Abduction

Rating:
Summary: Great Start, Poor Finish
Review: Having read all of Robin Cook's books, I expected another wonderful read filled with suspense and explicit character development. This book failed those tests. The storyline was original, but halfway through the book, I found myself wondering why Cook failed to expond more on the questionable behaivor of his characters. The story could have gone a long way, but I found myself anxious to finish and get it over with. I recently read both suspense books by James Rollins and found those to be fantastic

Rating:
Summary: dumb and sumber
Review: quite possibly the worst sci-fi book written in the last 20 years....if not the worst it's in the top ten....the audio book is even worse...my kids couldn't stand it..

A prime example of an excellent writer (robin Cook) trying a new genre and failing miserably!

Rating:
Summary: Ghastly space opera
Review: This is a book that might even have had trouble being published in the 40's, the heyday of space opera. The script would probably not have been accepted for a very bad episode of "Star Trek." That is has been published at all, in any decade, is a mind-boggling tribute only to the venality of publishers who will count on a well-known name to sell any old drek. That any respectable writer would allow this donkey to go to print is inexplicable, save that he suspects he will never write another book so doesn't care. The 'human' characters are trite, shallow and stupid, the 'alien' characters are idiotic, the plot - such as it is - is mind-numbingly predictable, the suspense and tension are zero. I give it one star for grammar and spelling. It deserves far less.

Rating:
Summary: Robin Cook is a Genious!
Review: Le me begin by saying that if you're new to Robin Cook, do not start with this novel. It is nothing like any of his other novels since it is not a medical thriller.

This book begins fairly slow and send the reader in the wrong direction. I don't want to say more because I'll be giving it away.

You will NEVER guess how it ends!!!

Rating:
Summary: Skip this novel and read H.G. Wells' The Time Machine!
Review: This book is an example of a failed experiment that probably would not have sold except for its having been written by an already commercially successful writer. Once a writer is a success, the publishers stop requiring good editing, which is what this book needs.

The story interested me enough that I finished the book, but only to find out if anything interesting would happen to the characters, and if they would ever grow from their experiences. Plenty of things happened to the characters; few of those things were interesting, mainly because the characters are one dimensional paper dolls dressed up like fictional cliches.

The characters include a couple of low-life, crude, violent bubbas, a pretty female scientist, a hard-edged military man, and a corporate president. No matter what happens to them, they stay in their designated roles with little emotional response and no character growth despite their traumatic experiences. The corporate president is a oddly out of place, with the literary voice of an insecure adolescent. He judges people by whether their teeth are as white as his own, for gosh sakes! I found him completely devoid of credibility, not in the sense of a shrewd but distrustful executive, but in the sense that I was unable to buy the premise that a man of his limited intellect, beset with so many inner misgivings, could have succeeded as head of the school lunch committee, not to mention a global drilling operation.

When this group is sucked under the bed of the ocean into what appears to be a peace and love Utopia, they run around wreaking their normal havoc and staying true to their flat character traits until the ending, during which I thought, for a moment, that I would be reading a remake of the appearance of the buried Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes.

Suspending practicality and belief long enough to enjoy a fantasy is a fine and honorable pleasure, but only if the characters have enough passion to connect the writer to the experience. Sorry, that never happens here. When I reached the end, I felt I had wasted my time reading this book. I find it sad that the commercial aspect of publishing requires good writers to pump out lame work in the interest of sales.

If you want to read a good book about people venturing into the center of the earth, read H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, which is actually given a nod within Cook's Abduction.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous tale
Review: Let me summarize the story for you so you don't waste time on this book. Five divers/scientists go deep into the Atlantic Ocean, and become abducted by another species of humans who live in a large air-filled cavity under the seas. The "aliens" are a happy people who abhor violence, and who transfer their souls from body to body to live forever. The "aliens" also have advanced technology which is difficult to explain (for example, why do they use lights to set up artificial days and nights?). Our ordinary human heroes want to escape. The ending is particularly ridiculous, and comes across as Dr Cook ran out of time to think of how to wrap up this crazy story.

Rating:
Summary: Dr Cook is no Jules Verne...
Review: Perry Bergman, founder, president and largest shareholder of Benthic Marine is on its way on board the Benthic Explorer near the volcanically and seismically active Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Using the submarine Oceanus, the crew is working on their current project: drilling into a magma chamber within a seamount west of the Azores.
One day, in the Oceanus, the crew come across a strange and deep hole that looks like an opening into an extinct volcano when suddenly the submarine looses its buoyancy and is inexorably sucked into the abyss. And so the members of the crew are about to enter the futuristic world of Inteterra.
Jules Verne wrote an infinitely more refined book, "Voyage to the Center of the Earth", in 1864! Maybe Dr Cook should concentrate on what is his speciality: medicine.