Two stars for a great concept that should have been realized in one book.
926607
When I read the back of the first book in this series I had visions in my head of great storytelling in an exciting and vibrant new Sci-Fi universe.  What I got was a lot of odds and ends. There is simply too much detail in these books about things that should be going on in the background and not interfering with the pace of the story to make them enjoyable to me. For example there are numerous Military and Political meetings and situations, planning, talking and preparing for things about to happen instead of those things actually happening. After 200 pages in the first book the only difference is that the main character is now having breifings on a military transport instead of a military base.

Alien invasion is one of my favorite genres and I had such hope for the books in the series, especially after reading the synopsis on the back of them, that I bought three more, thinking that the pacing had to have improved. It did not. I spent most of my time flipping pages to try and find something that would capture my attention so I could start reading every single page only to be frustrated by the minutiae of military and political life.

If that's your thing you will love these books as the detail is well done, if not I cannot recommend them.
4202511
This was a great idea for a book and it's too bad that Mr. Schoch decided not to write it.  Some of the ideas about solar events, the way the plasma manifested in the sky as it relates to ancient petroglyphs is fascinating.  Mr. Schoch spent very little time in this space however (in spite of the book's title).  Instead we got a brief, incomplete overview coupled with a survey of every piece of fringe science out there from the memory of water, to quantum entanglement to telepathy.  There was the obligatory chapter on his work with the Sphinx of course.  It always comes back to the Sphinx with this guy.  Not an original thought in the book, but there was plenty of promotion of fringe science, especially the work of Paul LaViolette whose confusing and widely ignored and self-published work got several chapters.

I gave the book 3 stars for its entertainment value and docked it two for not staying on point.  This is still a great and fascinating subject.  I wish Mr. Schoch thought so too.
1636537
I loved the idea of this book--Anne Bonny's story--but there are so many shortcomings in it. Apparently it is based either on a screenplay or on a viewing of a movie about Anne Bonny, probably the best-known of the women pirates, and it reads as such. The writing is journey-manlike and plain. So much more could have been done with this! It is a marvelous story--and that's why I'm giving it 3 stars. It reminds me of the 7-9th grade level reading books, only with more violence in the story.

The cover art is great--one reason I was interested in this book--but as they say, you can't tell a book by its cover. I would love to see the author take this story and flesh it out. While it does help give some definition and personality to Anne, as well as Calico Jack and Mary Read, it is not really a satisfying read.

It's really a shame, because the tale itself has a lot of potential. It just doesn't quite deliver. An "OK" read, with average writing. The story itself makes me give it 4 stars. Originally I rated it 3 stars, but I appreciate the effort the author put into this book.
3116149
This is a book that could have been great. The concept is compelling: a storm is brewing at a distance between those who embrace change, embrace technology and innovation, whom she calls dynamists, and those who fear change, believe it's corrosive on our way of life, and, like the Unabomber, want to stifle technological innovation and revert us all back to an agrarian, self-sufficient society, in effect. An eclectic mix of political factions -- the Pat Buchanan anti-free-traders, the Al Gore environmentalists, the Ralph Nader anti-industrialists, Bill Bennett cultural conservatives, the Hillary Clinton technocrats (who want to fiddle with everything to make it "better", Theodore Kaczynski luddites, and others are awkwardly but inevitably coalescing into a new party or faction that will oppose/is opposing the free development of technology and the like, ostensibly to protect consumers and in their minds, to protect a "status quo" standard of living or way of live, that in their mind is superior to whatever may lie
 ahead. In contrast, a separate cast of political factions -- Milton Friedman freemarketeers, "genomic" liberals (who want free rein in biotech research), Harry Browne libertarians, Cher social-liberal types, militant Timothy McVeigh federalists, the Howard Schultz entrepreneurs, investment bankers, and others. Weird bedfellows, to be sure. But recent protests at
WTO conferences, acts of sabotage by Earth Liberation Front cells, the popularity of isolationist rhetoric by Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan here and counterparts abroad are symptomatic of an escalating tension driven by the accelerating adoption of technology worldwide. Things are moving fast, and not everyone
  is comfortable.
The author argues that dynamism, the label she gives the pro-technology/pro-progress faction, is innate in each of us: we crave learning, and trial and error is part of learning, and technology is a logical result of trial and error, starting
  with early man's need to make stone tools all the way to a young engineer's need today to build a better ultralight aircraft. Much of what we do is utilitarian, but the author makes a forceful argument that play, or challenging ourselves
  just for the sake of challenging ourselves, is innate in each of us and thus argues that the dynamic path, not the stasist (status quo/anti-progress) path,
is our natural destiny. The implications for all of this are profound, and it will be fascinating to watch existing centers of power grapple with this issue as the transition to the "new order" oriented around this issue will be awkward and contentious, but I would agree the day is inevitable
  when this issue will be front and center.
My main, and significant, problem with this book is the quality of the writing: it meanders, could be more forceful, seems unclear in its purpose at times, and misses many opportunities to make earth-shattering points. For this reason, it's not a super-page-turner, but rather is something that can be power-read without missing important pieces of learning.
752002
I loved the idea of&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/One-Second-After-A-John-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765317583/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">One Second After (A John Matherson Novel)</a>. The concept is similar to the short-lived TV series, Jericho, which I also thought was a great idea. Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of the author's writing style. I think he did a fairly decent job of telling a story, but there were far too many lines of dialogue and actions that I felt were juvenile and not inline with what the characters would actually do or say. The scale of the disaster, as told in this novel, is too small to really allow us to feel like we're a part of it. We never really get to know the secondary characters enough for us to even care about them. So, although I loved the idea, the book really fails to live up to its potential.
320374
I didn't finish reading this book but I certainly tried hard to. The concept is great and I really think the author could have done so much more with it. I get it: if we had 10,000 lives to live we'd all get it right but we only have one life to live so do something about that one life you have to live. There are so many other (fantastically written) books that have that concept and you'll get a lot more out of than this one. I found the story to be forced and the dialog and character development dreadfully cliche.  The main character, after living 9,995 lives, still seems like a selfish self-indulgent immature egotistical child.  And the fact that he must do something "perfect" in one of his lives or else he fades into nothing is just not good story writing. No one's perfect with one life! The back of the book says it has the "kindred spirit of Douglas Adams" and while that's true in the writing style, it's not true in the sheer wit and interesting paths that Adams would take throughout his books. Adams can hold a reader through the biggest random tangent and this book should never be compared to Adams. I kind of wish Adams had written it because it truly is an interesting concept. Do yourself a favor, if you're pondering about our purpose in life and the meaning of it all and want a book to leave you with tons of feelings after you read it, read the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series instead.
1492360
I mean come on. Zombies fighting vampires as they work on a human breeding program? It's a fantastically awesome idea. The ideas were great, the implementation just fell flat for me though. I thought the complaints about overly descriptive writing was an exaggeration. It wasn't, every few paragraphs and the story just derails to use vague imagery to describe what's going on. Worse, there just wasn't enough going on for me. Too much a book of poetry that occasionally showed flashes of a brilliant concept for a zombie novel. That said, I gave it two stars instead of one because the style might not bother some people, and others might actually enjoy it. And if that's the case I imagine the book would be a fun read.
4411207
This could have been, and should have been, a glorious book. The concept is brilliant, enticing the reader with great expectations of a rigorous and romantic adventure.
But the author's flaws are evident throughout. Lack of literary discipline, uneven caliber of research, arrogant denigration of the reader (not to mention half of the United States) all contribute to the delustering of extraordinary promise.
The result is so juvenile that I kept wondering why the editor allowed such travesty. Why, for example, allow the finished product to trash the very people who, in so many generous ways, contributed to the trip's success? And why not include more maps as well as relevant photographs? Traversing Rocky Ridge screamed for photographs as did Dempsey Pass, Pacific Springs and others. A few maps and photos would have added immeasurably to the reader's experience. Rinker had the self-attested skill.
The author refers to "braying" cattle more than once. Cattle do not "bray."  They might "moo, bawl, low or bellow," but they do not "bray." Donkeys "bray." This error should have been easily caught, and after months traversing the West, the author should have known better.  It makes me wonder what else is wrong in this book.
Others have described the egregious vulgarity, and the "daddy issues" of a sixty-year-old man, so I won't go there.  However, there WAS nobility in this book. The mules were noble, better by far than the two humans they pulled across the continent.  When Rinker Buck refers to himself, in Chapter One as a "jackass," it is probably the truest sentence in the book with the possible exception of Chapter Eight, where he refers to himself as the "possible top of the d***head heap."
Such a waste!
4918174
I must say, I really wanted to like this book.  Before I say why I did not like it all that much, I'll give the positives.  The author is extremely good at writing dialogue, which is very rare in a "Star Trek" book.  The author also does a good job of setting up the potential for a really good story.
I was really hoping for a genre-bender here, given the cover and description of the book--something between Original "Trek" and "The X-Files."  Instead, the book is filled with self-referencing "Star Trek" trivia that span far more than the Original Series.  There's some "Enterprise," some "Deep Space Nine," and some "Voyager."  Not what I would call Original "Trek."  Instead of all this self-referencing there could have been a really cool and original story about the crew of the Enterprise encountering Gray aliens, Men in Black, and flying saucers.  Spock could have been abducted and given an implant.  Chekov could have received an anal probe, which would have allowed for his trademark scream.  Seriously, this could have been a really great book mixing the "Star Trek" and ufology mythologies.  But no, just self-referencing.  And talking in place of action, telling instead of showing, for hundreds of pages.
I can write a better "Star Trek" novel and someday I intend to prove it.
480362
Good concept.  Mediocre execution.  Seems this writer took the original idea of the first book and split it into two books.  My impression is that the author also has trouble coming up with resolute endings.  I appreciate a cliff hanger, but at some point there needs to be an idea of a conclusion.  The ending of this book leaves a lot to interpretation and detailed knowledge of the events of the first books ending.  Even still the plot is left hanging there.
57975
I think book two and book 3 could have been combined into one book . Book to didn't have enough content .
4477238
First, let me explain that I thought the idea behind this book was excellent - attempting to help parents relate to their newborns, helping them to cope with the staggering change introduced into their lives, and finally, helping baby adapt to OUR lifestyle, and not so much the other way around.
The problems arise when I came to realize that Ms Hogg's writing style can easily lead one to believe that each baby can be categorized neatly and cleanly into one of four types; the round-peg-round-hole syndrome is the first step, in every other book I've read, to parental frustration and can lead to a dangerous situation if the parent becomes despondent or depressed with the situation.  One parent who read the book told me, "I felt as though I had been dealt a hand of blank cards, and all the other parents were playing with a proper deck."  I hope the readers of this review understand where this is going.
The idea that parents of colicky babies can also benefit substantially from this book is also, in my estimation, misleading.  Yes, the regimen that is given us CAN work for the baby with colic, but the price paid for traveling that particular line may be too dear - very few saints, much less parents, have the patience and inner solitude required to soothe all players in the house during a particularly bad period of colic.  Let's not forget - it's not just Baby and Me - I have a spouse, I have other children to think of too.
Don't get me wrong - the book is full of insight, and Ms Hogg is, by all appearances, a very wise and well-read woman.  But at times, while reading this, I was under the impression (perhaps mis-led), that the baby is looked at as a machine or a toy to be maintained.  I found myself catering to this pitch as well.
Far too often, we all look at children as things, vice people.  Read the book from cover to cover before attempting to take the program up; if it sounds like it would work for you, then press ahead with it.  If not, then abandon the book.  Books can be replaced; our children cannot.
2434547
This was a great idea for a book - but the story of his journey only makes up about fifty percent of it. In the other half he discusses his philosophy on exercise, dieting, and various anecdotes about this and that, with the last half of the book dispensing recipies.

His editor should have focused more on his journey, with his successes, failures, and frustrations with his unusual diet experiment. A small chapter was written from his wife's viewpoint and her experience with him during this time, which was a nice touch. But it didn't make up for all the ho-hum page-turning I was doing as I glossed over mundane peptalk and how to get motivated. This book comes across as a mediocre book with recipies and motivational advice that I can get online or in the latest issue of Men's Fitness or Self. If I lost my copy of Fit2Fat2Fit, I wouldn't replace it.
2959371
Battle's End is a frustrating book. The basic premise is great; Alexander is a writer who tutored nine Florida State football players in remedial English in 1981; over a decade later, she caught up with them to see what they had made of their lives.  Alexander's final product, unfortunately, is deficient. Battle's End does not have one fatal flaw. But a series of small faults add up to an unsatisfying read.

The players' accounts focus on their present (early 1990s) feelings about two main subjects: education and family. Frustratingly, Alexander does little to trace a complete chronology of each player's life. We learn only a) what she experienced with the player back in 1981 and b) what the player had to say when she caught up with him in the early 1990s. Strangely, Alexander does little to recount the players' football careers. Though her focus is not on football, the game obviously is central to each player's life story and the reader wants to know more.

Alexander states that she wants the former players to tell their stories in their own words. While there may be some merit to this approach, Alexander subjects her readers to page after page of meandering monologues. She leaves readers wondering what point they were supposed to take from each chapter. At the very least, Alexander should have provided a short postscript in which she gave some of her impressions. But the book just comes to a "dead stop" after she profiles the ninth former Seminole.

One under-explored topic in Battle's End is whether the former players feel "used" by FSU. The disparity between the college coaches who make millions and the players who walk away with nothing has long been a "hot" issue in sports circles. Alexander does touch on the topic. Orson Mobley tells a great story about how FSU football coach Bobby Bowden promised his mother that Mobley could play both football and baseball at FSU (pp. 156-158); once Mobley arrived at FSU, Bowden reneged on the agreement by threatening to rescind Mobley's football scholarship if he played baseball. There are a few other stories of this sort, but Alexander does not delve into this topic. Could the FSU experience have been different or better for these nine men? That is the $64,000 question, but Alexander does not pursue it.

Battle's End also suffers from elitism. Literally from the first page, Alexander goes to some lengths to make certain that the reader knows that she only grew up in Tallahassee as an accident. Her family was "...unable to comprehend or take seriously the pervasive devotion to football... [making them] ...essentially an alien tribe" (page 10). More bluntly, she saw "...my fellow citizens and townsfolk as hostile savages" (page 4). Alexander continues to express such sentiments throughout the book; she approvingly notes that one player settled outside "the real South" (page 72) and she expresses distaste for West Palm Beach where Jesse Hester lives (page 175). Such sentiments will not endear Alexander to readers from the South, though elitism might explain why Alexander lacks some of the "feel" for college football and its culture that might have made Battle's End a more-satisfying book.

In summary, Battle's End is a great idea for a book, but the execution is very weak. There are much better books on the corruption of college sports (e.g. Telander's The Hundred-Yard Lie, and Sperber's Beer and Circus).
946089
The idea is an excellent one, but I did not feel it was well excecuted.  Here are the major problems I perceived with this book.

Where was the book editor?  I was not impressed with the writing.  The content  seemed very run-on and unfocused.  An editor would have caught problems with some of these things.

There was no index, notes, sources nor bibliography.  The author has a Ph. D. in sociology and should have known better.  An editor should have insisted on.

The author ignores one major area of shadow work:  operating a small business.  That is a chapter in itself, even a whole book on that subject.  It was a personal deal breaker for me when I considered a small business post-retirement.  When I did the evaluation, the operational overhead needs sabotaged any income potential for my idea.

There is really a bigger picture here that the author overlooks as well.  It is really about time management and being pro-active.  Treat time as a budget and work within it; shadow work is a part of that.  I would not want to turn the clock back on information --  I like having the ability to be empowered to have access to managing stuff on the internet and make informed decisions.  I do set boundaries with the amount of time I spend on social media  and try to manage that time.

I would really encourage the author to re-write this book with an editor.  I think there are great opportunities to address this topic.
3594615
Great concept for a book: rolling out a possible outcome of the CIA's LSD experiments of the 1950's & 60's -- MKUltra.  Really creative idea.  This book had the usual great and quirky characters, but there was an excess of narration with no action.  It became tiring.  And then, the ending -- there was no ending.  This was one of those books that the author, apparently, either couldn't come up with an ending or decided to do a non-ending to string it into the next book.  Either way, in my opinion, this is weak.  As a avid reader of mysteries, this is huge flaw.
3195679
First off, this book had so much potential to be amazing. I really like the Red and Silver blood gig. The special abilities are a good original idea. Those are the only kind words I can give to this book/author.

Problems with this book:

The character development.......wait sorry, there wasn't any.

Unpredictable.....nope totally knew from ninth chapter what was going to happen.

Throne of Glass meets Game of Thrones; with the dull characters of Twilight and a pathetic attempt at X-Men origins. To the authors credit, she created a female main character no one will like. I found myself rooting against Mave and here brooding.

I found Prince Joffrey and Robb Stark have a lot in common with Maven and Cal. Bella and Mave have a lot of personalitytraits. Both plain and brooding. At least Hunger Games, Luna Chronicles, Throne of Glass series,  Shatter Me, Carnival and City of Bones have likeable female characters.

I enjoyed the concept and build up. But, I refuse to read another book in this series. If Victoria Aveyard ran with her story instead, it'd be worth the extra read. This book left me frustrated and annoyed. Hopefully other readers will learn from my mistake.