Rating: 
Summary: Domain Dominates!
Review: Domain is a thrill a minute ride into sci-fi & adventure. Domain has touches of Indiana Jones, a dab of the Exorcist 3, and wraps up as the intelligent version of Independence Day. Do not try to predict the ending. You will not - nay, you could not see it coming. Hang on for all the surprises, twists & turns as Domain barrels along. Domain is possibly the most researched book ever. Reading Domain will scare you as you ask yourself "Hey! Is this stuff going to happen?" Steve Alten has done his homework. Read and then re-read all the factual frightening events that the ancient Mayan calendar has foretold. And now it is predicting the exact date our earth will come to an end. For all the critics who thought Steve Alten only writes shark books, think again. Steve may have found a new niche. He excells at a book that could easily be classified as sci-fi & adventure. Only his third novel, Domain is researched and written as if from an author with 20 or more novels to his credit. From the research to the characterization, Steve Alten writes like a man slightly ahead of his time. Domain is easily the best book I've read in years. I simply could not put it down. And I had two thoughts upon the completion of Domain: I don't know if I can wait until the next book & Domain screams at the top of it's lungs "movie!" If Hollywood doesn't snatch this one up, someone is asleep at the wheel.Heath Shelby Program Director KNBY/KOKR Radio
Rating: 
Summary: Fair thriller with superficial existential theology
Review: As a science fiction thriller, this novel works fine. The science (mostly archeology in this case) is good enough to allow suspension of disbelief, but ultimately it is not really believable. The existential theology behind the book is superficial, and traditional religion suffers one serious attack when a key character declares that it is motivated by fear and encourages hate (this opinion is never rebutted by other characters). This book contains multiple sexual situations (at times somewhat graphic) and profanity, so middle and high school librarians might want to pass on it.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment
Review: This book starts off with what seems like a good premise, but... there is no focus, no character building, and no clarity. I am a fan of Dan Brown books, which marry fact with fiction, and I am also a fan of other books of Domain's genre, and I love the idea of combining science with the spiritual, but this book was simply very poorly written. The plot eventually became so over-the-top that I just had to stop. Why waste any more time. This was my first Steve Alten book; I will not try another.
Rating:
Summary: Von Daniken Revisited
Review: First, there are those who believe that humanity cannot achieve great things without some form of divine or extraterrestrial assistance, yet we have the Parthenon, the 9th Symphony, the Declaration of Independence, and a Theory of Relativity. So why is it so hard for people to accept that we could also build pyramids and understand the movements of the constellations?
That said, Steve Alten has created a fairly interesting plot for a fantasy novel. He has doubtlessly done a lot of painstaking research, which is why it is almost possible to suspend disbelief. The book starts out slow, with a lot of political and academic intrigue, then picks up and moves at a pretty good clip, and then...over the top, way over the top. Alten must resort to the metaphysical in order to pull it all together. A little more finesse with the final scenes could have made the book enjoyable.
Alten skips back and forth through history, always a satisfying device, but, annoyingly, he writes in the present tense, which is distracting. The hardcover edition I read had more typos than I have ever seen in a published work. I could recommend Domain as a pocket-book distraction for a long airplane flight, but the ending is not satisfying enough to make me want to read any of the sequels.
Rating:
Summary: The Apocalypse Never Looked So Good
Review: If you thought movies like End of Days were good and stories about the Devil causing Armageddon were cool, then this book is for you. It starts off in 2012, where the hero, Mick, is trapped in a mental hospital. Things get gradually worse, as we learn the heroine isn't totally on Mick's side, and the destruction of mankind is coming quickly in the form of Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec death god, who proves to be one nasty mother. Of course, Steve Alten throws in some killer twists, as the "gods" have some earth-shattering secrets that can help save not only mankind, but themselves! Sadly, the heroes don't have it easy in this story, as the villains seem to constantly grab them by their short-hairs! To top it off, we're giving the "doomsday evidence" in the form of diary entries by Julius, Mick's father, who died trying to convince the world of his beliefs. Trust me, this story is more than well worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Strong on Mayan facts, weak on psychological plausibility
Review: Alten ties together a littany of Eric von Daniken facts about the pyramids, ancient Mayan ruins etc. and throws in a wild alien plot and an out of control protagonist's ego to save the world ...
Zero for the use of hackneyed ancient trivia, several points for weaving a potentially interesting theory about the Yucatan peninsula meteorite, but in the end it falls apart because he has no clue about how to realistically write up psychological dynamics between his protagonist and heroine.
There were shades of Lincoln-Preston here and there, but it does not deserve the comparison or the reference to those authors. This is not to say that Lincoln and Preston always get it right. They don't. But at least when they do - say in the way they mix science facts with historical fiction - they back it up with slightly better character research.
Rating: 
Summary: Hangs together fairly well...
Review: If you're a Steve Alten fan, you'll definitely like this one of his offerings. Unlike the MEG shark series, which is very fast paced but more intellectually "breezy", Domain requires a little more thinking on the part of the reader. Blending archaeological fact and speculative prediction, Domain hangs together fairly well as a summer read. And who knows?-you may just want to retain this book for its background information when 2012 actually rolls around!
Rating:
Summary: A Solid and Enjoyable Adventure
Review: Steve Alten is a talented young writer. In perusing reviews of his various books it interesting to note that he has a very large number of dedicated fans and a few detractors. They both have one thing in common. That is that they all enjoy reading his books. In Domain he weaves an adventure story around some good archaeology and science and comes up with another winner. He varies from authors like D. L. Tanner, who writes great novels on Cryptozoology that successfully educate the reader while also supplying a great story line. Tanner's first purpose seems to be to educate while making it enjoyable and entertaining. Alten, on the other hand, writes first to entertain and makes the story itself work by including bits of science, archaeology, or zoology.
In any case, this is another in a growing stable of works produced by a fine, energetic, and imaginative author. My guess is that his expanding group of devotees will continue to grow over the years as he continues to apply his talent to the fields of endeavor he enjoys. He will, of course, have to do the trick of satisfying his existing fans that have come to enjoy his initial style of presentation while drawing new readers with new twists to his work.
Take a look at this book. If you have an interest in archaeology, nuclear science, or legends of alien visitation along with an appreciation of a good adventure story, this book will not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: Domain
Review: An intern at a mental institution believes an inmate's story that an ancient Mayan prophecy is about to come true and that the world will end. The inmate, Mick Gabriel, is the son of a late ridiculed archaeologist and convinces an intern (Dominique, a beautiful adopted woman of Mayan decent, of course) that his being locked up is part of a conspiracy by the American Secretary of State who has a personal vendetta. Dominique helps Mick escape and together they run around trying to save the world as the sinister Secretary of State, evil aliens, and nuclear war impede their progress. That's the rough synopsis of this book's stupid plot. Steve Alten is actually a pretty good thriller writer and keeps the plot moving along at an entertaining pace. Mostly though this book just screams out to be turned into a high-budget but utterly crappy sci-fi movie. There's apparently a sequel to this book that I don't plan to bother with.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful. Awful. Awful.
Review: Uggh. This book was so frustrating to me. I'm not usually a nitpicker but there were just too many things in this book that made me ask "what the heck is this author thinking?"
Supposedly well-educated NASA scientists referring to the "dark side of the moon?" (FYI - there is no such thing).
The Vice President flying from Washington D.C. to the Yucutan -- in a helicopter? Huh? (and in 4 hours?) The Vice President would not fly thousands of miles, to another country, over a thousand miles of open ocean in a helicopter.
Two days after the government realizes something is going on in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, they have a suddenly refitted oil rig on scene? Yeah, right.
NASA and SETI scientists saying an alien signal originates somewhere in the Orion constellation? Ummm. No. (Maybe if they said "in the direction of Orion" but they repeatedly say "in the Orion constellation."
And that's just a few things that really bugged me!
It's obvious the author did quite a bit of research on mythology but the leaps he makes in some of this other stuff is just mind boggling to me.
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