Rating: 
Summary: A very good story. 4 1/2 stars, I rounded up.
Review: Utopia is a 21 century amusement park, the most advanced park in the world. Utopia is made up of four (a fifth to open soon) different "worlds" under a dome. Camelot, a midieval world; Callisto, a futuristic space-station world; Gaslight, a turn-of the century London themed world; Boardwalk, themed after those turn-of-the-century parks located near a beach; and soon to open Atlantis, themed after the lost-continent of the same name.
The story takes place during one day. The park is running smoothly, when terrorists quietly let themselves be known to the big-wigs, making demands or causing terror. Dr. Andrew "Drew" Warne, a robotics expert from Carnegie-Mellen University, visiting the park as an external-specialist, finds himself doing more than what was expected, but instead leading the way to saving the park and it's visitors.Utopia is a beautifully written book, sometimes the descriptions and thoughts written within the story will remind you of a good-piece of fast moving literature. I very much enjoyed reading this, and found it exceptionally hard to put down and I actually cared about the characters. Even some of the terrorists were intellectual and fun to read about.
There were just a few problems with the book, however. The character of Georgia, Warne's daughter, seems, for 14 years old, to act both too young and too old. Also I truly hated Sarah Boatwright, the Chief of Operations of the park, and past girlfriend of Warne. She was just an egotistical, annoying and irresponsible person, and I have no idea how someone like Warne would have ever loved her.
Rating: 
Summary: You wont miss anything if you skip this book.
Review: When I picked this book up I thought that I was about to encounter the absolute worst premise of all time. All you have to do is read the dust jacket to groan with the possible clichés that might run rampant throughout this book. I have read all of Lincoln Child's books co-authored with Douglas Preston and have found them for the most part to be entertaining. So I thought that regardless of what looked like a disaster of an idea, I would give this a go anyways.
Surprisingly Child managed to craft a pretty taught though implausible thriller here. His characters are very one-dimensional and are not developed at all. But his use of the English language is remarkably well suited for this type of writing. He manages to craft a story that is quickly consumed and that keeps the reader plodding along in suspense. There is no originality occurring here, and at its core is a plot that is as old as the hills. But Child manages to keep the reader engaged through his expert grasp of suspense.
I would like to see Child and Preston read Edward Bunker's `Dog eat Dog.' I would like for them to see how Bunker treats his protagonist and pull some aspects of this into their mainstream wonder bread characterizations. It would be unique and startling if they would combine the two.
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