Rating: Summary: Outstanding Review: See book description above.I just finished this outstanding novel and just know there will be nothing that can touch this for a long time. Because I like the field of science so much, it was just wonderful putting all this highly researched science with a wonderful and epic story. Covering the varied laws of physics to the world to geology. Wonderful science. Wonderful fiction. Outstanding science fiction. Highly recommended.
Rating: Summary: Had me hooked Review: the book is very cleverly written. stel pavlou has done an excellent job piecing together myths and legends from the ages to deliver an incredibly beleivable theory on the mysteries of both atlantis and mankinds very existence. the characters are very simple and so very believable and even likeable. at times it gets a bit complicated with scientific and engineering terms (being a bit of a girlie i found some parts hard to understand) but the pace at which the books goes you catch up very quickly. the story pulls you in and you find yourself gripped and unable to put it down. i have never read a book so fast. my advice... if you liked the Da Vinci code read this, you'll love it.
Rating: Summary: Unreadable pretentious "hard junk science"-fiction Review: The premise of the book seemed interesting enough to get me to part with my hard earned cash... What a waste! I couldn't go past the first 100 pages of this mammoth book of pretentious ignorant pseudo scientific mumbo-jumbo. The "science" and "age old myths" suposedly "researched" by the author make a "Buffy and the Vampires" tv episode look brilliant and documented. The "chaos scientist" is in the same league as the character played by Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day and Jurassic Park, only even more "new age" and improbable. Scientific and historical errors I could notice are so numerous in the few pages I read that I won't even try to list them. I do agree with other reviewers that this book would make a fine Bruce Willis film : just like "Armaggedon" where there was wind and gravity on the incoming asteroid!!!...
Rating: Summary: publishers weeklys review should be ignored Review: The so called review of Decipher by publishers weekly brings a new twist to a well known saying " those who can write great books , those who cannot write braindead reviews " Perhaps there was just too much information in this book for the reviewer to wrap his or her tiny brain around and maybe this reviewer should stick to reading the back of the rice crispies box instead , and just because the reviewer from publishers weekly has not produced anything in his or her misarable life other than a really bad body odor and a braindead review of a brilliant book . as a debut Stel pavlou has succeded in satifying our curiosity about a wide range of topics, the result of years worth of research that went into writing a book shows , cudos to writer Stel Pavlou , Decipher is a fast paced indiana jones esque adventure that delivers what it promises , satifaction guaranteed. I am however not surprised that the reviewer from publishers weekly did not have back bone enough to put his or her name to the review that he or she wrote . I would like to invite him or her to write a debut book that becomes an international bestseller , yes I would like to see him or her to put years worth of blood sweat and tears into writing a book that it takes a spineless reviewer a few minutes to tear to shreds , folks , disregard the publishers weekly review of a brilliant book and buy you copy of Stel Pavlous Decipher today , it is worth you spending your few dollars on it . There is a reason why it has become an INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER , trust that .......
Rating: Summary: Great classic Adventure! Review: Think back to buzz you go when you first read Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, or Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. The exhileration you felt when the pace cracked along, but the technical knowledge made you feel like here was an author who knew his stuff. Smart characters in extraordinary circumstances. That's exactly what you've got here. This is Pavlou's first book, and I'm not going to say it doesn't have it's problems, because it does in places, but they are few and far between. But frankly, you get so involved in trying to solve this massive global puzzle pretty quickly you don't care! This book can be hard going in places, there are at least 10 different scientific disciplines at play: linguistics, geology, solar physics, I could go on and on. I've never quite read a novel before that has made me want to go out and read up on these subjects afterwards. I can see why this became an international bestseller and I really can't wait to see the movie.
Rating: Summary: Skip it Review: This book had a lot of potential, but didn't pull it through. The author puts too much of his research into the work. The characters frequently go into exhaustive (and unrealistic) scientific/historical diatribes that really streched the credibility.
The ending also didn't satisfy me. To be blunt, it was stupid and it's exactly what you'll expect from about page 150.
Rating: Summary: Pretty good for a first book Review: This book reminds me of the Area 51 series by Robert Doherty, in a way, though it does not flow nor read quite as well as that series by a seasoned adventure/fiction writer.
This book does have a lot of the same historical research that I have done over the years, but this author is sparse with naming those sources - Zero Point Energy for example. It's a big hitter but no source attributed. Tom Bearden and his MEG and Nick Cook and his book "The Hunt for Point Zero" are two possibilities. I'm thinking here that an attempt was made to stitch it all together in a single book, but the reader is overwhelmed by the volume of information. Lacking in people and relationship development is also something I found. The Area 51 Series was criticized by some reviewers in that it failed to fully develop the characters - and that was after 5 books. 6 if you count the Rock.
Decipher was too densely packed to really enjoy it. But, I've got a lot more keywords to use on the Internet. This would have read better, and paced itself better if more focus had been given to the people, and if the pace of scientific discovery had been spread out over several books.
Rating: Summary: Ludicrous Science and Bad Writing Review: This book was obviously written as a screenplay treatment for a summer blockbuster movie. Everything needed for a movie is present: thin characters, fake science, destruction of the world, etc. I propose Jeff Goldblum as Hackett anb Alicia Silverstone (maybe Reese Witherspoon) as November. You can fill in the rest. I would just get the cast from Independence Day and be done with it. And the fake science? GPS broadcasts to satellites the precise position of every ship, car, donkey on the planet? Ahhh, no. Three forms of carbon: graphite, diamond, and fullerenes? Ahhh, no. Heard of nanotubes? Everyone else has. This isn't science fiction - it can't even get right what already exists. Most of the book is filler that the author decided to lift from books by Graham Hancock ("Fingerprints of the Gods") and Erich Von Daniken ("Chariots of the Gods".) This book could have been titled "Screenplay of the Gods". Yech. From the credits at the end of the book, it appears that this took five years to write with "quite a lot of research" being done. Apparently, that means five years of reading some ... "alternate history" books and not actually reading anything about reality. I *love* science fiction speculation and fantasy scenarios. But when you can't get the stuff of today right, it's kind of grating and makes it hard to suspend disbelief for the stuff that doesn't exist. All that being said, it makes for a quick read. If you can get by the painfully bad character development, ridiculous science gaffes, and adolescent speculation about Atlantis and ancient Egypt - well, if you can get past that you probably won't like this review. Stay away unless you're trapped in the middle of nowhere and it's the only thing on hand to read. Pain awaits you.
Rating: Summary: Good fun Review: This is a sprawling,untidy mess of a book, but fun if you take it the right way. Think Clive Cussler with a big dose of Graham Hancock, or a wackier, less military-mad Tom Clancy. Not really science fiction; this is an End-of-the-World technothriller for the pyramid-power crowd. It's got everything - Atlantis, ancient Egypt, pyramids, carbon-60, solar flares, zero point energy, evil corporations, military engagements, and a cavalcade of one- and two-dimensional characters. I look forward to what Pavlou comes up with next time. For what it's worth - with a book like this, carping about junk science or poorly characterized characters is missing the point by a mile. And yes, there's lots of both. If you like Crichton or Cussler, and have a taste for cutting-edge pseudoscience, this is the literary fast-food extra value meal for you.
Rating: Summary: Makes hungry for the next novel Review: This novel is the author's first and it is a remarkably mature one. Not only did he do a particularly good job in his research for this book, he also created believable characters and a plot full of suspense. The underlying idea is quite original, even though author's like Greg Donovan have walked on similar paths. but Pavlou treats his subject in a completely different way. He is more a hard core SF writer than a writer of fantasy. This may scare some mainstream readers off, but it is good food for all SF aficionados and, if mainstream readers are not too limited in their perception, they will find a novel that deals with our culture and the history of mankind on a highly educated level. It is sometimes slow food, though. Pavlou is a master of suspense for the most part of the novel, but in some passages he is too much in love with his scientific explanations and his descriptions of cultural backgrounds. And the final climax is just a little bit too lengthy. A few pages less would have done the book some good. But all in all this novel makes us welcome a new, very talented writer on the SF stage. I am looking forward to Stel's coming novel.
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