Steve Gross
Weird, florid writing. Cardboard characters with one of them being downright racist. Alex Hawke has nothing interesting about him.
1100 pages of classic Michener. As with most of his books, the last chapter, set in modern times (1985 in this case), is somewhat weaker than the others.
Dense and tedious. I appreciate the amount of research the author must have done, but sometimes, less is more. Too many characters. The writing is often awkward. Coolidge does not come across as an interesting or sympathetic person.
Charles Murray does his usual magnificent job in amassing and interpreting social science data to draw some somber conclusions about what's happening to America and what the future may hold. Lots and lots to think about. Highly Recommended!
Delightful book but the new English translation is sometimes jarring, mixing 1900's language with 20th century slang.
Pretty good description of the history of Bell Labs. Mostly focuses on the Labs through a half dozen brilliant and colorful individuals. A couple of flaws prevented a better rating: a fair amount of repetition, as if some chapters were once independent pieces; a curious omission of certain stories, such as Penzias's and Wilson's discovery of the Big Bang cosmic background radiation discovery. I worked in Holmdel for almost 20 years and never once heard the facility described as “The Big Box”. Also concludes with a rather bllitering chapter on “What is Innovation” that doesn't say much.
Lots of interesting thoughts about human behavior. The writing style is breezy and easy to understand but suffers from typical “soft” science writing - invent a concept and then name it; for example, let's call this “fixated framework theory”.
The author is not telling the whole story - shown by internal contradictions, outside sources and reading between the lines. Still, a glimpse into a closed world.
The plot does not hang together fora legal thriller. Too much time is spent rehashing non-important details. Nothing interesting here.
Originally published as “The Last Assassin”. John Rain #5. Worthy addition to the series.
Well-written thriller featuring Egyptology, cutting-edge science and paranormal stuff. I really don't like paranormal stuff.
