Rating: 
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.
Rating: 
Summary: It really makes you think about what is important to you
Review: This book was very exciting to read there was action, adventure, and a lot of suspense. I recommend this book because it was very fun to read and it had a lot of very interesting events that happen in the book. The author Joan Lowery Nixon really made you pity Holly because of the murders of her boy friend Cody's parents and because her father is a detective and is investigating the murder. Holly wants to prove Codey's innocents, she knows that he could not and would not murder his parents. As Holly starts to investigate the case she finds out some clues to the murder and how and why Cody could not have done it. As Holly searches for the murder she finds a mysterious lady that offers to help her out. Holly resists at letting her help her because the lady claims to be a psychic. Holly eventually finds out who the real murderer. People who enjoy reading a thrilling murder story should read this book because of all the mysterious and twisting plot.
Rating:
Summary: A good action-packed novel
Review: This is a first novel for DuBrul and a very good one at that! Definitely a novel in the tradition of Clive Cussler and that's high praise indeed. I really enjoyed this book and once I finished it I ordered his other two books. Mercer is a great character in the mold of an Indiana Jones. So pick up this book, you will not be disappointed.
Rating: 
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.
Rating: 
Summary: Edge of your seat
Review: This was one of the most heart pounding keep you glued to your seat to find out what is going on and whom whom is. Man it was great .. i hope the other is just as good
Rating:
Summary: The plot,characterization and action are excellent
Review: To say this book is excellent is an understatement. In my 40 + years of reading I thought I had read them all. Du Brul ranks with Cussler as a master story teller. This is a "can't put down" book for all readers. Not in the least bit gender biased as so many adventure writers are. Mercer is a man's man as well as a woman's man!(different from a lady's man) Easy to follow and associate with the characters and interesting background information. I like a book that excites as well as informs. This one has it all.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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: Du Brul's First Book!
Review: Vulcan's Forge is the one that started his career! Definitely a must-have for any Du Brul fan.
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