Jeff
An enjoyable story with a predictable outcome but well-written so that you still like the ride. I'll be reading the rest of the book in this series.
Excellent behind the scenes look at one of the most popular movie trilogies ever! Not only does it contain some great history of the trilogy, captured in recollections from cast and crew and photos of how certain special effects were accomplished, but it is also full of removable memorabilia and souveniers. I, of course, did not remove ANY of them, choosing to have them remain in place within the book. I like to have the collection be complete.
If you liked the Back to the Future trilogy, you'll want this book for your personal library.
Held my interest enough to make me want to finish the story, but not enough to entice me to read the remainder of the series.
I've been reading Matthew Mather's work since his first book, “CyberStorm”, followed by “The Atopia Chronicles” and “The Dystopia Chronicles”, and it is easy to see with “DarkNet” that his impressive skills as a writer continue to improve with each succeeding book.
Jake O'Connell, a New York stock broker, finds himself in a life or death struggle to discover the secret of, and overcome, the BlueBridge corporation as his life crumbles around him and his closest friends are murdered and his young daughter is kidnapped. He must travel to his past to find the tools to answer the questions of how he can defeat a foe that uses Artificial Intelligence, the Internet and human assassins to achieve its goals. With a group of hackers from across the globe, Jake risks everything, including his daughter's life, on his plan to stop the world domination that BlueBridge is intent on accomplishing.
“DarkNet” is real page-turner that readers will find difficult to put down. It is action-packed from the first page to the last with characters that you care about. Mather is adept at taking everyday people and putting them in a setting is both outlandish yet believable. His settings involving computers and the Internet are cutting-edge in their presentations; after all, we've seen these scenarios hinted at on the nightly newscasts and web broadcasts. These are all events that COULD occur any moment, if they haven't already.
I highly recommend “DarkNet” to readers who enjoy intelligent, action-filled thrillers that explore our very near future.
I received a Kindle format Advance Reading Copy for an honest review.
Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security
Your roadmap
I'm pretty sure I have my path laid out. But there are so many possibilities depending on your unique circumstances that it is prudent for everyone to read this book and plot your best path when it comes to claiming your social security benefits.
I read this book 5 or 6 years ago when it was first published and felt the need to read it again a couple of weeks ago.
If you're a good friend of mine then you know that I love ANYTHING written by Neil Gaiman and have ever since I first discovered his writing when someone recommended I read “Neverwhere” about 25 years ago.
The View From the Cheap Seats is a collection of forewords, prefaces, or introductions to books he has written; a compendium of introductions of other famous people he has written and verbally presented at Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Comic Book conventions; articles he has written about people, books, music, and even the Syrian refugee crisis; as well as a smattering of work he did early on as a journalist before becoming a writer of fiction. (His Lou Reed interview was astonishing in the depth of his knowledge of Reed's music, and the fact that he asked questions in such a way that Reed did not hang up on him, as he had done with so many journalists, but rather stayed on right up until he HAD to go be on stage for a concert he was giving.)
And as much as I have loved his novels, short stories, and other works of fiction (even his “children's” books), The View From the Cheap Seats holds an entirely different level of love from me for his writing for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost; when I read his works of fiction I ‘hear” his characters' voices, inflections, tones, etc. based on either what he has written about them and how they speak or, if I have to imagine the characters voices, it is because he has described the character in ways that I assign a certain voice to them. I think we all do that in our heads, whether we actively think about it or not.
When I read this collection, every little bit is in Neil Gaiman's voice which I love to listen to for some reason. It may be the accent, but I think it is probably more because he is as careful and yet delightfully free with his spoken words as he is with his written ones. Some people can speak so eloquently and yet that eloquence never makes it into their written words, others have the exact opposite problem. Neil Gaiman has mastered both.
Secondly, we learn so much about his personal life; his youth, his likes and dislikes, people he has known, why he likes some things and doesn't like others, how he views people and the world and more importantly, himself. When he writes a movie review, an author dedication or a preface to another writer's book I find myself either comparing my takeaway or making notes of the title or author or writer so I can remember to look into each of those myself to see what I can come away from them feeling after I'm done. Will I feel the same? Or will I have a different view? Will I find what he found, or will I miss it altogether?
If you have not yet read The View From the Cheap Seats, I wholeheartedly recommend you do so, especially if you're a Neil Gaiman fan. And if you've already read it, do what I did and re-read it again. Like the majority of Neil Gaiman's work, it is as good as or better the second time around.
Couldn't endure more than the first 20 pages and gave up. I usually try to keep reading a book to give it a fair chance, but not with this one.
A Fun Romp Through Time
If you're a fan of time travel stories, this one should make you want to go back and read it again. A fun story (for the most part) with characters you'd like to know in your own life and some great plot twists to keep you trying to figure out how it turns out.
A heartbreaking look at the childhood of this wonderful actor and the joy of his successful struggle to overcome the effects the mental illness of his father played in his younger life.
Keeps Getting Better!
Another excellent story in The Expanse series and the crew of the Roci. Most “series” books have ups and downs but this series is always top notch.
Common sense viewpoint and statements illustrated by the author's life experiences in a short, easy-to-read format. Recommended for all.
It's too bad because this could have been a good story, but grammatical errors, misspelled and misused words (it's “moot” not “mute”), and a crappy ending ruined it.
An enjoyable, easy read. I like stories that involve or center around strong women and Ms. Wallace writes them well.
Book Review-The Girl On The Train
I give “The Girl On The Train” a high rating because it engages you in a classic “whodunit” with skill. I found it hard to put the book down on that basis. I desperately wanted to finish this book, but only to find out who the murderer turned out to be.
However, I found the story and characters to be a disappoinment.
The story is confusing at first (and even at some points later in the book) as it is structured in a sort of flip/flop narrative going backward in time with the characters and their accounts of events. Even with the chapters clearly labeled as to character's point of view and time in which the event(s) occurred, I found myself constantly resetting my mind and sometimes having to flip back to a previous chapter in order to coordinate my view of the timeline. I thought there might be a reason revealed for that type of structure later in the story or at least by the conclusion, but there never was one that I could see.
The characters are a problem because EVERYONE is a suspect. There's never, other than the 1 year-old baby, anyone who is ruled out until you're three quarters of the way through the story. Part of the reason for this is that every one in this story, again, other than the 1 year-old baby, is a pathological liar. One character just lies for the hell of it, even if there's no “reason” to, but all of them lie and cheat. All of these people are broken or badly cracked and have few, if any, redeeming qualities.
I get that people are like that; all of us probably are at some points in our lives, but to have every character be like that through an entire months-long event and story is just damn depressing. There's no character who has much in the way of redeeming qualities, not even the protagonist. The one small bit of inspirational behavior only takes place in the last 8 pages of the story. All I could think throughout the story was, “I hope to Hell I never have everyone in my life be like this.”
To end on a positive note, I will say that the author seemed to nail the alcoholic behavior of the protagonist right on the head. Growing up with an alcoholic father until the age of 13 and having been in a relationship with an alcoholic woman for about 2 years, I felt like I was reliving some of those less than pleasant memories because Ms. Hawkins was spot on in writing that character.
Since “The Girl On The Train” has now held the number one spot on the U.S. bestsellers list for the eleventh consecutive week, my feelings are obviously not those of the general public, so if you've been wanting to read this book, don't let my review put you off. As I wrote at the beginning, it IS a classic “whodunit” and if you can see it differently than I did you may find it to be an enjoyable read.
Decent, one-plot story but the super-testosterone title character is over the top and the multiple spelling and punctuation errors are too distracting.
I've never read Blake's already-established protagonist Jet before, so this “prequel” of how the character came to be seemed like a great starting point, and it was.
If you enjoy action thrillers then you'll love this book. The plot was typical, yet very well done; the characters are believable, if over the top, but in this type of story they should be and the pace keeps you interested.
I'll definitely be reading the rest of the Jet stories in the future.
It was a lot of fun to read of the further adventures of Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln, and Isis as they travel to the future of the Enterprise to try and prevent the assassination of Mr. Spock.
This is an excellent sequel to Mather's first book in the series, The Atopian Chronicles.
The Dystopian Chronicles begins where The Atopian Chronicles left off, and we're reunited with the characters we met in that first book as the story progresses. It's a rollercoaster ride of action and digital dissonance as the characters move back and forth from virtual to physical planes of existence and the secret behind Jimmy and his rise to power is finally revealed.
I will admit to being occasionally lost, or at least slightly confused, as the story moved through conundrums of occurrences, but that is no reflection on author Mather, just on this reader. Mr. Mather superbly brings everything to a logical and satisfying conclusion, wrapping up all the various threads into one neat, nice piece of work.
This, along with its predecessor, is an excellent read that will keep you engaged. I highly recommend The Dystopian Chronicles and look forward to the next book in the series.
I received a free ARC of this book for reviewing purposes.
Nice to have the background of one of The Expanse's most intriguing characters. It's the broken ones putting themselves back together that always garner my highest attention.
I loved the book; the story, the plot, the characters, and the writing.
I did NOT like the ending!
I'm probably old-fashioned, but I like to see the “bad guy” get their just punishment. I didn't see that and it was very disappointing because if there was ever a “bad guy” who deserved it, it was this one.
A very uneven book and it took me reading more than halfway through it before it caused some interest to grow. The best parts were those involving Sherlock Holmes and I will admit I did not guess the perpetrator's identity until it was revealed.