Derek Lawrie

It's just as much about the loss of a parent as it is about time-travel. Having said that the science fiction elements are very well crafted.

you can see what the latter books would become in this early one. The Jewish basketball star, successful partner, the quick referential humour etc. but it just doesn't work as well as the later books, or even any of the early Myron Bolitar ones.
Enjoyable, just not great.

enjoyable as usual, but quite light.

Still yet to find a Reacher book that I didn't really enjoy.

Not sure if I should have enjoyed this or not, but I did. I'm sure everyone sees a little of themselves in Bob Hares checklists. The David Shayler chapter was a surprise and all the better for it, I knew nothing about him after the MI5 stuff.

Absolutely fantastic, think this may be the best of the Culture novels that I have read so far. Given what's happened today it'll be remembered all the more fondly.

Much better than the previous Jack Reacher book, in fact this was for me one of the best of all of them that I've read (so far). My only grumble is the dubious and somewhat cliched view of Norfolk when they drive up from London. STarts off of ok and geographically corrct but they bomb it up to, and past, Thetford without mentioning the horrendous single lane nightmare (currently anyway, it is being changed) that is the Elveden estate, or the fact that you have to stop at a roundabout every half mile around Thetford, then claiming that the road narrowed out to single track! It's faster than most of the M11 at that point! Oh and this isn't the Fens, you might have guessed I live in the area, yes it's quite flat but's NOT as flat as parts of Lincolnshire the way Child makes it out to be. Oh and getting a good sized double room with a bath at the “only pub for miles” for £40!!! Be serious. I know it's fiction, but Child is an Englishman, he surely knows he is writing cliche ridden nonsense, it does make me wonder about his descriptions of the US are they as bad? I have no clue having never been there. Rant over, it is actually a really good book :)

i don't doubt for a minute that the music industry is portrayed pretty accurately in this book, at least as it was in the 90s. Yes it all goes too far too be properly realistic, in a proper American Psycho way, it's quite like that book to be honest, just set a decade later and in a different industry. It'll be quite interesting to see how they make it into a film.

Would of given a perfect rating, but it did have a tendency to go on a bit and man a few unnecessary side stories in. Still the story itself was actually pretty good and completely not what I was expecting, thought it was going to be a much more straight forward police procedural. Would make a good film if it was edited down a bit.

Absolutely loved it, as much as Fight Club or Survivor and perhaps a little more so than Choke (which is still excellent). I want to give it almost five stars, it isn't perfect, as I feel it's better than only four!

Exactly what you'd expect given its title.

Interesting

Hoping for something more from this, I like the alternate history stuff, especially WWII based ones, bit disappointed.

Unrelentingly grim, still loved it.

Loved it, if you were raised in the 80's and were into videogames and pop culture then the likelihood is that you will love it too.

not his greatest, but still pretty funny, the governor and chemo both needed more time in it though.

As usual from Harris it's an enjoyable thriller, the last quarter dropped a little into a Hollywood cliche, but it was never going to be perfect (ie he's never been better than Fatherland and Enigma, so more WWII please!)

Excellent reference, maybe could do with some more discussion, but invaluable to Moodle developers nonetheless.

Not as well wrapped up as the first one, but still quite enjoyable, although the final chapter does read a bit like one of those “stay tuned for scenes from our next episode” bits at the end of US tv shows.

Good stuff, although obviously not aimed at someone my age (or sex probably) I still enjoyed it, just felt I should read it before I see the film.

Written in the same style as Conan Doyles originals and eminently enjoyable, not sure how they could wangle any more novels out of it though?

One of, possibly the, best of the Rebus novels I've read so far. I don't know if it's the integration of all of the Bible John stuff or how much the Rebus character breaks down during the case that makes it so good.
If you enjoy any of the Rebus books then you will definitely like this one.

Mildly useful, unfortunately eclipsed by the majority of Moodle 2, still some of it was quite useful where we are still using 1.9. Having said that it's not terrifically well written or thought out, several times I had to refer to the completed code that was provided to see where new material was supposed to actually go!

I quite enjoyed this, but I can see it wouldn't be for everyone.

If you are at all geeky then the sideplot of the network building from trash into some socialist utopian ideal of how everyone should get the internet fix will entertain. The main plot about the only seemingly normal(ish) member of a family who've left home is well, quite odd. His father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine. One of his brothers is a psychic, one is an island and three others are like Russian dolls fitting inside each other. The last one is a psychopath who has already been killed once.

Writing that down it seems even more weird than it actually is but there go.

As usual its an above standard Reacher novel, I've yet to read a duff one (some are a bit more average).
As someone else has noted it is quite odd that Jack refers to his watch constantly in this book yet in previous novels he just knows what time time it is from his internal clock. Doesn't detract from the book though.
I've got to get past the one thats being currently filmed so the whole Reacher series isn't ruined for me by Tom Cruise.