Good thing they all get ONE star...
931021
This pointless drivel nearly spoiled my whole evening. God only knows how angry I'd have been if I had gone, in my car, to a cinema to watch it, instead of renting it. And if I'd taken someone I liked????... the mind boggled.
Isn't it obvious to everyone that this kind of stuff won't wash? They were still making movies about the Cold War when that great non-event was long over. Jack Lemmon once appeared in a film about "Hippies". Someone will always bring these things to us I suppose.
Watching Michael Douglas burn his books like this made me want to do the Nazi salute at him. How can he agree to do such a deeply ignorant film? Is he so short of cash?
2502647
The one star is my review of the clan novel series as a whole first of all.
Gherbod Fleming is a great Author, and his novels in the series are by far the best, and nosferatu is a good book, though I bought these books thinking that they were a SET, and I expected some sort of closure after this Thirteen book "Epic", and I was sorely dissapointed.
The fact that they left open so many loose ends in itself earns a one star rating, showing again white wolf's eagerness to get it's hand in my pocket yet unwillingness to write a decent, even PARTIALLY fulfilling Clan novel set. As an avid fan of Vtm it saddens me that they can't tie up even MOST of the loose ends they created over the span of 13 books, and the very anticlimactic (And I barely can even call it that)ending and typical "See what happens in our new products" closure left me feeling robbed and cheated. This set is nothing more than a nice shiny bag of hype with no substance, a few good stand alone novels, but also hundreds of pages of wasted space, where they introduced players who had no further roles in the story when they could instead be filling at least some of the craters in the "Plot". And now they need more money, and are releasing the clan novel anthology, along with a Tremere AND Lasombra Trilogy. Give me a break white wolf, you can't finish a story in 13 books, so instead of apologising like you should the company instead drags it on through more wallet eating novels that will be equally cryptic, uncomplete and dolled up. Don't listen to the hype, and don't expect closure. Take the money and buy the trilogy of the blood curse (Fleming did that too, and even though the third book dropped the ball a bit it's still a very good series and annihilates this putrid excuse for a clan novel series "Epic").
When I read "The outcome of these novels will effect everyone in the world of Darkness", I expect something more than a commercial for further white wolf garbage.
1336992
I could not agree more with all the negative reviews, I recommend that you read them. Dale Brown (if indeed he wrote it) has degenerated pathetically as a techno-thriller military writer--this book is the bottom of the barrel in every respect.
3357674
It's pretty much a given that if you're not Amish or in a coma, you've probably heard of the Twilight series, its author, and the three lead actors.

It's also a given that anything related to the "Twilight" series or its stars is going to sell insanely well, even if it's a piece of garbage. And unfortunately, "Fame: Twilight" IS a piece of garbage -- an omnibus of clumsy graphic novels that manage to be both surreal and boring, with wretched illustrations and absurdly excessive praise.

The comic books compiled here are about Stephenie Meyer, Kristen Stewart, Rob Pattinson and Taylor Lautner -- each one has a brief biography, a list of previous accomplishments (if any), random factoids about them, and (most prominently) their involvement in the vampire romance series and subsequent fame.

Since this is Bluewater Press -- who brought us as comics about Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama -- you pretty much know how good this comic book is. It's a blatant cash-in, with "quality" ranking somewhere around tenth place. Most of each comic book is a mass of pasted-together quotations from various interviews, and mundane facts that only the most obsessed fans care about (Stewart plays guitar!).

These are threaded on a slow-moving, clunky narrative which tries to be breathlessly melodramatic ("Stephenie was 21 when she married Christian... also known as PANCHO"). The actual facts are pretty generic, but tarted up with really bad prose ("... his stunning, marblesque features and an ability to sparkle" -- marblesque?).

And every single one engages in wild hyperbole to some degree, insisting that Kristin Stewart is some sort of wild James-Dean-esque rebel and that Taylor Lautner is a "real life superhero."

Additionally, the art is just awful. The Lautner comic is the best of the bunch -- being merely bland -- but Pattinson and Stewart's faces change with every panel, and Meyers has an evil grin, sinister eyebrows, freakishly tiny hands, and she looks EXACTLY the same from the age of four onward. Most other people look like circus freaks, and Meyers' boring life is spiced up with some hilariously awful artistic conceits (a map of Utah appeared in her hand... for no reason).

"Fame: Twilight" is a blatant, painfully inept cash-grab, apparently slapped together in the hopes that Twilight fans are so fanatical that they will buy literally anything, no matter how bad it is.
573393
In short, these last 3 were just god awful.

The 2nd set that features the kids was "ok", except that they're a bunch of jerks.

This series though, geez. About 30 different scenarios, childish dialogue, and not worth your time.

The only good part is the 2nd epilogue in book 9. If you can get these with the free lending library, just download the last one. At least the first set one real villain and those story.
3328260
All the CD writing stuff aside, let's concentrate on the music.  Can you say take a good thing too far?  Supernatural was really good. Shamam was OK, but trending down.  Now 'pop' goes Santana.  What a horrible bunch of rubbish.  The songs with his band are OK, but nothing really new.  The duet with Stephen Tyler is the most restrained I've ever heard him.  The instrumental with Robert Randolph and Kirk Hammet is good, but way too short and it fades out at the end!  Los Lonely Boys add something, which saves it from one star.  But all this bubblegum, teenybopper pop er'  K-rap  can go.  Don't buy it.  You can have mine!
1091622
"The Evenings" may or may not be the worst book I've ever read, but it is certainly in the running for that prize (my real rating is "zero stars" -- perhaps "minus five stars" for the waste of time and money).  Always on the look-out for the all-too-rare translations of Dutch novelists (e.g., the fine but neglected Hermans, Mulisch, Multatuli, et al.), I pounced on this translation of Gerard Reve title as soon as I saw it.  The Tim Parks and Lydia Davis jacket blurbs gave reassurance that I would be "breathless right through the grand finale" (Parks) and that this "important classic" would prove "funny" and "peculiar" (Davis).  Peculiarly bad, perhaps?  Maybe these blurbs were accommodations for fellow-translator Sam Garrett -- but they certainly cannot accurately describe this ghastly, boring, pointless book.  On the basis of Parks's and Davis's recommendations, I kept reading to the end, imagining (hoping) that the numbing repetitiveness would lead somewhere . . . anywhere.  Parks must have a very different sense of what makes for a "grand finale."  What lapses of taste and judgment must have led two respected writer-reviewers to lend their names to this travesty of a novel, one can only wonder.  I fear I must now take Parks's and Davis's reviews cum grano salis.  As for Reve's book:  what shapeless, repetitive, self-indulgent twaddle.
2336482
First off, there are lots of spoilers, so beware.

This book is just a continuation of everything that's wrong with the entire Fate of the Jedi series.  They have so many plots going on throughout, that everything is random and disjointed.  For the most part common sense has been thrown out of the window, and characters make decisions not based on their sound logic, but instead to propel the proposterous plots.  The "crazed Jedi" was a dead give away that this series was going to be crummy.  These Jedi who are being mentally affected by an ancient and purely evil being known as Abeloth, conveniently think that everyone else in the world is an impostor.  They don't know how they know, but they do.  Of course, by the time Conviction comes around, they can somehow differentiate between real people and "impostors", based solely off of which is convenient to keep the story going.  But what's that?  The Sith are back?  Oh boy.  Of course, that's not enough for a story line of it's own (sarcasm), so we'll just toss it into the many themes of the FOTJ series.  On top of that, since Ben Skywalker is now a teenager who needs a love interest, let's make one of the Sith a teenage girl who happens to get stuck with him and his father on their quest to rid the galaxy of Abeloth.  Hmmm, what else can we throw in to this whole pot of "WTF Stew"?  Oooh, I know.  How about two separate coups against Chief of State Daala (one by the Jedi, and one by pro-Imperial conspirators) and things will surely be fun.  Also, the annoying ramblings of Tenel Ka's daughter, an incredibly in depth trial of Tahiri Veila (complete with prison antics), Mandalorian war crimes, the life and times of HoloNews journalists, the love and drama of Jaina and Jag plus Zekk and his new girl, and dozens of other obscure and random themes from the Star Wars galaxy can all be found, crammed into this one series.  In all, it is all used to fill up the pages of the books so that by the end of every one, you've really made very little progress and are left scratching your head, wondering how on Earth you got so far off course, and accomplished so very little.
2480161
as one reader has already posted....I have been reading sci-fi for 60 years and although that does not make me an expert in writing, I think that these books have failed on one important aspect.  There is only one character that is good and not a complete idiot.  Mya.  And she is only six years old.  Jaxx is a mystery wrapped in an enigma etc...Drew is an idiot not a genious, and so it goes with the rest as well.  I finally got disgusted and quit reading this seeing no hope for the series.  usually by the third book the characters begin  or are well on their way to sorting themselves out--not this time.  I bought 3 of these...I will not be buying more.
3036562
If I could give this CD zero, or a negative amount, of stars, I would.  Of all the terrible bands to emerge in the past 40 years, and there are alot of them (Aerosmith, The Ataris,Coldplay) they rank among the worst of the worst.  If Poison was considered pop-rock 15 years ago, then The Starting line is flat out bubblegum.  The songs are all the same, same formulas, same themes.  No real instrumental talent can be found; and the catchy songs are forgettable.  Also, all these songs have pretty much been performed by countless other bands.  The lead singer is totally a word that rhymes with maggot.  And as for that one dude that sings back up vocals, well he's just dreamy, i mean, nevermind.  Look for this band to be on the Rock vs. Pop Reunion tour in 2023 with The Backstreet Boys and Warrant.
3166566
If you were hoping to pick up this book to reconnect with some old Wildstorm standbys, forget it. DC, when given the full rights to two WIldstorm team characters, WildCATS and Gen 13, could have give us a fun wild book that gave each character a chance to shine. Instead this Almost Gen 13 right down to the Origin story is a pathetic, meandering mess with no fun and bad characterization. Caitlin Fairchild is not the character literally everyone remembers with from their years of pedaling down to the strip mall to pick up her adventures, Deathstroke is treated like a psychopath's mary sue, and those WildCATS characters? Little more than cameos prior to their own ruthless stupid murder. DC once again proves their utter incompetence with any of their non native properties. Still, there's hope on the horizon, Captain Marvel's book ain't so bad these days so I guess that means the Wildstorm characters will get their proper respect in...what? 65 years? I lack that kind of patience and so should you.
2225851
Every boring stereotype glommed into one book. Let's see... the hero is a self-healing, devastatingly handsome alien who is really black ops and under cover as a serial-cheating, pro-football player. The heroine is an emotionally-hurt-since-childhood assassin who's every word and action has to do with ripping some body part off of someone... but wait, she's also a physician and former agent.  Together they are either killing something or having sex. Yes, that's it, the whole story in a nutshell. Could this be any more laughable?  Zero plot, just one-dimensional characters and constant combative babble.  Disguises how really violent it is with humor and fantasy. Has the depth of a video-game, if that's all you are looking for.  Most books are recycled. This one went straight to trash.
157238
First, I'd like to tell the authors that after reading this book,  each of you owe me a few hours of my time which disappeared, worthlessly, from my life.

What starts out as a great idea - a gaggle of writers each crafting a chapter of a novel - quickly crashes into a confusing, poorly played game of "telephone."

You know "telephone" - the kids' game where one whispers something to the person next to him or her and the words circle the room, ending in an incomprehensible string of gibberish?

Naked Came the Manatee is a hobo stew of styles, with each writer leading us through silly plot moves and adding their own characters.

While reading each of these authors might be fun, their collective sum only reveals a bookfull of defective parts.
3033445
Characters repeatedly did stupid things....not worth my time to list them all. Totally unbelievable behavior.....these were supposed to be bright people. An irritating waste of time.
4221103
Some of the Stories where ok and some of them were just plain bad. But they did have one thing in common... They were all about nothing. No true endings, not much character development, and no real point. I wish I had never bought the book. It just was not worth it.
4591115
I found it amusing that so many of the characters involved in this movie kept asking what's happening, why is this happening, what's going on?  I gave up wondering "why" after the first installment in this conspiracy series.  There is no purpose other than to keep repeating the same story, filled with the same types of characters doing exactly the same things for the same reasons.  It's amazing how many times they fill the same control room with the same people hunting down the same guy, having the same fearless leader order their death and no one bats an eye.  Considering their proclivity for murdering their own people, what's their job security like?  And what idiot would work for someone who's willing to kill their own!?  This goes way beyond throwing someone under the bus.

At this point, I have to say enough is enough.  This film is basically just one long, extended, endless, chase sequence.  Worse.  They present this version (of the same story!) in miniscule snippets that leave it feeling like a trailer teaser.  This miserable story jumps all over the place (and time) and is doled out with such secrecy that when it abruptly ended I was left with the sense that nothing was really accomplished.  This movie is filled with nothing but continuous subterfuge.  Liars lying to liars about secret programs and "sin eaters," chromosome alterations, paid assassins belonging to heretofore unheard of secret programs, all with nifty names and decoder rings!  It's maddening.  It didn't help that the new bad guy (Edward Norton) was remarkably ineffectual as a mastermind.  The actor has no presence, especially when going toe to toe with someone like Stacy Keach.  The wolf was more menacing, and look what happened to it!
I will say the house `swarming' sequence was fun.  But this is the end of the line for me.  I can't imagine wanting to watch Jeremy Renner or Matt Damon running for their lives again in Bourne Whatever.
1981614
All this book is is a half-assed melding of several other much better works into one publication. Nothing new or even remotely helpful. Exerpts from Gentile's "One Man Air Force" and Godfrey's autobiography abound. If that's what you're looking for, just buy the originals. Waste of time, money and space on your bookshelf.