read the first book, forget this one was ever written
359597
i loved oryx and crake which happens to be the first book of this far-fetched triology. margaret atwood is one of my favorite writers, she is the reason i became an avid reader of the "dystopian (sci-fi)" genre. oryx and crate was brilliant, i couldn't get enough of it. so when theyear of the flood  was published, i ordered it at once, and TRIED to read it as fast..i couldnt. i even skipped throught the last chapters. full of cliches, repetitions but somehow not enough recaps, poor very poor dialogues, sketchy characters...so not like MA. if i knew that the story would go on - or flash back in this case - like this, i wouldnt have read it. in fact i don't think i will be reading the final book of he triology.
4877427
Eragon was a terribly written book.  Full of cliches, flat characters, and an amazing amount of grammatical errors, Paolini failed to impress me.  In the second book, Eldest, Paolini makes huge strides as author.  Except now he's moved from a child's writing to that of your standard fan fiction author.  Eldest doesn't have the grammatical errors anymore, but pushes ahead with deux ex machina, improbable occurrences, and the most vapid love story sequence you'll see since Star Wars II.  This is the kind of book you read to laugh at, so check out some passages while at the library or bookstore--just don't pay for it.
3059609
I enjoyed the first book.  This one was a train wreck.  Writing from a different fist person perspective every chapter, endless cussing, everyone is gay,.... Disappointing.
2868055
This book has nothing to do with the rest of the series.  I was disappointed from the first page all the way until the end.  I didn't care about what was happening, I wanted more from the plot of the original books.

Hugely disappointing when an author does this. I literally skipped ahead 20 or 30 pages, and was dumbfounded that we were still stuck in "the future."  Skipped ahead another 100 pages, and my mouth dropped open. Skipped to the last 30 or so pages and literally couldn't believe it.

This is not the book you want to read. In fact, I'd skip it if the next book were out. But it's not.

The first book was ok. The second was good. The third was good. The fourth was great. The fifth? Skippable. It might be so disappointing that it warrants skipping the entire series. Up to the readers individually, I guess.
1731622
Readers of Hugh Cook's 10-book series will naturally want to collect and read all the books - a pricey proposition, considering that most of them are out of print and several are relatively hard to find.

My suggestion - skip this one, save your money and move on to the rest of the series.

Hugh Cook wrote this book as an afterthought, on the recommendation of his publisher. He had already plotted the whole series out, but the publisher didn't think the next book in the series - starring a woman "The Women and the Warlords" - would play well commercially. So this book was written up and quickly published in between, apparently to appeal to immature teenage boys.

It's rather repetitive, doesn't advance the plot much and only touches tangentially on the interesting characters and political developments of the first book in the series. I read it all the way through because I was convinced it was important, somewhere, something would matter. But Togura Poulaan, the hapless hero, doesn't do anything much of consequence and ultimately doesn't even improve his own life. A snore. A friend of mine who is a bigger fan of fantasy generally couldn't even finish it.

It doesn't compare in depth, interest or quality, or any way at all, with Book 1 or Book 3. Skip it.
2412809
I really enjoyed Eargon, book one of Inheritance. It had lots of original concepts, and author Christopher Paolini expanded on those rather than ideas he borrowed. In Eldest, he has painfully gone on ideas that aren't his own; he basically took elements from LOTR, Star Wars, etc,. and gave then his own names. Even the dialogue is copied; in the chapter titled "Elva," Nasuada asks Angela to keep an eye on the girl, and she replies, "Two eyes, if I can spare them."  The plaigarism reeks like dead animal flesh. Not only are the ideas unoriginal and the different languages looking like Paolini just randomly tapped the keyboard and said "OK", but the characters have no backbone; for insatnce, the love scenes between Roran and Katrina are so awkward to read that I laughed out loud reading them, because there was no life or believability to them. I haven't even finished the book, proof that it is that hard to read. All in all, it's a vast disappointment to a trilogy I thought showed promise.
4687837
I loved the first book in this series. The 2nd book was pretty good. But this one was a waste of time. Nothing really happens in the book and it could have been summed up in an epilogue. The adversities they have to overcome are weak and predictable. There was just nothing special about this book.
412112
Sorry I bought it ... didn't read it after the second book ...
1019247
could not finish this book.  the First one started off great, but half way though started adding layers, book two is just more layers. What I mean  is the story starts in a horse and buggy small nation, expands to neighboring nations, expands to other lands and magic, and then to ultra modern lands. and left you after a battle--with none of the questions answered. as to who is Finder? Why is the poison moving over the land
Book two just continue this expansion and non answers.  we are now into  wizards, and vampires, and other planets. With "finder" still the one who is supposedly going to fix all this.  one of the problems with these expansions of view is that its all the same, a teenage (boy or girl) helping father make decisions, or offering advice.  characters are 2 dimensional, that is good or really bad, and no explanation as to their motives other than money or power, no insights.  this book should have been labeled under teen books.  its just not worth reading more of, hooked my curiosity for first book, but lack of information and expanding worlds just bored me.
3152532
Its hard to know what to say about this book that others have not already mentioned above.  In the first book, I really liked the concept, the characters, etc.  Towards the end of the second book, things were starting to go downhill. This book started downhill and stayed there.  The plot barely progresses and it seemed like about half of the book was wasted on new characters in order to set up something which may occur two books from now.  I'll never know, because I won't be reading them.

What does happen plot-wise, is barely worth mentioning.  The characters fall into cliched roles where the same thing happens over and over again.

Total let down.
3806322
I wanted to like this book. The first book, Celestine Prophecies, was interesting but not well written. So what? The story was compelling so i forgave the writing for the sake of the story. The second book was not much better but advanced the story,  By the third book I was wondering why the protagonist failed to learn anything at all from his experiences from the first two book. That was an annoying read. But the fourth. The Twelfth Insight - OMG what a pain! Maybe I am confused but the story completely dismisses everything the characters learned in books one and two. It ignores anything at all that happened in book three. So is it meant to stand alone? if it is meant to stand alone, so be it. As a stand alone story it is uninteresting, unbelievable and annoying. The repetition, the assumptions, the lack of character development and motivation - I could not finish ir. It was awful.  Not a good read for anyone who has not read the first book. A terrible, disheartening read for anyone who has read the other three, and a pointless read for anyone who has not read any of his other books. If that is you, skip this one.
785217
The descriptions on these books made it hard to differentiate which was first. I therefore accidentally read the second book first, prior to reading this one. The second book I thought was actually quite good; not amazing by any means, but definitely entertaining -- that is, up until I read this one.

The books go through the same exact timeline. In fact, there really should have only been one book & some chapters could have been told from the perspective of the 2 different women. Literally the entire second book is given away in this first one & the first book is basically repeated in the second one. HOW ORIGINAL.... NOT.

Literally the most poorly planned series I have ever read & I read A LOT.

SPOILER ALERTS IN THIS REVIEW.

Not only were the books pretty much the same, but the few things that were different weren't actually because more details were added; it was merely because the books don't line up & the details were messed up. I felt like I knew the story better than the author.

In the second book, Eliza teaches Liz & Martha how to shoot the gun. In the first book, Liz & Martha already know how to shoot it when Eliza comes. How hard of a detail is that to get right?

 In the second book, the author makes it seem like Martha & Liz knew about what side Thomas is actually on from pretty much the get go. In the first one, it is not until the very end that it is revealed that he is not a spy. This timeline does not add up.

Honestly, the only reasons I finished the first one after having read the second was because 1) the gun situation was BS 2) I always finish books I start & 3) I wanted to see what else was going to be wrong with the books. Before having read the first book, I honestly was looking forward to reading the third one that would (presumably) follow Eliza, John & Johnny in their new life but now after having read these 2, it will prolly just be a recap of Martha's life which will be the EXACT plot line as these 2 were.
3121443
I tried but I could not even finish the first book. The plot is lame, the characters badly developed,  and the writing mediocre. There will be no more revelations for me from that author. I don't understand where good reviews are coming from.
2429480
The plot of "Son of Rosemary" has already been discussed in great detail by other reviewers, so I won't go into detail about what, specifically, I didn't like about this undoubtedly silly tale.

I also now know the answer to Mr. Levin's anagram "roast mules." I admit that I didn't know the answer the first time I read the book, but having since learned the answer and reading the book again to apply this new theme and information, the book still isn't very good.

The point is, you'll probably be tempted to snap this novel up if you really enjoyed the first novel, but this newer story shares very little of the first book's quality.

The dialog is stilted and boring. Worse, it thinks it's being more witty and clever than it really is. Mind-bogglingly irritating.

Probably most disturbing to me when I was reading this book was the nauseatingly incestuous dynamic between the adult Andy and his mother, Rosemary, the latter of whom had been in a coma since 1973 and had apparently forgotten that Andy was her son.

It truly made me want to wretch.

This book is an insult to the original and its flaws can either be attributed to an ageing Ira Levin or a quick-buck attempt to cash in on millenium paranoia, or a little from column A and a little from column B.

I am glad that this dreck wasn't adapted to make a movie.

I could tell this book was going to stink right away once Guy Woodhouse's character -- arguably the most fascinating character in the first novel, since it was his monumental behavior of his wife that catalyzed the action -- was so dismissively written out of the next novel, merely, it seems, to make the novel's conclusion more "interesting."

What a dumb idea, and what a horrid failure of a book. I'm glad it's out of print.
3320947
I find it very hard to believe that so many people are giving this book 5 stars. It's by no means a terrible book, but it's plagued by a myriad of faults. We once again return to the very well defined world of post-rising Earth, but it seems as if time has ground to a standstill. The plot moves so slow that it's incredibly hard to become interested in it even 1/4 of the way through. This book is also an extreme example of how you can slim down a book or essay by taking out redundant information. Shaun, the new main character of the book, repeats the same "people don't get/my crew understands me talking to my dead sister" line far too much. By the 100th page, this information was repeated at least a dozen times, and in paragraphs much larger than they needed to be. The characters also talk a lot without saying anything, and are constantly muttering some unimportant expletive under their breath, further serving to pad the book with unneeded and unnecessary information.

The characters are all also extremely bland. The author tries to set up character development and emotions, but every character feels extremely interchangeable most of the time. One character from the first book dies fairly early on, and despite the fact that I liked him in the first book I found it hard to care in this one. All semblance of personality he once had was completely drained from him in between books, and he became another interchangeable character.

Overall, I can't recommend this book to anyone. Even if you loved Feed (or maybe especially if you did), you'll find it very hard to even come to like this book.
972571
Do NOT read this book AND Book 1.  This book completely flushes everything from book 1 down the toilet in the first 10% of the book.  Jill and Mac split up and Mac goes back to the Navy, alone and bitter, exactly how she started Book 1 with the added "drama" of her best friend dying.  The author is so uncreative she could not think of anything for the main character to do with her life other than go through exactly what she went through in book 1.  Read one or the other, not both, because they are the same book.
337486
I loved the first book, but the sequel has none of the vibe of the first book. It felt like he was contractually obligated to write a sequel to the first and with time running out to get it written, he just did a hack and slash job of it. The events all take place within the space of a week. And that ending. Ugh. It didn't even feel like the same author wrote this book. Nightmare circus is my favorite genre, it's unfortunate that it never gets done well.