Waiting

Rating:
Summary: I agree with many of the other reviewers...
Review: a really great story idea, that wasn't executed well. The whole "Suicide Club" seemed pretty pointless to me. There were too many extraneous characters. It didn't add to the suspense to expose the reader to characters that added nothing to the storyline. And the 'surprises' about some of the characters really weren't very surprising. Way too many, way too easy 'clues' were sprinkled throughout the story.

Also - it would have been more interesting if the author had spent some more time developing the idea of another hidden culture, the science behind the story, and filling in some of the holes in the story's logic. Although maybe that's not a fair criticism if this book is a "mystery thriller" and not sci-fi.

Finally...I thought the very end was really stupid. It might have been kind of eerie if there had been any build-up to it, but it made no sense to me.

But what the heck, still much more entertaining than most read-in-a-day fiction. I still think its worth three stars compared to the other stuff you can buy on the run at a newsstand.

Rating:
Summary: Just defending a really good book
Review: I would like to start out by saying that this is an exellent novel and I recommend it to anyone. Usually, after I read a book, I check the Amazon customer reviews just to see what other readers thought about it. What I saw about this book was expected, people going on and on about the rediculous environmental propaganda. While the book did mention some environmentalist views, I did not find it at all disturbing. Some of these reviews make it seem as if every page you look at will give you another reason to 'save the environment.' That simply is not true. There would be maybe a few paragraphs of it every few chapters, and even though I hate it when authors include political views in a book, I found it bearable, and anyway it was overshadowed by the book's plot which I found very intriguing.

(This is not a spoiler; it is the equivalent of what you will read on the back of a book.)

In Waiting, the main character, Artie, investigates the death of a friend and fellow "Suicide Club" member. He finds out about the existence of another species of human, dubbed the "Old People," who have the ability to send thoughts into the minds of others, and the plot goes on from there.

In another review I looked at, the reviewer argues that the "Old People" are not superior to humans, that they are just the same, and that even though they are supposedly so worried about the environment, they still drive cars and pollute. Well, the fact is that to Old People are superior; it is essential to the plot of the story. And Robinson, in my opinion, does not try to portray our race as evil, because in the story, both sides kill. It is human nature, and yes though the Old People are a different species, they are essentialy human, and their struggle to take back the Earth from Homo sapiens is also human, and I do not think that it has anything to do with the environment, though they use it as an excuse. It has to do with territory. They think they can run the world better, so they try (again, human nature).

Anyway, this is not a big book of propaganda as some would have you believe. Though this book was obviously written to get the author's "save the environment" message across, it is not the whole thing, and you should not start the book expecting that. It is instead about a war between two species of humans, one which has been waiting to take their world back.

Rating:
Summary: Great Idea but Poor Execution
Review: This book started off very well, but the story really lost steam about the halfway point. Robinson's story is that there's another, secret, competing race of humans that live among us and are healthier, more peaceful, stronger, etc. When his characters accidentally stumble onto this fact, it sets in motion a chain of events that start off exciting, but gradually become very repetitive, with the book ultimately falling apart, due to one coincidence too many (I don't want to give too much away here and risk ruining the book for you). Ultimately, what started as a riveting page-turner for me, turned into a book that I felt I had to finish, since I'd devoted so much time to it already. Very disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Premise with potential nullified by clichés
Review: This book was mentioned in Stephen King's reading list (as an appendix to his inspirational "On Writing"). The premise of a race of "superior" beings living among us intrigued me. Unfortunately, that was the ONLY reason why I endured the book until the end. I couldn't care less about any of the two-dimensional characters, the corny dialogue, or the repetitious spoon-feeding of plot detail (how stupid is the reader expected to be?). I sped through most of the novel because I was anxious to put it away and move on to a better book. VERY disappointing.