Sleeper

Rating:
Summary: overriding nature
Review: the use of chemicals to alter development during pregnancy combined with a specific purpose-Whoa! This book is very well done holding your interest from the start . Is the furture now as shown through our past mistakes with introducing drugs such as thalidomide? Action and personal relationships mixed nicely here.

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT thriller!
Review: This is an incredibly well-crafted thriller, one that avoids stereotypes and cliches to keep you on the edge of your seat. As I think another reviewer said, this one is at least as good as, if not better than, the Relic.

The characters are well-developed and the structure and culture of the Pentagon are effectively woven into the action. The story makes good use of history, including certain aspects of modern history I was not familiar with. And the "monster" is anything but a cliched, rogue product of the paranormal or geological isolation.

I can't believe this book hasn't gotten more attention.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty atrocious
Review: This is what happens when authors have little imagination.

Boring concept, no original ideas, and twists that are either completely predictable or completely moronic.

Clever is not the way to describe this book. Painful might be, though.

The location is amazing. The characters aren't terrible. But the decisions made with the monster most certainly are. Everything plays like the authors were looking at this as an assignment, job and chore instead of labor of love. Little effort seems to be put into the wording and wordplay, and the book gets ridiculous and, quite frankly, stupid towards the end.

Stupid is actually an understatement. When you read the book you'll see why. The ending is just... ridiculously, incomprehensibly absurd. It's mind-boggling and painful.

The book begins questionably but interestingly. You need to throw what you know about the world out the window in order to embrace his, but even then you're left shocked that someone thought these were good ideas.

Good concept, absolutely awful execution.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty atrocious
Review: This is what happens when authors have little imagination.

Boring concept, no original ideas, and twists that are either completely predictable or completely moronic.

Clever is not the way to describe this book. Painful might be, though.

The location is amazing. The characters aren't terrible. But the decisions made with the monster most certainly are. Everything plays like the authors were looking at this as an assignment, job and chore instead of labor of love. Little effort seems to be put into the wording and wordplay, and the book gets ridiculous and, quite frankly, stupid towards the end.

Stupid is actually an understatement. When you read the book you'll see why. The ending is just... ridiculously, incomprehensibly absurd. It's mind-boggling and painful.

The book begins questionably but interestingly. You need to throw what you know about the world out the window in order to embrace his, but even then you're left shocked that someone thought these were good ideas.

Good concept, absolutely awful execution.

Rating:
Summary: Monster Mess or Monster Smash?
Review: Truly great monster movies always find a way to convey the sense of loss or tragedy beind the monster. In the process of discovery, the viewer begins to feel sorry for this frighteningly hideous being and the circumstances it has suffered, often times at the hand of man. The moments of frenzy are nicely coupled with moments of pathos. In the end, one could argue that the viewer comes to a greater understanding of the monster than any other character, and, perhaps, the viewer even secretly despises the hero who must inevitably vanquish the beast.

That said, Harriman's debut novel, "Sleeper," almost feels crafted as an homage to the great monster movies of today and yesterday.

Meersohn, the "Sleeper" awakened, is the end result of Nazi scientists early tinkerings into research with genetic tampering, a bit of a stretch since DNA hadn't yet been discovered, but this is nicely smoothed out by the author (in a debut novel, nonetheless!). Of course, the same fate that tempted the Nazis tempts Meersohn's father, and the story that began over six decades ago flashes forward to a future ... where the aftermath from monsters of the human variety (the terrorists of the historic 9/11 events) is being dealt with in the renovations to the Pentagon.

Ed Jeffers, the Pentagon facilities manager, is posed with a unique problem: a constructor worker has gone missing under curious circumstances that point to a saboteur or, worse, a wayward crocodile nesting within the massive walls of the building. Jeffers seeks out the counsel of Dr. Andrea DeLuca, a herpetologist, to provide answers to some questions, but what she discovers only raises the stakes ... and Dr. DeLuca insists upon joining the search for what could possibly be a thousand-year-old species long thought extinct. As matters continue to escalate, Terrill Hodge, America's finest Navy SEAL, is brought in to eradicate the creature ... and thus begins an odd love triangle between the three principal characters.

"Sleeper" doesn't exactly move along at a brisk pace. Like the unravelling of any "X File," the story has a fair amount of events, largely told in flashback, that need to be explained, and this keeps the narrative slow during the first half of the book. However, the novel has its share of surprising plot twists, and the author occasionally strays into areas that other authors would've avoided or found unnecessary. And, while others might take issue with the string of coincidences that eventually binds this house of cards together, the author deftly manages to keep the story on track, moving forward, never sacrificing the human element ... even that of the vicious Meersohn.

So many other themes are explored in "Sleeper" that it's difficult to wrap your arms around them all. Genetic engineering. Alzheimers. Disability. Attraction. Revulsion. The author went to great pains to pen a human story in the world of monsters, and the result -- while some moments involve too much internal character angst -- is still a well-deserved beast that deserves to be found by a wide audience.

The clever moral of the story here is that, through purely inadvertant chance, one monster (terrorists) ultimately unleashed another (Meersohn). That's a lesson for the ages.

Rating:
Summary: Grabs you
Review: What a great read! The author mixes science, history, and recent headlines in an intelligent, fast-paced thriller that grabs you and won't let go. I stayed up late one evening to finish it--a genuine page-turner that I couldn't put down. The characters are all well-drawn, even minor ones, and the awakened creature itself is far more intriguing and, in certain ways, sympathetic, than most genre monsters.

Rating:
Summary: Sleeper, what a paradox!
Review: When I first opened this book I thought to myself, "Hmm, new author, probably going to be one of those cliche horror novels..." Sleeper is anything but! From the first few pages I was riveted to the book -- like one of the other reader reviews mentioned, I couldn't put the book down! The story line is very original, tying an old Nazi conspiracy to a modern day crisis. The subject matter shows the scope of Steven Harriman's imagination -- absolutely boundless! Adding a dash of romance to a freight train of horror and science fiction, he produced what is, in my mind, one of the best novels to date. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes science fiction or horror novels, though I personally found the book to contain more of the former. In any case, this book is a deliciously blended modern masterpiece and I hope to see more such works from Mr. Harriman in the future!

Rating:
Summary: The Jaws that Bite
Review: You first thought while reading 'Sleeper,' will be something like "Oh no! Yet another humanoid reptilian monster creeping around in the basements of a huge building and eating people as a pastime." And, to be honest, you wouldn't be wrong. It seems that scaly creatures with dubious DNA have superceded great white sharks as the inhuman villain of preference. The nastier and smarter the better.

A sealed tank is accidentally discovered in the deepest foundations of the Pentagon, bearing the stamp of the German Abwehr. A workman unknowingly opens it, and becomes the first in a string of 'lunches' as a terrible breeding experiment of World War II stalks though the Pentagon, seeking to carry out the sabotage for which it was originally created. Toss in a beautiful research scientist, an attractive building superintendent, a stuffy general, and a rebellious Navy Seal, and you pretty much have the entire story.

The good news is that Steven Harriman is several notches better than the average hack horror writer. As a result, what could have been a predictable potboiler turns into something that can hold a readers interest. All of the characters have some flaw that reflects the monster they are hunting. In fact, the creature shares many of their human characteristics as well as the tragedy of being denied the access to normalcy by its creators, who could see it only as a tool.

While this is by no means a great work of literature, it has its own satisfactions, full of the little twists of insight that make this story more than a hack and slash rerun. If you like this kind of creepy horror (as I do) then you will likely find 'Sleeper' a few hours of pleasant entertainment.