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Jinn: A Novel

Jinn: A Novel

List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $24.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: Excellent book. Awesome author. I look forward to more by this author.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gripping novel that covers all genres...
Review: Jinn is fantastic. It encompasses historical fiction, biblical apocalypse, cat and mouse detective work and a little romance as well. Oh and did I mention the horrific monster. This book appeals to readers of all genres. Very intense and hard to put down. Great first book, I look forward to more works by Delaney.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Imaginative good idea, but writing falls short of ...
Review: captivating this reader. It was just ordinary. The whole idea had me mesmerized, but once I was into the novel I was disappointed entirely. Who is reviewing this novel five stars? I have no idea because I honestly cannot understand due to the novel needing specific help with making the plot more compelling and the characters need enrichment. I really enjoyed the whole concept and was excited to read the book, then disappointed later. I hope the author works with a new editor next time.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: HOW DID THIS GET PUBLISHED?
Review: I bought this book on a whim, thinking it sounded interesting. I could not have been more wrong! I couldn't even finish it, it's that terrible. I will not criticize the subject matter, even though I easily could. What an author decides to use in his book is his choice and not meant for everyone to like. What I will criticize is the deplorable writing. I don't know who to be angry at here, the author or the editor. There are so many unforgivable mistakes in the writing that I don't even know where to begin. Matthew B.J. Delaney does not know how to set up suspense believably. With the character of Eric Davis, he uses both names to address the character, sometimes in adjoining sentences. This is big no no, especially with a large group of characters like the group of marines in the beginning of this story. It's impossible to tell one from the other. I actually started laughing when the characters refer to "the monster" as a thing instead of a person long before they have reason to suspect such a far out scenario. I mean, it's almost immediately, like the characters are reading a bad script instead of living the scene. It's just shallow. He also uses metaphors casually and without purpose, which makes the prose clunky and unreadable. Adding to this unreadability is the choppy fragmented descriptions that instead of creating a visual image, simply pull you out of the story. Even the formatting of the novel is obtrusive with little to no margins and chapters that seem to melt together with no real breaks. I think this last point is simply to keep the reader interested in turning the page when the story can't. There are more problems of course, but I don't think this is forgivable because this is a first novel. These mistakes should have been corrected by the editor and the publisher. To think that this book was given their approval simply baffles me. Shame on you St. Martin's Press. I would expect this from someone who self publishes, but not from you. Avoid this book like the plague, there are much better books out there. Books you don't have to yell at or begrudgingly forgive every other sentence. I shudder to think that this might be turned into a movie. What a waste of money.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pure Crap
Review: If you like to read things that are poorly researched, and full of errors and cliche's then this book is for you.
I, on the other hand, want my money back.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better than it has a right to be
Review: Delaney ascends amazing heights of improbability, and strains credibility while dancing nimbly along the line of horror fiction, keeping his book a murder mystery in the traditional sense by the skin of his teeth.

I can't tell you how bitter I am that this guy just graduated from an IVY league school, got published and is prettier than I am. He's on the list of people who frustrate the crap out of me because my book is unsold and is better written than this is. Unfortunately, it's the ideas that sell these books, not the quality (although I can't believe it came out in hardback).

All that said, Delaney stays well away from every cliche I can think of, he doesn't get into annoying personal stuff with any of his characters (they have backstories that I found interesting, as opposed to obligatory of annoying). He does the army scenes okay, and he does the hard boiled detective stuff very, very well. I didn't enjoy the perspective changes, there's about two chapters that are told in first person, and sometimes the story stays with the detectives and sometimes it doesn't. I wish it had stayed with them more, the flashes to the critter killing people didn't do anything for me.

A 'something' is locked in a boat sunken off the Solomon Islands during WWII. It is eventually retrieved, taken to Boston, and gets loose on the population. There seems to be a pattern to the killings, and this leads to stories of ancient Mesopotamia, Demons, Angels, the Shroud of Turin, mutated skeletons, and other stuff that's actually hard to believe! Oh, and re-incarnation.

I was surprised at how 'spiritual' the book was willing to go, to the degree that with some less violence and language, this could have been published as a 'warfare against evil' book in a Christian bookstore instead.

In the end, Delaney, I think, tries to explore too many ideas in one book. I think he has a fertile imagination, and I'll watch where he goes. I will dismiss him immediately, however, if he writes a sequel to this before he does anything else.

Oh, and you may read comparisons of this to RELIC. Don't believe it. The only similarity is an unexplained creature.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Entertaining but shockingly poorly written in parts
Review: I had a relatively large review written, but it seems pointless as I appear to be in the minority here. Bottom line, this book feels as though it were written by Jason Schwarzman's character in "Rushmore." It's derivative and the prose is just awful in places. I'm utterly astounded that it's received such good notices.
I will say that it was reasonably entertaining and well-paced. However, it's pretty far from unique. For a better experience, read "Relic" and its sequel "Reliquary."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: rajiv
Review: for the 1st time writer, this is excellent stuff.

i was amazed at the way each character carried weight especially brogan/jefferson/maceena.

on the whole , this book is a must read and should be rated 5 stars for all its worth.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: one of the best first books written.
Review: i leave the details of the book to others, i just wanted to say that this is a very good book to read and it is in the vein of sci-fi horror. i just wanted to ask, amazon.com has not listed his next book, is he still writing and if he is does anyone know when his next book going to come out.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: not bad!
Review: a curious book. at times frantic in pace, other times decidedly sluggish. too long but also containing a bunch of absolutely gripping scenes. begins as a war novel, then becomes a submarine adventure, then a horror-thriller clearly in the preston-child vein, then a .... what exactly? let's say, a "demonological-almost religious-esoterical" story. horrible murders, reincarnation, a very particular romance (you'll see), the knights templars, the crusades, a detective story, the war in bosnia, WWII .... seems ludicrous? well, the fact that delaney just succeeds in NOT writing a ridiculuos book it's proof of a very promising, if flawed, debut. the solution, however, is one of the most far-fetched and improbable i've EVER read: the chain of coincidences it assumes is simply unbelievable. however, i'm waiting with curiosity for a second, more tightly edited book, which could establish delaney as a very serious alternative to preston and child.


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