10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Loved the premise and ideas, but..., May 19, 2006
So this is totally my kind of book and I couldn't wait to start reading...especially after seeing Jeff Long's comments on the cover and being a huge fan of The Descent. I really enjoyed the idea of this fallen angel and the Enoch scroll and the supernatural, BUT...for starters it wasn't scary at all. Not one bit. And then the ending left a thousand questions unanswered. Also, I agree with some of the past reviewers who said there was no character development. None. I give the book 3 stars because I love the "idea" it presents, and this could have easily been a classic epic type story, but it felt like the author couldn't follow through on some of his ideas, and/or forgot to explain some things that needed further explanation. All in all...an easy read that won't take long if you want to make the purchase.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good premise, but monotonous reading, October 19, 2006
Carter Cox is a paleontologist studying a fossil found in a cave in Italy. Nothing about the fossil makes sense as the dating tests indicate it is older than the earth itself. Ezra Metzger smuggles an ancient scroll, the lost book of Enoch, out of Israel to translate it and discovers it is not parchment, but living tissue and the ink is actually blood. The story it tells is of a fallen angel, possibly the same as the fossil that inexplicably escapes from the rock it is embedded in.
The premise of Vigil is an attractive one, but the author fails to pull it off. The book is well written from a technical standpoint, but it's also dull and monotonous. There is never any real tension, nor anything frightening. There's too much time spent on things that have nothing to do with the story and I would think that an angel, even a fallen one, would have better things to do than what this one does in Vigil. The ending is also a huge letdown. The author appears to have bitten off more than he could chew.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Missing at least 100 pages, October 26, 2005
I found myself very disappointed with this book and its promising premise. I have enjoyed much of this sort of ancient rediscovery/speculative fiction, a la Preston/Childs, Jeff Long, James Rollins, and the like.
The main problem with this book is that it didn't tie together enough myth and science to convince me that it could be happening. Big fossil, a scroll, a reference to Enoch, a reference to the Aeneid... just not enough. There were some inexplicable things in there, like Mitchell getting into the "secure" lab. Like the whole protective clay thing; I mean, there's no basis given, and suddenly they're slapping clay on their foreheads. Like, what really happens to Kimberly, where did the bruises come from? There's no consistency. So many more details could have been culled from ancient literary sources to give this story depth. Instead it was just hodge-podged together to get us to the, YES, cheesy ending.
And who said something about character development? Tell me they're kidding? There is absolutely zero character development. Every character that survives is the exact same person they were at the beginning. The absolute worst of this is Carter Cox's reaction to the situation at the very end, knowing what he knows, having gone through what he did, and having felt what he felt leading up to it, and to have him react, or NOT react, as the case may be, was utterly ridiculous. For there to be character development, they have to, well, develop. The characters were shallow, distinguished only by a couple of simple physical and personality characteristics, and they never grew.
Anyway, it was a very disappointing read. I gave it two stars because the premise was enough to get me to the end of it, for what that's worth.
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