Vulcan's Forge (Philip Mercer (Audio))

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Summary: A Real Page Turner!!
Review: If you enjoy reading Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, or Stephen Coonts, then get ready to add Jack Du Brul to your list. Phillip Mercer could be a brother to Dirk Pitt. They both get into more trouble than humanly possible. It's how Mercer gets out of it that is riveting. Vulcan's Forge keeps the action going by mixing plots, action, and double-crossing double agents. Be prepared to stay up late reading this book. You will be as exhausted and bruised and Mercer is by the time you get to the very last page. The story twists and turns until you think that you can't take anymore suspense, then it twists some more. Add this future bestselling author to your list. You will not be disappointed!

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Summary: Great start
Review: It is unfair to compare Jack Du Brul's writing with those of Ian Fleming and Clive Cussler. In reading this novel the author's influences are very clear but he does it with his own sense of style. He is a promising new author who will probably be successful with his projects.

Philip Mercer is a geologist who becomes embroiled in a disaster happening in the Pacific Ocean area. Several ships have disappeared near the island of Hawaii including a NOAA ship where Mercer would have been part of the crew if not for prior commitments. In that ship is Mercer's mentor's daughter Tish Talbot. She is the only survivor of that shipwreck and there are people who want to kill her. Out of a sense of obligation Mercer becomes her bodyguard until he can figure what is going on.

In the island of Hawaii a civil war is beginning to brew. Takahoru Ohnishi is one of the most powerful men in Hawaii. He controls the cops as well as several government officials and is currently bankrolling a coup attempt. Ohnishi is a racist who wants to break out of the United States in order to give Hawaii its own independence and be able to do business with the Japanese. The reality is that all of this is a diversion to what is really happening in the Pacific Ocean. It is a Russian top secret plan that has been set into motion fifty years ago and it is now coming to fruition. If successful it will bring a lot of money and influence to the participants.

The book has a lot of humor and action making it quite entertaining. The supporting characters in this novel are strong and are probably going to return in the near future. If you are looking for a great beach read this is the book for you. It is the start of what appears to be an incredible series.

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Summary: Top notch
Review: Just a top notch book tape. Before you know it, you become part of the this make believe world. Spellbinding.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Summary: Non-stop Adventure !!
Review: Vulcan's Forge is not your average first-effort novel. It's much better!
The story is a breathtaking bullet-train ride with multilayered conspiracies. Jack came up with brilliantly schemed triple crosses in his debut novel -- Hawaii's claims of independency, an agonizing diplomatic deadlock in Thailand, a fifty-year-old shipwreck mystery, and a freighter that is not what it appears to be...
Great stuff, something anyone will regret missing!

Rating:
Summary: Bad Science Passing for Entertainment
Review: When I first picked up this book I thought it was another Star Trek novel. However, after reading the liner notes I thought I would give it a try anyway. I was surprised to find that Du Brul's first novel waa fast moving with many twists & turns in the plot. His writing style is easy. The plot was interesting and intricate without being overwhelming. The only negative feeling I got from the book was Du Brul's liberal use of four-letter words. Contribute it to my Southern, Bible-belt upbringing but I think almost any story can be told without an excessive amount of those types of words. That being said, however, I would recommend the novel to anyone willing to overlook this shortcoming. Had it not been for the language I would have rated it a solid "five-star" novel.