Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: Very good book - interesting characters, great story.. pick up this book if you get the chance.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not amazing
Review: Very Michael Crichton-- but the characters are a bit thin and setting them up seems a little strained (gee, I WONDER if he'll get together with the perky Asian counter-culture computer nerd?)... but the overall story is clever, the twists are nice and it's SO a big-budget movie waiting to happen. I'm a fan of theme parks and am impressed at his homework about the operations of them, it's great... overall a fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: Terror at the theme park
Review: Lincoln Child's latest solo offering is an entertaining action tale revolving around a day in the life of Utopia, the world's most state of the art and technologically advanced theme park. The park, envisioned by David Copperfield-like magician Eric Nightingale is encased in a huge dome and nestled in the Nevada desert outside Las Vegas. Utopia is laid out much like Disneyland with 4 different sections, the outer space themed Callisto, Boardwalk, a 1890's English seaside resort, the medieval Camelot and the mid English 1800's village, Gaslight.Unfortunately this day, Utopia has been infiltrated by a team of mercenaries lead by the suave and cunning John Doe and held for ransom. In the days leading up to the park's hijacking a series of technical glitches has caused mishaps culminating in the partial derailing of some cars of the Notting Hill Chase, a terrifying super roller coaster. A young rider was thrown from the coaster and seriously injured. A malfunction in robotic parts of the track was suspected. Andrew Warne, a Phd in computers and expert in robotics is unsuspectingly summoned to the park by his former colleague and paramour Sarah Boatwright the head of Utopia operations. Warne working in concert with Eric Nightingale designed all the robotic aspects of the park which are centrally controlled through the Metanet. Warne is accompanied by his teenage daughter Georgia thinking his visit will be casual. He expects to be told to add to and enhance his already spectacular creation. He arrives a week earlier than expected and is crushed when Boatwright tells him that he is to disassembles his precious Metanet, the suspected cause of the problems. As the story progresses we find out through Warne that the park has been booby trapped, threatening the 66,000 people in attendance that day. Warne in concert with the extensive Utopia staff devises a plan to try to thwart the heavily armed commando team, which we learn has inside assistance from highly placed sources within the Utopia team. The novel is highly creative and technologically imaginative and worthy of a recommendation to action, adventure readers and Preston and Child fans.
Rating:
Summary: Utopia
Review: This was a totally enjoyable read. I have read other Lincoln Child books and this is my favorite. The characters are well developed and the plot makes for a page-turner. There is also a cool graphic map of the amusement park inside the front cover which is fun to reference as you read the book. I recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A White Knuckle Thrill a Minute
Review: Lincoln Child's Utopia starts with a scream and ends with a bang.It's a white knuckle thrill a minute that I found hard to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Great thriller for P/C and non P/C fans alike!
Review: Something is noticeably different in Utopia when comparing it to the books written by Preston and Child together. However, it's not a bad difference. Utopia still has the Preston/Child flavor in spades. I imagine that this is because Preston gave his friend a lot of tips as he wrote the book. So while it's not completely Preston/Child, it's very close! Utopia takes place primarily in a futuristic amusement park. The action revolves around a criminal plot driven by greed. The dialogue is great as usual, but I wasn't entirely convinced of the scenery. Still a great read though! For those not familiar with the authors, you might want to start with "Relic" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. If you've worn through all of the P/C titles though and you want some more, this is the best place to get it. After this, go find Douglas Preston's pre P/C book, Jennie. It's a little rough around the edges in terms of plot and quite a bit different from the usual P/C material, but Doug's talent shines brightly in the characters and scenarios.
Rating: 
Summary: The Thrill Ride That Never Thrills
Review: When coupled with author Douglas Preston, Licoln Child is able to pen great suspense novels that are gripping and chilling. Mount Dragon and The Relic are amazing tour-de-force novels. But when on his own, Licoln Child can't achieve the same level of greatness that he finds with his partner. The plot of Utopia is much too simple. This is Die Hard meets Jurassic Park, without the suspense and without the thrilling characters. The plot is so simple that you'll guess every twist and turn dozens of pages before they actually occur. There are very few surprises in Utopia, which completely destroys the type of suspense the book is striving to achieve. Even the characters are paper-thin and stereotypical. You have the average-joe computer wiz who will become the Rambo-like savior, and his young daughter, who will become the target. You have the parc's director, a woman who's so ambitious that she can't see a problem when it slaps her right in the face. And finally, you have the inside man, the traitor who initiated the whole thing (and you'll easily guess who that is within the first fifty pages or so!). Imagine yourself on a roller coaster ride. You're all hyped up because it's about to start. When it does, you get all excited. Then the ride stops. Then starts again. Then stops. Then starts again. That's how I felt while reading Utopia.
As a matter of fact, the books reads more like the outline for the next big special effects summer film than an actual novel. And that's too bad, because the core idea behind the book is somewhat interesting. Child goes through great lengths to create this amazing theme parc and he easily puts us right in there with the characters (although he can babble a bit too much about computers and modern technology). But that's pretty much the only thing to find thrilling about this book.
Rating:
Summary: Utopia
Review: See book summary above. When I see Lincoln Child's name on any novel, I'm gettin' it. With this first solo attempt he hits a home run. What Lincoln Child has created in this novel is an elaborate theme park (in fact some of the descriptions of the park are so overwhelming they are hard to picture, so the author was thoughtful enough to put an illustration at the start) based on past cultures as well as future cultures. This is a very entertaining and exciting novel. For some reason while I was reading this story, the movie 'Die Hard' kept coming to mind. Hmmm. Highly recommended...strictly pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite thrilling.
Review: This story reads like a book planning on becoming a screenplay. Hopefully if it ever does, the actors involved will manage to flesh out these cardboard characters. Yes, the story had a certain grandeur to it. The scale was large - the greatest theme park ever built with the best rides ever imagined, and there was plenty of technology scattered throughout, but there wasn't one character I cared anything about, and that's why I read books. I don't read books to be dazzled by empty style. Granted, there were one or two harrowing moments conveyed well by the author, but the book itself had little suspense. The identity of the traitor was telegraphed very early. One knows who that person is one-third of the way into the story. And the ultimate goal was also clearly known well in advance. These are both key plot points which should have propelled the reader forward, but when telegraphed so early in a thriller of this sort, there's not much left to hang around for. Finally, there were things I found it difficult to get past. The ending was questionable. I'm not sure one can actually accomplish what the characters accomplished with the tools available to them. And I also found it unbelievable that an establishment of this nature, a casino/theme park, would sit around waiting so long for an armoured car to arrive. Most businesses expect their money to be working for them much quicker then that. It just doesn't make sense. I'd still call it worth reading though. It's not a complete waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Solo Effort from Lincoln Child
Review: I was thrilled to see Lincoln Child take a topical detour from his work with Douglas Preston for his first solo novel, Utopia. I love his novels with Preston, but with Utopia, he develops his own distinct voice and the results are spectacular. The amount of detail in this book is wonderful, and yet, unlike Crichton, Child never lectures the reader on minute technical matters. The action never comes to a complete stop for a treatise on artificial intelligence or any of the other scientific elements of the book. I also really liked how Child is able to give voice to a teenage girl, as well as more typical adult male action-oriented characters. I think Child's ability to make the reader care about the population of his book (even the nasty characters) is what elevates Utopia above many other genre novels. These are not cardboard cutouts. This book is definitely worth a read - one of the few thrillers that is actually worth not waiting for paperback.
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