, I literally had to just keep reading and hoping something more interesting and grabbing would happen. I'll keep chugging along to see if I'm able to do that, and will update this review accordingly at that time, but, at this point, not too impressed.

That being said, Ted Bell, does seem to be a talented author. There is, no doubt, a reason his books are on the NY Times Bestseller list. I can see his abilities in this book, but, in my opinion, this book is severely lacking what an action-spy thriller needs to be successful.

UPDATE: Here is it several weeks later, and I'm still struggling with this book. It's definitely not as addicting as many of the other books in its genre. My advice, look elsewhere for thriller.

This is not my type of preferred reading but on recommendation from Rush Limbaugh this past fall, I thought I'd select this from the Amazon Vine list. It is fast paced and kept me on the edge of my seat. Our hero is like a James Bond and Jack Ryan rolled into one. The story is timely and smart. Like a Clive Cussler read but better.