Rating: 
Summary: If You Like Dirk Pitt, Consider This Geology Adventure
Review: Philip Mercer, mining engineer, is a worthy addition to the pantheon of adventure heroes who rove the globe to save the world for democracy. He is as tough, well connected, smart, and fearless as any of them. If you haven't read a good adventure yarn about the good guys versus the bad guys in a while, this book may be a good choice for you. It is the first of a series that now includes three books (the next two are Charon's Landing and The Medusa Stone), and gets better with each one. The main mystery here involves an underwater volcano, so the story could just have easily involved Dirk Pitt, which is why I used the headline above. Du Brul's strength as a writer is an ability to create really intricate plots that keep your attention from wandering. This book clearly has a five star plot, with double, triple, and quadruple crosses abounding. There's a surprise ending that you will appreciate. The book has lots of action, and more than a little violence. So if you like shoot 'em ups, you will like this one. If you like a more subtle story, you'll probably find this a little crude. Think of this as being on the masculine end of the masculine adventure story. The book's main weakness is that Du Brul is still developing as a novelist in this one. His transitions are not always smooth, and sometimes it is possible to get lost for a minute or two. As a new novelist, he doesn't always take full advantage of developing the characters as much as he could. On the other hand, he builds interesting characteristics to keep you thinking into the characters he does establish. Since this is not a deep book (despite being based in part in a deep part of the ocean), Du Brul has the wit to be a little ironic with himself and his dialogue. Just when you think the formula will go one way for the plot, he will twist it just enough and add a pun in the dialogue to make you laugh at the normal plot conventions. I found the book to be very entertaining, fast-paced, and with a constantly-evolving plot. That made it a good quick read for me. I think you may find it to be similarly enjoyable. If you dislike Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, and Ian Fleming, then skip this one. It is just the lastest incarnation of books in the same genre, with a geologic twist. If you like those authors, Du Brul emulates them, but is not yet in their league. He does show high poential, though.
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT DEBUT FOR "DU BRUL"
Review: This book follows the road of Clive Cussler stories. Cussler is still tops in adventure stories, but DuBrul does shine through here. The story does capture the reader's attention from the word go. I beleive DuBrul does have a future in writing. The main character is Phllip Mercer, a geologist, who got the skills to fight villians, the brain of a detective, and a body to hold liquor. Oh, by the way, he seems to be able to get the girl in the end as most heroes do. One of the lines in the book is when Mercer is talking to a damsel in distress is, "WHAT'S YOUR NAME... SHE ASK MERCER. MOST DAMSELS CALL ME LANCE A. LOT, BUT YOU CAN CALL ME MERCER. MERCER SMILED AND THE GIRL REWARDED MERCER WITH ONE OF HER SMILES RIGHT BACK! Good times for Mercer at the end of the story. In most stories of adventure the villian is always captured, but in VF, the villian is ........ I can't give it away, but go get the book. The second novel, featuring Mercer, is Charon's Landing. Come back next month for my next review.
On this being Dubrul's first time out,I was impressed. Charon's Landing has my dollar
Rating:
Summary: Du Brul's First Book!
Review: this book needed an editor's attention. In fact, in some places it is just plain sloppy. That said, on to the story: great plot for this kind of book. In fact, Hawaii did have a secession movement some years ago, and who knows what a nuclear device could do if detonated near an emerging undersea volcano. Gotta give DuBrul at least two stars for thinking up the plot and developing a few interesting characters. And, as we say when reviewing what is essentially a commuter book, this is not the Higher Criticism. Disbelief is suspended and the reader gets a good ride. Unfortunately all those printing and syntax errors are just a few too many speedbumps along the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad for a start but...
Review: this book needed an editor's attention. In fact, in some places it is just plain sloppy. That said, on to the story: great plot for this kind of book. In fact, Hawaii did have a secession movement some years ago, and who knows what a nuclear device could do if detonated near an emerging undersea volcano. Gotta give DuBrul at least two stars for thinking up the plot and developing a few interesting characters. And, as we say when reviewing what is essentially a commuter book, this is not the Higher Criticism. Disbelief is suspended and the reader gets a good ride. Unfortunately all those printing and syntax errors are just a few too many speedbumps along the way.
Rating: 
Summary: FIRST BOOK HAS TOO MANY PLOTS
Review: This book was on a list of promising new authors for 1998 soI bought it and tried reading it.There are so many characters andplots that you will need a programto figure it all out. Especiallyif you have to put it aside for aday or two.That's not hard to dobecause it is not a page turner.Several countries are scheming toclaim a new volcano before itcomes to the surface. It must beoutside the 200 mile limit of Hawaii for another country toclaim it for themselves. Riotsare staged in the Islands to keepAmerica distracted. The need is to claim the volcano for miningrights to the new metal formed bya nuclear blast in the volcano.There are so many nationals fighting to be first that dead andmutilated bodies abound ad nauseam. An American geologist gets involved and naturally defeats all the evil men but onewho disappears but he's sure toturn up in a future book. I thinkMr. DuBrul tried too hard to comeout of this as an equal to TomClancy on his first trip out of the gate. A little less wouldmake a good story for his nextbook. If you want good actionread Dead Reckoning by Robert Furlani to get your money's worth.
Rating:
Summary: FIRST BOOK HAS TOO MANY PLOTS
Review: This book was on a list of promising new authors for 1998 soI bought it and tried reading it.There are so many characters andplots that you will need a programto figure it all out. Especiallyif you have to put it aside for aday or two.That's not hard to dobecause it is not a page turner.Several countries are scheming toclaim a new volcano before itcomes to the surface. It must beoutside the 200 mile limit of Hawaii for another country toclaim it for themselves. Riotsare staged in the Islands to keepAmerica distracted. The need is to claim the volcano for miningrights to the new metal formed bya nuclear blast in the volcano.There are so many nationals fighting to be first that dead andmutilated bodies abound ad nauseam. An American geologist gets involved and naturally defeats all the evil men but onewho disappears but he's sure toturn up in a future book. I thinkMr. DuBrul tried too hard to comeout of this as an equal to TomClancy on his first trip out of the gate. A little less wouldmake a good story for his nextbook. If you want good actionread Dead Reckoning by Robert Furlani to get your money's worth.
Rating:
Summary: A good action-packed novel
Review: This is a first novel for DuBrul and a very good one at that! Definitely a novel in the tradition of Clive Cussler and that's high praise indeed. I really enjoyed this book and once I finished it I ordered his other two books. Mercer is a great character in the mold of an Indiana Jones. So pick up this book, you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: unbelievable
Review: This is a non-stop adventure novel. It's main character Mercer is a genius geologist- engineer who can outfight any commando on the planet with just four weeks training from 10 years ago. This book lost all credibity for me as far as plot went when Mercer was escorted to the White House for a 'who's, who' meeting, with everybody fawning over him, despite the fact that Mercer had just been killing people left, right and centre all over Washington. It also strained the imagination that Hawaii could even think of breaking away from the USA without the Media going into a frenzy over it. They would have eaten the president of the time alive and that would have been a story in itself. The characters in this book strike me as being quite naieve and one dimensional. This is a good book to read if you want to put your mind into neutral. Just don't give any thought to what you're reading and you'll get to the end of this happy.
Rating:
Summary: Hawaiian triple cross
Review: Vulcan's Forge is a plot conceived by high ranking KGB official, Ivan Kerikov with the aid of unparalleled geologic research scientist Pyotr Borodin some forty years ago. Apparently underwater nuclear testing by the U.S. in the 1950's at the Bikini atoll unexpectedly produced a new and rare metal. The properties exhibited by this metal far surpassed those of any known metal or alloy. Vulcan's Forge attempted to recreate on a large scale the conditions needed to produce this rare metal. The plot commenced with the scuttling of an ore carrying freighter and the subsequent unleashing of an underwater nuclear explosion under the wreck some 200 miles off the coast of Hawaii. Philip Mercer, Du Brul's protagonist in this highly implausible novel, is a geologist working for the U.S. Geologic Survey. He is also a top flight mining and geologic consultant imbued with fantastic spy-like skills and instincts. He had trained for four weeks with the CIA prior to being inserted into Iraq on a clandestine mission prior to Desert Storm. Mercer learns of the sinking of the ship the Ocean Seeker which was on an ecologic mission near the site of Vulcan's Forge. It is believed that the sinking was ordered by Takahiro Ohnishi, multi-billionaire industrialist and resident of Hawaii. Ohnishi is secretly colluding with Kerikov in the plot. Ohnishi, a Japanese-American has been promoting racial hatred of caucasians and the eventual secession of Hawaii from the U.S. Mercer gets drawn into this plot by virtue of a telegram he receives from a long lost friend, Jack Talbot imploring him to protect his daughter. It seems that scientist, Tish Talbot is the lone survivor of the sinking of the Ocean Seeker. We eventually learn that another undersea explosion will create a volcano on the floor of the Pacific that will bring Vulcan's Forge and its valuable metal, known as bikinium, to the surface. Any land mass more than 200 miles offshore can be claimed by the first to discover it. Since the volcano is close to the 200 mile limit off of Hawaii, the plotters are using the unrest in Hawaii as a back up plan to claim their prize. Mercer proceeds to unravel the complicated plot with the backing of the President and the heads of the CIA and FBI. As a first effort Du Brul tries a bit too hard. There are more twists in the plot than a bag of pretzels, giving the story an uneven flow. His segues between the different subplots are often awkward and clumsy. With some better editing and a tad more polish, Du Brul has the creativity to become a major player in the techno-thriller genre.
Rating:
Summary: Hawaiian triple cross
Review: Vulcan's Forge is a plot conceived by high ranking KGB official, Ivan Kerikov with the aid of unparalleled geologic research scientist Pyotr Borodin some forty years ago. Apparently underwater nuclear testing by the U.S. in the 1950's at the Bikini atoll unexpectedly produced a new and rare metal. The properties exhibited by this metal far surpassed those of any known metal or alloy. Vulcan's Forge attempted to recreate on a large scale the conditions needed to produce this rare metal. The plot commenced with the scuttling of an ore carrying freighter and the subsequent unleashing of an underwater nuclear explosion under the wreck some 200 miles off the coast of Hawaii. Philip Mercer, Du Brul's protagonist in this highly implausible novel, is a geologist working for the U.S. Geologic Survey. He is also a top flight mining and geologic consultant imbued with fantastic spy-like skills and instincts. He had trained for four weeks with the CIA prior to being inserted into Iraq on a clandestine mission prior to Desert Storm. Mercer learns of the sinking of the ship the Ocean Seeker which was on an ecologic mission near the site of Vulcan's Forge. It is believed that the sinking was ordered by Takahiro Ohnishi, multi-billionaire industrialist and resident of Hawaii. Ohnishi is secretly colluding with Kerikov in the plot. Ohnishi, a Japanese-American has been promoting racial hatred of caucasians and the eventual secession of Hawaii from the U.S. Mercer gets drawn into this plot by virtue of a telegram he receives from a long lost friend, Jack Talbot imploring him to protect his daughter. It seems that scientist, Tish Talbot is the lone survivor of the sinking of the Ocean Seeker. We eventually learn that another undersea explosion will create a volcano on the floor of the Pacific that will bring Vulcan's Forge and its valuable metal, known as bikinium, to the surface. Any land mass more than 200 miles offshore can be claimed by the first to discover it. Since the volcano is close to the 200 mile limit off of Hawaii, the plotters are using the unrest in Hawaii as a back up plan to claim their prize. Mercer proceeds to unravel the complicated plot with the backing of the President and the heads of the CIA and FBI. As a first effort Du Brul tries a bit too hard. There are more twists in the plot than a bag of pretzels, giving the story an uneven flow. His segues between the different subplots are often awkward and clumsy. With some better editing and a tad more polish, Du Brul has the creativity to become a major player in the techno-thriller genre.
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