A terrible disappointment
350170
A terrible disappointment. The guys are off their game and this is really unfunny.
2646078
I had high hopes for this book, but it has been a big disappointment.  Its subtitle is "A History of mAncient Rome," but it is not a history.  Rather, it is a string of disconnected miniature essays on Roman subjects.  Quite a few of the essays are interesting, but I would rather have had a conventional history.  Moreover, the book has many errors in grammar and diction.  They resemble the errors that I used to correct when I taught Freshman English.  The author and the editor have insufficient knowledge of the English language.

  a reader
2522538
I thought this book was a severe disappointment.  First, it was not even written by Cecily - only "created by".  There were all sorts of continuity problems:  Serena's perfume - patouchi, jasmine, sandalwood in all of the other books or patouchuli and lilies; Blair thinking that she had seen Serena every day of her life - obviously no true - Serena boarding school, one month at sea, etc. etc.

The Fans of this Series deserved more than this poorly written and poorly edited book.
2323627
This book was terrible. the premise was great, the setting fabulous but the plot and narration was negligible at best.  You anticipate the main character's growth/change throughout the novel and instead you end up with a character that ends up the same at the end as she was at the beginning - a sad, disheartening fact that ruins the entire novel.  She (the main character) should have learned something and indeed the reader likely will but that she comes away from her experience with so little change and growth makes the reader feel like the whole experience and indeed the novel was absolute wasted space.  Without learning something in her adventure what was the point of chronicling it for us to begin with?
4709947
Overall, I thought this book was terrible.  I only finished it because it was a book club read.  It was impossible for me to care about the characters as they never became real for me.  Perhaps the author has written something I would enjoy, but I will not bother looking.  This was a huge disappointment!
3905759
I ordered the Swell 2002 Engagement Calendar, thinking it would be a cute little planner that would compliment the book. I was wrong. All of the writing is repeated word for word. They used a different illustrator this time around which proved to be a big mistake since all of the new images  seem grotesque in comparison to the original ones. All in all, it was an utter disappointment.
3462549
I had read a lot of good things about "Murder in the Rue Dauphine" and was looking forward to reading it.  Perhaps that's why I'm so disappointed.  If you find something by chance and it turns out to be bad, no problem.  If you await something eagerly and it turns out not to be good, then it doubles the bad.
This book is bad, doubled.
It appears that author Greg Herren was determined not to ignore any cliche of gay fiction lest one of them gets its feelings hurt, nearly so every character is trim, works out, parties all night, and cheats on his lover.  Those who are not are homely, pathetic trolls with whom no self-respecting man would tryst.
Herren attempts to combine a hard-boiled style with the wisecracking of newer detectives and standard gay fiction, which doesn't work as well as you'd hope.  A lot of the exposition falls flat and the dialog is clumsy, though realistic, as though Herren had simply spent an evening in bars taking notes. When will writes learn that this doesn't work?
The "mystery" of the initial murder is so simplistic as to be laughable.  The deeper complications involving gay-bashing and male escorts rely far too much on coincidence than detective work.
New Orleans, a city that should make a fantastic backdrop for any novel, does not make an appearance.  Instead, Herren trots out a list of tourist sites.
Overall, I'd give it a miss.
4793169
First let me say I am a fan of Ms. Harris.

With that out of the way, this book was bleak and sad and misery-laden. There was no up and down flow, no lighter moments, just one grief after another. The end was *dreadful* and unnecessary.

I understand sometimes characters have to die, but Ms. Harris choice of sacrafice was lousy. It was overly painful.  As others have said, I will probably never read another book in this series.
76211
I shouldn't have been surprised that this book would be terrible when you consider how much the last few books fell flat. I had hoped she would pick it up and give her loyal readers an ending we deserved. The lack of main characters we all loved was the worst part. The book was filled with day to day details that we didn't need and it felt like she didn't even attempt to write a good book.
906160
I love the Beatles and was looking forward to this book; but it's a terrible disappointment.  It's poorly written--every cliche possible is trotted out, the same stories (mostly showing John in a bad light) are repeated many times, and its main contents are rumors not facts.  If John was really the horrible human being (never mind whether he had a miserable childhood or not, it's what he was that counts) described in this book over & over--cruel, aggressive, foul-mouthed with NO redeeming characteristics, the Beatles wouldn't have stayed together for 10 minutes let alone ten years.  More important is the real absence of an understanding of the music, what it brought to the musical scene, how it was composed and revised and performed, etc. etc.  We get every one of John's usages of the f-word and almost nothing about how he wrote or helped write the music.  Shameful.
221489
If this was the first Harry Potter movie, it might be worth a couple more stars.  Unfortunately, it was billed as the third in the series.  I'm sure that the egomaniac that directed this dissapointment feels that he has the true line into the soul of the books.  He might even be right but many of us who purchased this DVD expecting to be entertained for our dollars wasted our money.  The previous movies set a tone that was fun.  Maybe they went too far in that direction but they set a standard that has not been lived up to.  Change was inevitable and probably necessary as the tone of the books is changing.  The fact that the primary characters are growing up and the regrettable loss of Richard Harris all dictated changes.  The bottom line is that when I order a green shirt and get a red one, don't try to tell me that I'm color blind.  At least I can return the shirt.

I appreciate cinematography, special effects, staging and suspense created by a skillful director.  If that was what I wanted I could have bought any number of drama or horror movies that would have equaled the dark tone of this movie.  I feel ripped off, not because it's a bad movie but because it deviated from the reasonable expectation.  A clear victory for ego over predictable consistancy.  I happen to appreciate predictability.
1617627
A major disappointment. The first two volumes in this series were absolutely gorgeous: great singing, great interpretation, great recording. This one is totally destroyed by horrible warbling by one or more of the sopranos. This music should never be sung with vibrato, which obliterates pitch and clarity.  I'm at a loss to understand how Metcalfe could have listened to this and decided it was on a par with the previous recordings. It's simply unlistenable. One can only hope that Blue Heron comes to its senses and fires (or corrects) the soprano(s) so it can regain its status as one of the world's great choirs. Mystifyingly awful.
272478
After waiting for a year for this book's arrival, I can't begin to convey my extreme disappointment in it. For starters, the plot moved at such a breakneck speed that the neither the reader nor the characters had time to process the events that were happening. The characters themselves were so out-of-character that they were totally unrecognizable. The author's choice to "kill off" some of our dearly beloved characters was both senseless and heartless. None of the questions from earlier books were answered. No relationship issues were resolved... This book was so disjointed and lacking in substance as to not even be recognizable as having been written by Charlaine Harris. It reads more like a rough draft than a finished product...

My only hope is that Ms. Harris begins Book 10 with this book having simply been a nightmare/dream of Sookie's and that none of it actually happened. That would be the only way this book would make sense to me.
1262676
I saw this film when I was an 11 year old boy, and was profoundly impressed. I wish I had left the memory untouched.

By today's standards, this film creaks badly. The story doesn't hold water, and the political philosophy is pure fascism. The acting was way over the top.

A severe disappointment.
320141
[Mild spoilers]

Huge disappointment and truly awful.

It doesn't bother me that this book picks up after the first  miniseries. I don't dislike The Final Battle. The production value had  gone inexplicably down considering how successful the first miniseries was, and I think the ending with Elizabeth is too deus ex machina. (I  would rather have seen John continue to argue with Diana that they'd lost and it's time to go.) I loathed the TV series. So that's easy for me to ignore. I understand Kenneth Johnson picking up where he did  because he had creative differences with people working on Final Battle and had his credit changed from Kenneth Johnson to a pseudonym, Lillian Weezer. (He's still credited with his real name as creator of the series.)

I was really looking forward to The Second Generation. I love V and The Final Battle, and I wanted to see what the *creator* would do with the story. Now I have to ignore this book like I do the TV series of V. It's a little too similar to what George Lucas did to Star Wars with those horrible prequels. (And I disagree with people who say Johnson's and Lucas' stories are theirs to do with what they choose. No. They have become our stories. Lucas and Johnson break the storytelling contracts they  made with us, their audiences, when they continue their tales in such absurd ways that ring false.)

I re-watched the first miniseries before reading this book so I'd know where the characters were story-wise. I bet Kenneth Johnson didn't do that. Robin Maxwell is nowhere to be found despite the first series  ending with hints that she's pregnant with a Visitor's child. Julie and Donovan don't even show up until around page 130! They're more like supporting characters...and just as one-dimensional as all the other  characters.

I agree so much with the other negative reviews here that I don't have much to add: cardboard characters you don't care about, plot holes, amateurish.

The reason I decided to add my review is Johnson's bigotry towards fat people. Fat=evil to Johnson. Not only is that bigoted, it's lazy writing. "Oh, this is a bad character. How will I describe their physique? Fat." Again and again. I think Blue is the only large character who is not a jerk, and I suspect it's because he's black. In fact, Johnson describes Blue as "strong" more than "fat." Similarly, all of the good characters are good-looking. How very creative...

Johnson obviously has no idea what a 250-pound woman looks like, as he  describes the wrestler as some hideously and enormously fat monster. I wish he'd Google the BMI project and get some idea of what different weights actually look like, not just what Hollywood erroneously guesses them to look like.

This book is a slow and torturous read because it's boring and his  writing does not flow. The first 150 and last 50 pages were drudgery. The rest flowed somewhat better, but it's still terrible not to care  about any of the characters, especially considering how much I adore Julie and Donovan from the first two miniseries.

One thing I loved about the original two TV movies and is nowhere to be found here is how Julie and Donovan are co-leaders of the Resistance. Sure, Donovan is broken in this book, but I disagree with the decision to write him that way, on so many levels.

Basically this book is a slight variation of Final Battle that is worse  storytelling and makes little sense. It's also not entertaining in the least.
904283
Can I give it less than one star?  This was an awful, terrible, no good book. In fact, this book was so bad, it makes me angry. Angry that I spent any time on this drivel.  Unlikeable, whiney, miserable characters who deserve the small, ugly lives they live.
710194
I was anxiously awaiting this book, as I had been doing for the previous two.  Another letdown, I must say.  I actually purchased the hardcover version of this novel in anticipation of the forthcoming events.  In  retrospect, I can't remember one significant thing that happened in the  book, as far as the major plotlines go.  DO NOT purchase this book...take  it out of the library or something....it was a complete waste of paper.