Overlong and unoriginal
926832
Mr. Clancy is getting lazy. This novel comes across as an expensive, overlong, self-indulgent Mack Bolan yarn. The author basically rehashes actual terrorist events, especially the exploits of Carlos the Jackal and  the PLO. The German terrorists who conduct the assault in Vienna are  virtual carbon copies of actual Red Army Faction members.
Another flaw  with this story is the near-invincibility of the protaganists. Clancy's  commandos are basically bulletproof, which eliminates much of the suspense  inherent in such a tale. The only "good" guys killed during the  book are tertiary characters at best. Clancy's vaunted penchant for realism  is sorely lacking here. I recommend Clear and Present Danger for a more  accurate portrayal of combat.
If you're interested in stories such as  these, pick up a copy of "Blackhawk Down" instead.
449618
Nothing original here.  Its Twilight all over again.  Anybody can read a book or watch a movie, then write about it.  But it takes a real AUTHOR to come up with original material, original storylines, and put them down on paper.  This is just a rip off from Twilight and the gozillion other books like it.  Moving along....
628460
Nothing new here... repetition used to expand a limited amount of information into an overly-long book.
1759166
Just found this film to be uninspired, forced, boring and unoriginal. Could have been more fun if the writing hadn't been so scattered.
1970924
The book's main fault is it is overlong. The characters stumble from one bad situation to another.  Then there is too much agonizing over the actions of the characters and the impact on their relationships.  The book could have been better by being at least 100 pages shorter.
3048986
I am half way through this book, and forcing myself to finish it. It's completely unoriginal, the writing is stilted, the story line is predictable, and it'll probably be made into a movie. I would never read anything else by this author.
1699164
This could have been a great book, but whole sections seem to be repeated over and over again making it much longer than it needed to be. A good editor should have had the author cut all the redundancies.
972399
Redundant and tedious. 'Big Day' must have been used over a thousand times. The story is interesting but the excessive excerpts of the twins' bad poetry and awful drawings lead me to believe the author was under some kind of delusional spell of her own. I ended up skipping vast majority of pages at the end as they did nothing but sum up the entire book (for the 6th time), it's like the author needed filler to truly pedal her slop as a bonafide 'book' instead of a lengthy journal article.
4359084
I like the plot twists, but there are too many copy/pastes referencing the star of the book, the tall blond lady.  Too many references to Columbian coffee, and the irritating uses of "Call me by my first name Admiral".  Many of the words are copied over from previous books word by word in my "opinion".  The writer could use a dash of "Redbull" when it comes to the mundane speeches, pomp and military stuff which is as dry as 3 day old thanksgiving turkey.  On a positive note, there are some great hints of science fiction which incorporates some current views of FTL travel, though these ideas are never discussed in detail.  Tom, you are a master of your craft, but details are the hammer and forge of a supermaster.  TJW
2631907
Despite several well crafted passages, Andahazi has spilled an overblown, puffed up imitation of contemporary European fiction in his first novel. Like so much in his native Argentina's culture, the author, failing to find  his own voice, has aped the Continental greats. This is simply a foolish  imitation of The Name Of The Rose, lacking both subtlety and  sophistication. Far from being a novel of ideas, or even erotic fiction,  this would be parable is so stuffed with postmodern platitudes and poor  characerization that it collapses from the dead weight inane contradiction.  Here is a hint, if a dust jacket reads, "In the tradtion  of.....," skip the imitation and read the original.
2882697
Chock full of LOTR, Arthurian, Star Wars and Harry Potter inspired elements; there's even a Sleeping Beauty component including it's own version of Maleficent.  It's really that obvious.

Unfortunately the script is like an old tried and true recipe gone awry; it's nothing more than a "me too" film with a flimsy attempt at originality by introducing the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son mythology.
This strategy might have worked beautifully except that they do nothing with the wide range of creative possibilities inherent in the Seventh Son premise.
The spiritual components of such an illustrious and mystical lineage are approached in a very matter of fact sort of way; actually ignored, thus wasting a valuable opportunity to elaborate and expound on the legend and create a truly strong and sustainable cinematic lineage of it's own.
In more capable hands, this movie based on the Seventh Son storyline could have been a viable contender to Yoda and the Jedi Knights.

The production values and CG effects are very well done which makes for a delightful visual treat but that only goes so far.
Jeff Bridges is way too overbearing.
75156
The book certainly had an interesting premise, but unfortunately, I couldn't handle reading it. Each sentence was so overloaded with unnecessary adjectives that the average word length for each sentence was about 20. In several cases, the sentences rambled on so long that they became paragraphs.

I learned long ago that once you get past about 14 words, most people tend to lose interest in the sentence, whether spoken or written. After 10 pages, I couldn't tell you more than two things about what I read, other than there was a truck, and a helicopter. Considering that I've read thousands of books over the last 40 years, and have only found a few that I simply couldn't be bothered to work my way through, that's saying something.

I feel like if I could have gotten to this manuscript in an editor's capacity (a job I had for a Navy contractor for a while), I would have divided most of the sentences into two, and perhaps been able to finish this story. Apparently, those that managed to finish it quite enjoyed it. :)
2753301
This was highly unoriginal - girl finds out BF is shady, discovers she's pregnant, and decides she can't live with his morals so she disappears. The second chance part was sort of original - she stupidly gets married to a guy that she does't know is shady, but discovers it, and leaves him too, so the the original BF is hired to kill her.  I hate books where the hero - or heroine - actually think about pulling the trigger on someone they have feelings for - not negative feelings, positive feelings.  Then the typical bad guy with a good internal compass surfaces, and you know how the rest of the story goes.  It was KU - the second book included for "free" was marginally better.
1665694
As much as The Fountainhead was a stunning, original piece of literature, Atlas Shrugged falls flat in comparison.  It is overly long and extremely repetitive in hammering home the same basic concepts without adding anything substantial in the process.  Let's not even get into the preposterousness of the basic plot of the book itself: an attempt at secession by the world's greatest minds to recreate their own perfect society from scratch.  Never mind the fact that with what we now know about Mendelian genetics, a couple like John Galt and Dagny Taggart could have kids and... have them turn out to be a couple of Wesley Mouchs and Jim Taggarts.

Also, Rand's writing style in this book hasn't aged well.  It could be seen as quiant and dated, or in many cases, simply corny and outdated.

If Ayn Rand would have you know her perfect world, Galt's Gulch would be populated by nothing but chain-smoking, tall, thin, angular, beautiful Aryan egotists.  So which topflight secessionist doctor would take care of all their eventual cases of lung cancer?  Anecdotally, many of the smartest people I've met have often been short, pudgy and unattractive... while some of the tall, beautiful people Rand seemed to worship turned out to be real boneheads.  There aren't many of them, but the true intellectual elite come in all kinds shapes, sizes and colors.

Also, I find it interesting that the protagonist Dagny Taggart beds ALL the leading men in ascending order of importance... and they all work it out happily in the end.  I find it completely implausible that these three great men (D'Ancona, Reardon, and Galt) would all fall madly in love with a woman who thinks and acts... just like a man.  If history has taught us anything, it's that the world's great statesmen and industrialists usually marry women for their beauty and fertility, not necessarily their minds.

As an unabashed stand-in for Rand's own view of herself, Dagny Taggart's actions and the endless romantic mind games that she goes through with the three men only reflect the fact that Rand herself was in an open marriage... an open marriage that she basically imposed upon her cuckolded, resentful husband... and sought to rationalize and legitimize it by including it clumsily in her work.

None of the concepts of Rand's pseudo-philosophical "objectivism" are furthered in this book.  You could read the Fountainhead and get all that you will ever get out of Rand out of that book.  What Atlas Shrugged has done is spawn almost an entire generation of egomaniacs who pretended to understand her works and identify themselves with her superhuman protagonists, only to find that people are human and have weaknesses.  They sought to live up to Rand's Superhuman ideal, only to find themselves fallible, but still with the massive ego.  In fact, the sheer MASS of overinflated egotism in this book made it painful to read at times.

We all know now that you can't have a society with all Chiefs and no Indians.  We also now know that though Ayn Rand/Dagny Taggart may find nothing more beautiful than a smokestack billowing greenhouse gases, the Earth's environment is indeed finite and limited and not just another resource to be exploited by man in the name of the almighty $$.  Rand tried to elevate her worship of Capitalism-- and thus her concept of "Objectivism"-- to a form of philosophy or religion, but seemed to not grasp the fundamental limitations of it to as merely for only human political and socialogical ends.  I found particularly specious and laughable her attempt to somehow attribute Capitalistic motivations behind Richard Halley's classical musical compositions... as if every superior human endeavour, including artistic ones, could be attributed to Capitalism.

Just read The Fountainhead.  It's so superior to this book in every way, and it is written so much more succinctly.  Rand seemed to be able to identify with superhuman men, she should've hired one to edit this book.
656887
I know this is an adaptation of the film, but when it is a word for word, scene for scene rehash with absolutely nothing new added, the redundancy of the project becomes wildly apparent. I guess I just expect to have something new added in to make it worth my time and money. I probably won't be picking up any future adaptations if they are this one dimensional.
2311298
Blantant copyright infringement of the hunger games. Unoriginal and frankly sad. Keep your day job and hope attorneys don't see your book.
4170571
If I wrote a parody entitled Harry Pooter and The Sorcerer's Bone it would be a more original rip off of Harry Potter than this book. A giant that is the school's caretaker? Check! Quirky elderly headmaster? Check! "You're a wizard Harry/Thomas"? Check! A phoenix shows up? Check! As if that wasn't lazy enough, the author drags in Atlantis (note: not underwater) and tired old Merlin! Nothing about the protagonist is relatable or interesting. His friends are just as bland. The only different bit is that imitation Hermione has been made into twins. One has no actual value and other is just grumpy.

Also, can we just agree that talking about a 13 year old wanting to "touch and feel" a grown woman is just creepy?

Also also, if I find a woman passed out in a car in my driveway, I highly doubt my response would be to wander to the park!

At almost a dollar, this book is a steal if you also hate-read books. It will not disappoint in both its lack of originality and mediocre usage of the English language. Personally, I'm about to buy the second one to see if this one actually contains any character arcs and if the author really made the grumpy twin grumpy just so she can proclaim her love for Thomas.