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Summary: Rollins Does it again
Review: This is my third Rollins book and in each one he has successfully accomplished the action thriller. This one has a similar feel to Mathew Reily's Temple. A group of scientists and military Rangers go on a trek through the Amazon searching for a group that disapeared about 3 years prior. This is because one of the group has found his way back to civilization and died of a mysterious ailment. Most remarkable is that the man has regrown an arm that he lost. This perks the interest of the military and businesses alike.As the group treks along they meet with all kinds of terrors from animals that are part poison frog part pirhanna as well as killer locusts and super large jaguars. Additionally, there are a group of mercenaries tracking them, hoping to eventually kill them and steal their booty. If that isn't enough, the body of the man with the regrown arm has somehow spread an airborne disease that is as powerful as Ebola and is rapidly spreading throughout the southern US. So it is up to the party in the Amazon to find a possible cure before time runs out for the whole US! Rollins has a masterful way of describing action where you can picture everything happening in its terrifying reality.
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Summary: Amazonia By James Rollins
Review: This is by far the best book I have ever read. At times my heart was racing as if I was really a part of what was happening in the pages. A very hard book to put down at night. My only disappoinment is that it (the book) had to come to an end.
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Summary: Not his best work.
Review: I ordered Amazonia hot off the press as soon as I possibly could - hardcover, no less. Needless to say, I was disappointed. It was not, in my opinion, of the same page-turning, nail biting quality of his other novels. I'm a science fiction buff, but even I found the premise so hard to believe that it almost ruined it right off the bat. The plot was weak, the characters unbelievable, and, well, that whole giant panther thing was just too much. I think I'll wait and see if Mr. Rollins comes back down to earth before reading another one of his books.
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Summary: One of the Great Adventure Novels of Our Time
Review: Absolutely brilliant. An amazing ride. Epic in scope, and flawless in execution. Wow.
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Summary: Not the best Cryptozoology book I've read...
Review: I picked this book up because I'm into cryptozoology and I really liked Rollins' book, Subterranean. While the book was intriguing and fast paced, I didn't enjoy it as much as Subterranean or some of the other cryptozoology stories I've read. The characters aren't that well developed. I didn't feel much for Nathan Rand, the protagonist of the story and didn't have too much of an attachement for him or feel like I knew him that well as the story went on. I didn't really care about his relationships in the story or if he lived or died, and I thought a couple of Rollins' other characters were much more intriguing. The story is a bit too fast-paced with catastrophe following catastrophe, and the dangers of the Amazon just weren't that exciting to me. The "secret-twist" that many of these cryptozoology books have wasn't that interesting to me and didn't really make up for the storyline. While this wasn't the best fiction I've read, it was somewhat entertaining, just didn't quite live up to the hope I had for it. I won't let it dissuade me from reading other Rollins novels however, I just won't be picking up a sequel if one comes out.
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Summary: LOVED IT!!!
Review: I listened to the unabridged audio cassette version of this story on my way to and from work. I absolutely LOVED it! There were times when I would actually start to get a little anxious listening to a particularly gripping portion of the story, waiting to see how the end of that particular episode would turn out (it was all I could do to keep from fast-forwarding). The entire premise was very ingenious and the ending was as I hoped it would be. The defining line between the good guys and the bad guys was straightforward; the bad guys were REALLY bad. At the risk of giving away part of the storyline, the only bone I have to pick with the author is that he wrote as though the tree were a bad thing. I actually thought of the entire premise as not a bad thing, but a fascinating thing, and not so much a moral dilemma as it was made out to be. I couldn't really see much wrong with a new species, since it would basically be confined to that part of the Amazon. And despite the analogy to slavery and the ant tree, the tribe was happy, healthy, and seemingly content with its lot in life. Aside from finding a cure for the raging disease, it was as if we outsiders were breaking the "prime directive", as it were. Nonetheless, I enjoyed listening to the story and was sorry it had to come to an end - I'm glad it was a happy ending and that the loose ends were tied up pretty neatly (and the bad guys dispatched as well). Time for another audio story by this same author.
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Summary: Wow!! A terrific ending!!!!!
Review: This book grabs you from page one. This also being my first by Rollins i immediatly picked up Deep Fathom and am looking around for Subterranean. If ur someone who like coincidence and irony in a book you'll love it.
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Summary: Tedious
Review: This book was rather tedious. Too much action. It detracted from the storyline. Once one crisis was over anther immediately started or was already in progress. Overkill. I did manage to make it to the end of the book. It was worth the effort...but barely. His books need more substance and less flash.
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Summary: extreme action
Review: After reading several of this author's works, I felt compelled to write a review. The book is interesting, but gets much too out into left field in the activities of its players. Not in the fantasy department, but in the extreme actions the folks can manage to pull off. This is a failing in all of Rollins' books, it seems, and really detracts from the story line. These do not come up to Jeff Long and Childs & Preston.
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Summary: Good standard SF adventure fare
Review: In this SF effort, Rollins follows a tried and true adventure story format: Put characters, some of which are bigger than life, into exotic locations, apply pressure from several dangerous sources, then show what the participants are made of. Points go to the author for utilizing an imaginative concept for one of the major antagonists: a giant tree. Of course there are also mutated animals, mysterious lost native tribes a la Edgar Rice Burroughs and, naturally, wicked, evil killers after the good guys plus a love angle between the two main characters all in the mix. Despite today's emphasis on same sex lovers, Rollins refreshingly decided to forego that trendy agenda and tell the traditional story of a man and woman trying to make a connection while caught up in several major crises: Daring to go into unknown jungle dangers to search for a cure to a deadly disease, resolving familial tragedies or near-tragedies, survival in a hostile and strange environment and the aforementioned wicked, evil killers who are motivated mostly by, you guessed it, the universally-denigrated "large corporations." This particular corporation is French, however, so most USA citizens will not feel bad about their perfidy eventually coming home to roost. The ending is predictable, one which readers will approve of and therefore feel a comfortable satisfaction. All in all, the book's pacing is steady, the plot not too complicated and the description of the flora and fauna very well done, bringing the imagery of the author's concept into clear focus. Rollin's style reminds one of Clive Cussler's, generally good, but not outstanding. Considering all the work featuring really bad writing that miraculously makes its way onto the New York Times Best Seller list, (do they even READ the books?) Amazon gets my vote as one worth buying. -Barker Reviews
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