Excavation: Nothing new, but breaks the hell out of old ground.

Excavation By James Rollins Smoothie Review

James Rollins is the a master of treasure hunting and tomb raiding adventures, as Ludlum is to spy novels and as Crichton is to science fiction. It is a bit of a tall claim. But this is my fourth book I’ve read by him and so far it proves to be true. He has not proven me wrong with the exception of the Sigma force novels. So now I’m about knee deep into the James Rollins novels and the latest adventure is called Excavation.

So what is it about? It centers on a professor and his nephew. The professor just found a mummy from the jungles of Chili and is sure that it is proof of a civilization that predates the Inca. But he finds that it is actually a Spanish priest. As he looked further he also finds that the skull of the priest is filled with liquid gold. Upon this discovery a secret society of Spanish monks take him hostage because they are searching for this rare gold that they call “the blood of the devil,” because with it they believe they can build the vessel so god can come to earth. The professor’s nephew is Sam, who is with a team of student archaeologists down in the Andes. They have just discovered a new temple in the side of a mountain. They are accidentally trapped in it as it crumbles during a attack from tomb robbers. The temple into the mountain goes to the source of the “blood of the devil,” And it is no surprise that in and professor Conklin’s and Sam’s path intertwine.

So the good? After reading Ice Hunt, and Deep Fathom, I was relieved to not see the military or army of any kind as a big factor. It’s much simpler. The team is stuck inside living on limited supplies, facing a cave of dwelling creatures and booby traps as Conklin’s side foreshadow things to come and reveal secrets behind the temple. Action is fun. The story is also one of the oddest. So it is unpredictable.

The bad? It is very similar to Rollins other book Subterranean. In more ways than one. At one point I thought I was re reading a old book. So there is nothing new or groundbreaking here except for the off the wall scifi twist at the end. I also felt for the first time in a Rollins’ book, the characters were shallow. They felt like cardboard cut outs to me.

But overall it’s a fun read. The end may be silly but its still fine. If you like adventure novels. I most definitely recommend this one.

P.S. If you like books then check out my book and ebook website Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://www.freewebs.com/lelue/

The 13th Tale : A Failed Replication of Jane Eyre With The Element Of Twiness Thrown in

The 13th Tale By Diane Setterfield Smoothie Review

Call me crazy, but I like to be proved wrong. I was so sure I hated memoirs and memoir like dramas. Everyone of them I read was downright horrible and I told myself they are all the same. That is until I came across a few I thoroughly enjoyed. “To Kill A Mocking Bird,” “The Glass Castle” and “October Sky” made me feel like a fool because I did see all memoirs as the same, when indeed they were not. I then came across one that looked interesting. It was a hardback called the Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It is not a actual memoir but is meant to play out like one. The concept behind it was that if a girl writing a biography of author. An author with an over active imagination who has told absolutely no one the truth and for some reason, I saw hope in this idea.

So the story starts with Margaret who is a girl who works in a book shop with her father and as a hobby on the side writes various essays about what she reads. In some cases she won awards for her work. The essays grabbed the attention of the famous but aging and ill Vida Winter. And given the offer to be paid to listen to her story and write it down, Margaret accepts it and goes to the woman’s large richy house to do the job. Before leaving though, Margaret also finds that she had a twin sister who died at birth which becomes more important as Vida’s tale is about a odd child hood growing up with her own twin. Her mother was put away. Her uncle was just as mentally ill. Her father was nowhere to be seen or heard of. The aging blind house keeper and lonely gardener was left to raise them, but neither of them could support themselves, must less the children who grew wild throughout the house, bearly speaking English having no education, and being a true annoyance to whole village.

The story starts out exploring the idea of twiness. The thought that one could not live without the other. One will get half the personality traits, as the other has the opposite, so together they become a full person. But separated they are nothing. But also through out her story, there are hints of ghosts, that leave questions about what Vida is leaving out.

So, I’ll start with the good, because its short. The good of it is this story is written in beautiful fashion. In all seriousness the words flow like poetry or the lyrics of song. I haven’t seen anything written in this fashion in a long time.

Okay. The bad? Well basically, the story is aimless. It starts off interesting and then loses all direction making you wonder what exactly you are reading. Not to mention the breaks from the story to itself where Margaret spends time thinking about the twin she never known. Margaret starts seeing ghosts of her twin and making ludicrous connections between her life and Vida‘s because of the twiness. It is far too melodramatic and even ridiculous as in one scene when she breaks down and cries in front of everyone because Margaret feels her twin was so much like Vida even though they never met and there was no similarity at all. Lastly was about two thirds through when I was wondering where this book was heading. It revealed itself to be a cheap modern day version of Jane Eyre, which was sad and uninteresting. But the more I thought about it, I found the author went so far below that level it was astonishing. It has the setting, dialogue, and ghost stories, but all fell flat.

Overall it took me forever to read it because it bored me so much. It’ll fool you when you start but will making major missteps once you’re in the heart of it. Skip this drama. Go read Jane Eyre if this sounds remotely entertaining. You will get much more for the time put into it there.

Overall Rating: A Failed Replication of Jane Eyre With The Element Of Twiness Thrown in

1 smoothie out of four.

P.S. If you like books then check out my book and ebook website Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://www.freewebs.com/lelue/