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The Amulet of Power (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

The Amulet of Power (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Surprisingly good!
Review: Before I read this book I thought it was going to be like a kid¡¦s book. Lara Croft is the fighter of justice, kicking some evil asses and saving the world. Well, it is pretty much like that. However, this book is much more exciting than I expected. The plot is well planed, story is exciting with a lot of action and ending is surprising. I enjoyed reading this book. At least it is better than the movie. PS: Lara kills a lot in the book. Not recommend to kids under 13.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Video game heroine searches for hidden artifact
Review: British archeologist and adventurer Lara Croft is rescued from the collapsed Temple of Horus in Edfu, Egypt -- only to be attacked by two silent men in a hospital in Cairo where she recovers from her injuries. Handsome Kevin Mason Junior, a fellow archeologist, comes to her rescue again. Together they flee from religious fanatics who think that Lara has found the most powerful artifact in the world -- the Amulet of Mareish. Lara decides to search for the amulet in the Sudan where Englishman General Charles Gordon might have hidden it in the late 1800s. The dangerous treasure hunt brings Lara also to Kenya and on the Seychelles where she finally faces her biggest challenge.

"Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Amulet Of Power" starts where the fourth Tomb Raider video game had ended. Fans finally get to know what happened to Lara after she had been trapped in the Egyptian tomb and before she reappears in Paris to visit her mentor Werner Von Croy. Mike Resnick did a good job filling this gap, bringing Lara's character and dry humor to life. As in the video game, there are quite a few killings (people and animals), so the book is not suited for small children. The lost artifact, the exotic locations, the mystical happenings, and the ever-present danger all bring to life what Tomb Raider is all about. Even readers who haven't seen the movies or played the video games will enjoy this adventure novel with a strong-willed, smart, and witty heroine.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Lara croft is in danger
Review: I bought this book and read it. If you buy this book you are supporting the people to remove Lara croft. The book is very very boring. In the book she acts retarded and is not the same as the other Lara that we all like. So I don't recommend this book. Lara croft is meant to be in the screen not books.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: um k
Review: i thought this book was extremely fun
lara is meant for wherever she.s put
whoever thinks she should only be on the screen
obviously has a tough time with reading
k thanks</font>
buy the book
it.s great

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: the wait is NOT over
Review: I've been waiting years for someone to realize that
the world's best selling video game series would make
an excellent action-adventure novel series. With the
release of The Amulet of Power, I thought my wait was
over. Regretably, it is not so.
Amulet is just plain bad... a bad tie-in to the game
series, a bad interpretation of the Lara Croft
character and just bad adventure fiction. The
dialogue, which seems to cripple the story along is
tedious, as are scenes where Lara flashes her

guns...er, her pistols... anytime she's not getting
her way.
I expect there to be a few more books with the LCTR
banner, but my outlook for the series is grim. If the
next novel, whenever it comes along, isn't 180 degrees
different, I fear my wait will never be over.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Huge Resnick Fan
Review: I've never played the Tomb Raider game. I enjoyed the Tomb Raider movies but probably as much for the star's physical attributes as anything else. Why did I get this book? Because Mike Resnick wrote it and he is one of my two or three favorite all-time authors. I have every work of fiction he has ever written (that I could get my hands on). I'll be honest, I would read a phone book if Resnick was the author. This is why it scares me to think of people reading this and thinking this is all Resnick is capable of. This man is capable of Ivory and Second Contact and The Branch and the Soothsayer trilogy (even Walpurgis III), Birthright: the Book of Man and the short story, Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge. These are entertaining, thought provoking and often brilliant. Lara Croft is none of these things.

Note to Mike. If you ever read this, thanks for providing hundreds of hours of great reading. Eveyone needs a vacation every now and then, even from their own genius. I would be grateful if you would return to being brilliant in your next fiction work.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fun read
Review: I've never read a Resnick novel before, but I've heard of his reputation. I would have passed on this book if not for Resnick's reputation.

As a video game tie-in, it's very well done. Video games have a bumpy history of movie and book translations ("Mario Brothers" and Alan Dean Foster's "The Dig" are just two of the low points), but this book did a good job. The action is good, the side characters have more than one dimension to them, and the plot is perfect for this genre.

As a stand-alone SF/Adventure novel, however, it's not the best read. While the characters have depth when compared with the video game, they certainly wouldn't stand up against other true SF/Fantasy heroes created by Orson Scott Card, James Stoddard, or Jennifer Roberson.

Is it fun? Absolutely. Is it predictable? A tad. Is it deep? Not in the least. As long as you know what you're getting when you pick it up (and who today hasn't heard of Lara Croft?), you'll enjoy it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A least it's only 279 pages.
Review: I've never read a Resnik novel before and if this is what he's capable of putting on paper, please someone stop him and save a tree or two.

SPOILER ALERT (kinda). Ok, you've been warned.

Amulet of Power was horrible. All Lara does is:

A: Ask a question between large vapid expository paragraphs from whomever she's with at the time.
B: Eat.
C: Ride Camels
D: Act like her IQ is equal to her bust size.

It's clear that Resnik wrote it in about a week while looking at Google maps of Nairobi. Could the chapters be any smaller?

Here's my fav paragraph from the book. Page 191.

"She finished her story at about the same time she finished her meal. Oliver signed the check, got up, and walked her to the safari car. A few moments later they were driving through the center of the huge city, past the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, the New Stanley Hotel, the High Court, all the familiar landmarks."

Geepers, if that's not pulizter winning writing I dunno what is. I love "the safari car".

Then soon after, Lara smells what she's unsure may be gasoline. Turns out it's not. I mean...WTF? Doesn't she know what she's smelling? I'll refrain from a spoiler here.

Lets turn to page 203 (that's the first page of Ch 27). Here's JUST Lara's dialog for a while:

"Mount Kenya?"
"You mean the Mount Kenya Safari Club?"
"Where are we going then?"
"So we'll spend the night out in the park?"
"So what are we doing there?"
"I'm pretty good at guarding myself."
"Where are we?"
"You look like you're pulling in there."
"What have you got?"
"I still am. It smells delicious."
"I thought all you ex-hunters like the Northern Frontier District best."
"Not that many animals, though."
"Did you ever do any hunting here?"
"What then?"
"It's terrible terrain for a war."
"I'm amazed that there's so little residual bitterness. Everyone in Kenya seems to get along well these days."

"You couldn't have chosen a lovelier place for a picnic."
"What *do* we do if a lion approaches? I don't imagine my pistols would have much effect from more than a few feet away."
"So what *do* we do?"
"And that's it?"
"Even man-eaters?"

The rest would start spoiling things but you see what I mean? That's nearly the end of the chapter too. Lara is a complete idiot in the book and what little "adventure" there is isn't very original or exciting. Someone tries to kill her by putting a snake (naturally one of the deadlist snakes in Africa too) in her hotel room? Wow, never saw or read that one before...yawn.

The whole thing feels like a first draft, much like TRAOD come to think of it.

The first two parts of the book, 185 pages, is there just to get Lara from point A to Point B and tell you what the main story is about. 185 pages for a road trip in a book that's only 279 pages long.

Page 281 is Maxim's legendary review for five out of five stars for TRAOD, btw.

That's just my opinion though. You may like it less than I did.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent novel, very thrilling
Review: This book is fantasitc. I picked it up in the store and began reading it immediately. And i haven't been able to put it down. Story-wise it feels like a cross between "The Mummy" and "Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark". So the story is great. I don't want to spoil anything, but there's action, suspense, and even some humor. It suprisingly has funny moments here and there, so it definetly isn't predictable. Lara is also a great action hero who can hold her own against today's best.

So if you're looking for a great book, this is one you should pick up. You won't regret it. ;)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Like a tour of East Africa with Lara
Review: This book is written like a tour of East Africa, with obligatory attempts to kill Lara at every location. The level of detail in the descriptions of the countries, and more to the point the type of details, make it very clear that this author has a vast knowledge of the area. On that side it was a very interesting read. Unfortunately, that's not supposed to be the centre of the book. There is no depth to the presentation of Lara. There was no introspection, almost no effort to present what she was thinking or even feeling. Dave Stern did a great job in this very area in the Cradle of Life novelisation, and this book was supposed to cover an extremely traumatic part of Lara's life, so it was generally quite disappointing in that area. Also, in the fight scenes the author just describes what happens. There is almost no effort to make us feel like Lara's life is threatened. The fight descriptions are pretty good, and certainly clear about what's happening, but there's no tension. In general, the book is very light reading, mildly enjoyable but with almost no memorable moments. The fascinating description of how easy it is to dodge a charging rhino is virtually the only one. Then we get to the climax, which I found rather shocking, certainly in contrast to the light tone of the rest of the book. It actually is a fairly good reason for Lara's angry-at-the-world attitude at the start of The Angel of Darkness game. Then for some strange reason the author has a trivial incident supposedly return Lara to her old self. That was bizarre.

I was looking forward to one of my favourite characters appearing in my favourite entertainment medium. If the next book does not have more depth and interest, it will be the last Lara book I bother to consider.


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