Customer Reviews

White Ninja

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The ninja is back! Although in this one, Nicholas Linnear is mourning the death of his baby daughter, and the desperation in his life causes him to lose his martial arts abilities. Then a murder spree breaks out in Tokyo - it seems a corrupt cop is butchering young women for sexual kicks. A political scandal is about to rock Washington. A new strategic defence computer is about to be hacked into in Washington. How does this tie up with Linnear's life, and the links between his father and the Yakuza? In order to regain his powers and seek revenge for the death of a friend, he journeys to China to learn a martial art he thought was legendary and regain his powers. This superb book follows along the Lustbader format nicely - political intrigue, awesome technology, Oriental mysticism and those sex scenes he seems to love. Well worth a read, but be advised - read THE NINJA first to understand the Nicholas Linnear timeline better.

The White Ninja just wasn't as good as it was supposed to be. It had all the elements to become a great third volume, but the focus and the structure simply drifted away. Although writing is superb, the story line was often directed into mundane and non-central characters. In my estimation, the book had 5-6 parallel story tracks, out which Nicholas's track got about 20% of "air time". To me that was way too little for the main character to have, especially since his story line was the most interesting to me (and that of Nangi's, but that became also incredulous after the midpoint of the book). It seems that Lustbader has become more concerned with length of a book than tightly written story, a sort of Tom Clancy syndrome (with his latest books). Less is more is a good way of putting it, after reading some 650 pages of the White Ninja.

1) Tim Matheson isn't necessarily boring to listen too, but nowhere near the acting and voice over abilities of Roddy McDowall as a reader on the L. Ron Hubbard works. Different voices and more "acting" on the voice inflections of the characters (fearful, excited, nearvous, etc) would have made this a more enjoyable story.

2) A "popular" story that includes Ninjas? Yeah, right! Well, this is the case here...this is a very popular work but it is more of a crime-drama with a heavy emphasis on romance/pornography. Thought I'd mention this in case you have different expectations of what the story is about.

3) The ninja portion heightened the action and suspense as these "unstoppable" forces of good and evil work towards a face off. Anyone experienced (really experienced) in martial arts will get an appreciation of the power of the ninja characters and their art.

4) Can anyone say, "SEX!!" Wow! There was a lot here even in the abridged audio book version. Obviously not for everyone regardless if it is "more realistic" or not or however else it can be justified.

5) Some interesting characters...more is spent on the psyche of the "bad guys" and thus you can't wait to see what they do next.

Maybe it's my adult tastes. I'd picked this book up after several years to finish it off, I'd started with The Ninja back when I was a teenager, and I feel like I've grown up with the hero of the book, Nicholas Linnear. I was told there's now 5 books in the series. I just hope the rest aren't like White Ninja. Though a wonderful writing style, I found the book lacked imagination. Some of the scenes became so unrealistic, put there to inject a sense of drama and climax, but looking out of place. The climax to the book by the way was awful. What a complete disappointment. It slowly builds, then nothing. Nicholas does his usual three fingered gut thrust and monkey blow, but no twists, nothing that makes you think wow, that was a good read.

This is the third of Eric Van Lustbaders spies and ninja and ever the twain shall meet series.

Nicholas is in Tokyo, doing the corporate executive thing for his technology company, but is losing touch with the whole ninja thing.

Needless to say, that is when a nut will start running around, that needs stopping. This is also tied into an important contract to supply a new type of computer chip to the government.

More ninja magic and mayhem.

Nicholas Linnear is back in this, the third book of a series. He and his wife stayed in Japan. The book opens up with them mourning the death of their baby daughter. At the same time he comes under an unknown attack that causes him to lose his martial arts abilities. Then a murder spree breaks out in Tokyo which seems linked to his family. Washington politics become involved in this story because of Linnear's companies computer chips and a new computer the govt. has developed.

We then follow Linnear as he tries and regain his powers and seek revenge for the death of a friend, he journeys to China to learn a martial art he thought was legendary and regain his powers. This is written in the same fine Lustbader format with political intrigue, new high technology, and he continues his look into the Oriental mind.

This was a really stunning and thrilling book. A brutal murder in Tokyo is linked to a homicide detective. It appears to have been a warning to the doctor who is about to perform delicate surgery on Nicholas Linnear's brain... the detective turns out, as the story unfolds, to be Linnear's greatest nemesis, an amoral master of martial arts who aims to wield unspeakable power... a must-read!

It's a good book. This is the first Martial Art story I read with the mystical aspects of the Art. Bewarned! That mystical thing was all just made up. It was there for fictional purposes only.

I LOVED 'The Ninja' and 'The Miko'... 'White Ninja' is the last GREAT Nicholas Linnear novel. Nicholas faces marital troubles when his past Japanese flame returns... Very detailed descriptions of the mountains in Japan... makes you wish you were living there...

This was pathetic. I HAD TO skip some parts. It was just TOO LONG AND NOTHING HAPPENED. What was he thinking when he made this book. I think that Lustbader is running out of ideas and FAST so he puts together whatever he can and comes out with this garbage. The end was bad and the fight scenes did not make sense to me at all. I have a good imagination and I crave action but this was stupid.