Rating: 
Summary: lots of macho male behavior and a let down ending
Review: After being given a stack of used books to read, the first one I pulled out of the box was Abduction. I'd never read a robin cook before, though being familiar with him, was expecting a medical mystery. Not this book.This one has nothing to do with medical genre, but is more related to the function of the earth's various crusts, mantles and plates, and the spaces between them...and the created world of interterra where some very bizarre "people" live. The story is about an undersea drilling team which gets swept into the land of interterra, which exists in pockets between various gaps in the crust of the earth. The society is a very sanitary, starchy, almost hospital like place to live, with incredible technology. Maybe this is where the medical part comes in because of the massively sterile type of environment. There is so much homophobia and blatant macho man attitude displayed by two of the main characters that it almost becomes distracting to the plot of the book. Speaking of plot, I'm not really sure what the point of the book was other than to introduce a possible civilization living beneath us, and how they have supposedly evolved technologically but repressed anything competitive or physically harmful from their lifestyle. Procreation is genetic engineering in a laboratory...nothing really new there compared to other sci-fi novels, other than in this case, memories and personalities of those who choose to die, move on to the next body they inhabit. Interesting commentary I suppose on being able to decide when your physical body dies, because you know you're going to just move on to another body. The ending left me sadly disappointed as a reader. There was little to no resolution of major plot lines in the book, it was almost as if we had so much to resolve or explain, let's just end it before anyone notices. One of the major open holes was the role of the "servant" race in the book, and the world they lived in. There were so many references to the under-under society, but then nothing about them. I have a stack of more Robin Cook, and I'm hoping that if I get back to the medical genre, I'll find them more enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: A Thrilling Experience
Review: I thought that this book was very thrilling and without boring lectures. I also liked how Robin Cook used his knowledge and experience in the medical field, and brought it into his book. Even though this book is fiction, you get a sense that it maybe could happen. I usually am not into the scientific type of book, but this book pulled it off. Read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Not Normal Cook
Review: This is not a normal Robin Cook medical thriller. It's a fast read and not too deep. The premise is similar to Abyss, but without Abyss' excitement.
Rating: 
Summary: I LOVED THIS BOOK
Review: I coulldnt set it down it was a nice change from Robin's usual books I can't belive it's got such bad reviews I WOULD DEFINATLY read this book! He discribes this other world so well that I really felt as if I was right there with the charecters. READ THIS BOOK ignore the other bad reviews
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD STORY LOW TENSION
Review: This is my first book of Robin Cook. I knew him mostly from his medical books. Abduction starts very good but the second half of the book is a bit boring far away from being thriller. In anyway, it is a good book. It also has some criticism to violence of humanbeing. A journey to the Fantasy Land. Deep down ocean.. Have a good trip...
Rating: 
Summary: Please tell me the other Robin Cook books are better!
Review: This was the first and probably last Robin Cook novel for me. I was disappointed after hearing so many positive comments on his medical thrillers. The "fantasy world under the sea" science fiction in this book lacked several components, including plausibility and interesting dialogue. Many comic book heros have more dimensions than the stock, predictable characters in this novel. A plot twist in the last pages is the only original idea in the otherwise stale material.
Rating:
Summary: This is as bad as it gets - Trust me on this one!
Review: I have always found Robin cook to be a rather poor writer, and that seems to be a trais shared by other MD's turned authors. However, that has not prevented me from reading several books by Robin Cook and, for the most part, enjoying them to varying degrees. The strength of Cook's other work was that he stuck to what he knew - medicine. Granted, the writing was sophomoric and the plot usually the same old recycled "Docs stealing bodyparts/drugs/fill in the blank for profit" plot but the ride was usually pleasantly diverting and painless. TILL NOW! This book offends just about every sense that it can, from the absurdly childish plotting to the incredibly hack nature of the prose. This book actually insults cliche's...it sooo bad I can barely find words to describe my amazament at the book - (The horror - the horror..) Be warned - books rarely get as bad as this. It is poorly plotted, written, conceived. That any of the characters in the book can be viewed favorably is impossible. Everyone's a dolt or selfish or stupid. (No one is as stupid as me for actually reading this to the end - just shoot me for god's sake) Have I made it clear? A 1st grader could tell a more compelling and captivating story. It's too late for me - but save yourself - Don't read this garbage!
Rating:
Summary: Yep this one's purty near awful
Review: Everything my fellow reviewers have said about this book is true. It is the first (since Coma) Robin Cook I've read. I read it because I thought he has been at the business of writing for so long, he has to have gotten good at it. And the premise sounded interesting (not shockingly new, mind you...but interesting). I nearly got out my red pen and went after several passages. There are several howlers...all unintentional. The characters ARE irritating and their actions make NO sense. BUT I give this two stars (instead of one or a half) because the plot DID keep me reading until the end. Now that must be worth something! So style is absent. So the characters are ludicrous. So we saw this society in Brave New World and ninety-leven 70's SF movies and 50's SF novels...there is still a spark of something new--albeit a small one. So IF you find yourself on an island, you COULD be stranded with worse. If you have nothing to read at present...believe me you could do worse.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Readers who have enjoyed Robin Cook's medical thrillers will be disappointed by this book. The setting updates a tired science fiction idea -- an inhabited world miles under the surface of the Earth -- without adding much of interest. The characters are not very sympathetic, and the ending is essentially a joke. One hopes that Cook will go back to biomedical themes, and that publishers will not print everything a famous writer puts out.
Rating:
Summary: A Contrarian View -- not that bad ! Entertaining !
Review: I've read every one of Cook's books; he is after all quite prolific... But having seen the reviews on here first, maybe my expectations were low. Surprise -- I liked it a lot! OK, maybe it was pure escapism, but I found it a welcome switch from the medico-suspense genre typical of Cook (ala Sphinx, showing another side of Cook's dexterity and topical brilliance). Admittedly not a sci-fi dabbler at all, I found the adventure underwater, followed by the discovery (albeit, via abduction) of Interterra" (Utopia) quite amusing. His "explanations" of various scientific mysteries at least bordered on possibility (hey, this is fiction after all!), including the story of Atlantis and similar phenomena. I did think the ending was a bit abrupt; I might have voted 5 stars if he could have handled that a little better. In fact, I'd argue the escape element near the end was virtually the only segment of the book with little or no plausibility. Anyhow, I enjoyed. While I often criticize Cook for his unbelievable action (as opposed to premise or plot), his vivid imagination is in fine form here for an "airport" paperback.
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