Sunday 17 August 2008

Ultimate Weapon by Chris Ryan

I've become very suspicious of any book with Chris' name on the cover these days. The publishers are ghost writing so many books these days and Mr Ryan is apparently writing one book a week that you never know if he really did write it.


Fortunately in this case is does not matter. The book is excellent. It's a high action adventure, where a retired SAS man gets roped back into service for one last mission. This old man is such a joy to read. He's cantankerous, unpleasant and self reliant and just such a perfect model of what your hero shouldn't be that he really brings to the book to life.

All in all this book was really fun to read, high adventure in the SAS novel tradition, it even gives an alternate reason for the Gulf 2 conflict!

If you like military adventure then I highly recommend this one.

8/10

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Infinity Concerto - Greg Bear






I hate Greg Bear. I never used to hate him, but now I do. the first book by him that I ever read was called simply "Eon" which was a fantastic Sci Fi book. Absolutely great. then I read the sequel to "Eon" which was not so good but a passable sequel.

Then I read a couple of his other books, none of which reached the heights of the Eon sequel...

Then I read this book, "Infinity Concerto". In short I was totally disapointed.

The story revolves around a young man who gets encouraged to enter another world thats hidden from our world. There he encounters other races, and finds humans subjugated to their power. He goes through the standard hero's journey until you get to the last quarter of the book.

At this point Bear seems to have lost the will and started making up nonsence and writing tripe!

The books ending seemed to pay no heed whatsoever to the main characters journey. Why go through all of this "training" this experience, and it have no relevance to the end game. Was it only there to fill pages?

I'm very disapointed and I don't think I will be reading another "Bear" book. That said, I would recommend "Eon".

2/10