Rating: 
Summary: Suspense, romance, and UFOs
Review: Commander Robert Bellamy, crack Naval Intelligence agent, has been assigned the top secret job of locating ten people who witnessed the crash of a UFO in Switzerland. The job sends him to six countries, and, as soon as Robert and leaves them, each of the witnesses is violently murdered. He then realizes that several highly-placed representatives from around the world are behind the plot, and that his name has been added to the hit list.
This suspenseful page-turner kept me spellbound and I was unable to put it down. I felt like I was running with Robert as he used his skills and cunning to solve puzzle after puzzle, criss-crossing the globe in a frantic race against time. The exotic locations are described beautifully, and the large cast of characters is intriguing. The sci-fi parts are the weakest, and reflect the time in which the book was written, but the over-all reading experience was truly exciting, scary, and satisfying. I recommend The Doomsday Conspiracy to all fans of Sidney Sheldon's books; this one is different and one of his very best.
Rating: 
Summary: A little corny...but a fun read
Review: Fox Mulder would drop his UFO conspiracy theories about half-way through this incredibly inept stab at the genre. Commander Robert Bellamy is a former navy fighter pilot who lost the love of his life to some greasy tycoon (he’d been too busy fighting in aVietnam). Now in intelligence, working for his military mentor, Bellamy is tasked to track down witnesses who saw a UFO crash in Europe. Finding the UFO is really a weather balloon, Bellamy and a Russian assistant find members of a tour (from across the world) who saw the incident convinced it was the real thing. While the “weather balloon” story seems true, Bellamy never realizes that each of his witnesses is murdered shortly after he interviews them. The final segment of the book has Bellamy running for his own life – the last of the witnesses have been offed – across Europe. His hunter is the shadowy “Janus”. Meanwhile, a mysterious visitor who may know a thing or two herself about the incident, walks aimlessly across Europe. While this may be the stuff of a true cross-over hit, pedestrian prose, cardboard characters and a climax that looks like it was written up as an afterthought show that this book would be a miserable failure in any single genre, let alone several. Sheldon once claimed that he never wrote about a hotel he never slept in or a meal he didn’t eat – which is why his books sound more like travelogues than novels. His brief description of the history of “Top Gun” (Bellamy was a fighter pilot) is not only laughably off (Sheldon has Bellamy flying A-6 intruders which were NOT fighter planes) but seems to have no other purpose but to “show” that Sheldon knows a thing or two about techno-military details (whoops!!). Next is Bellamy himself – supposedly chosen for the mission because of his skills, even though he doesn’t begin to rely on them until he’s running for his life. Of course every UFO-conspiracy tale needs a conspiracy – normally a deftly executed one like that headed by the cigarette guy on the X-Files. This group is just power-hungry – there’s no real mystery to their intentions or why they fear the aliens. (For that matter, there’s little depth to the aliens’s benevolence.) Sheldon seems to think that nobody’s covered this ground before – let alone with better style and substance. If you need something along these lines, Payne Harrison’s “Forbidden Summit”, an imperfect book, is still better than this excuse of a novel, or just catch an episode of “The X-Files”. Just put this book down and forget you ever heard of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Cardboard cliches
Review: I cannot believe the cliches in this book. I actually laughed out loud during the short chapter where he introduces the members from different countries. First of all, he has each different person have exactly one line so he can mention them, and the descriptions he gives! The Frenchman was arrogant, the English snobby, the Japanese polite ... ! I will not be bothering with Sheldon again.
Rating: 
Summary: Dated But Still Fun
Review: I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book read by David Dukes. He does an admirable job of conveying Sheldon's minimal dialogue and page-turning episodic scenes. The plot is classic Sheldon with a Sci Fi twist, which I confess startled me at first, had me laughing for a second and then once I suspended disbelief held me until the end of the story, although loosely. The main character, Commander Bellamy is a supposed excellent field agent for naval intelligence, his final assignment before throwing in the towel leads him on a world wide search for a bus load of tourists who have witnessed what the Navy wants people to believe was a weather balloon. Shades of Roswell! Unfortunately with series like 'Roswell' and Sci Fi Channel mini-series like 'Taken', this plot line has definitely been done before in full technicolor conspiracy which reduces the power of the book to intrigue and keep the pages turning. Bellamy's past---he is grieving over a failed marriage whose reminiscences at times can be downright sickening---perhaps makes him a bit dim-witted regarding the fate of the people he tracks down---he discovers the identity of all of them before he realizes that something isn't quite right with his assignment in the first place. What takes weeks for him to puzzle, the reader already suspects and expects.
Similarly, the ending is ultimately disappointing because it seems rushed; so much time is spent on Bellamy's quest and his superior's subsequent action but little time is devouted to the climatic finish. The last tape cassette consists of Sheldon's notes to the reader, itemizing strange events and cover-ups that are associated with the US space program and hint at a real-life Doomsday Conspiracy.
Nevertheless, despite its flaws, the novel entertains as only a Sidney Sheldon novel can. Its not one of his best, but I think this is probably due more to the over exposure of the subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: Dated But Still Fun
Review: I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book read by David Dukes. He does an admirable job of conveying Sheldon's minimal dialogue and page-turning episodic scenes. The plot is classic Sheldon with a Sci Fi twist, which I confess startled me at first, had me laughing for a second and then once I suspended disbelief held me until the end of the story, although loosely. The main character, Commander Bellamy is a supposed excellent field agent for naval intelligence, his final assignment before throwing in the towel leads him on a world wide search for a bus load of tourists who have witnessed what the Navy wants people to believe was a weather balloon. Shades of Roswell! Unfortunately with series like 'Roswell' and Sci Fi Channel mini-series like 'Taken', this plot line has definitely been done before in full technicolor conspiracy which reduces the power of the book to intrigue and keep the pages turning. Bellamy's past---he is grieving over a failed marriage whose reminiscences at times can be downright sickening---perhaps makes him a bit dim-witted regarding the fate of the people he tracks down---he discovers the identity of all of them before he realizes that something isn't quite right with his assignment in the first place. What takes weeks for him to puzzle, the reader already suspects and expects.
Similarly, the ending is ultimately disappointing because it seems rushed; so much time is spent on Bellamy's quest and his superior's subsequent action but little time is devouted to the climatic finish. The last tape cassette consists of Sheldon's notes to the reader, itemizing strange events and cover-ups that are associated with the US space program and hint at a real-life Doomsday Conspiracy.
Nevertheless, despite its flaws, the novel entertains as only a Sidney Sheldon novel can. Its not one of his best, but I think this is probably due more to the over exposure of the subject matter.
Rating: 
Summary: Science Fiction for the beginner
Review: Someone suggested that if I like SF I should read this book. They were mistaken. If you like SF, stay away from this book. Imagine if Tom Clancy wrote a romance novel, or if Stephen King wrote a children's book...get the picture? The plot was typical of SF movies of the 1950s and 70s: Super advanced plant people crash on Earth and a super secret group of world-dominating CEOs try to kill all the witnesses. The aliens want us to clean up our act, the conspiracy group wants to drill for oil in the protected Alaskan wilderness...hey, wait a minute... There is an important lesson given by Mr. Sheldon in this book: Sidney doesn't write good science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Kind of silly, but I couldn't quit reading
Review: The science fiction aspects of this book were a little silly, and when I realized that the author was going in that direction I almost quit reading. But he is a good enough writer with enough twists and turns to the plot to keep me reading.
Not the best fiction I've ever read, but it was entertaining enough to cause me to read it all.
Recommended for light reading. It sure beat watching television!
Rating:
Summary: Exciting (if you suspend disbelief)
Review: The story was thrilling as the lead character (US Navy Commander Robert Bellamy) tries to locate all the UFO witnesses. However, it is beyond belief that Robert would not be suspicious when one of the witnesses (the photographer) dies the day after Robert has found him and identified him to his superiors. Robert blissfully continues to find the other nine witnesses, identities them to his superiors, and then is shocked when his superiors try to kill him also.
Rating:
Summary: My Fav So Far
Review: This is my favorite Sheldon book so far! I love Sheldon and science fiction so this was great. It was complete with twists and turns and everything expected from a great Sheldon book. I definatly would recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent work by Sidney Sheldon
Review: This is the first book I've read by Sidney Sheldon. It's also the first book that I've read in less than two days. From the first page on I couldn't put it down. I found it very interesting with only a few pages getting a little strange with a small science fiction twist that I thought was a little corny. I thought the ending was excellent. I hope to read more by Sheldon and hope that they are as good as this one. Without hesitation, I'd recommend this book. It's worth the price and the time to read it. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed.
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