Rating: 
Summary: TransFormers reborn!
Review: I'll admit that the grammer errors in this book can be quite annoying, and that there is no excuse for it. The story though is great. This story follows the time line of the new Dreamwave comics but don't worry the book DOES fill you in if you've never read one. This book has taken TransFormers out of it's kids roots and brings a real world feel to it. Characters do die and real decisions have to be made. Some might complain that this isn't the TransFormers that they read while growing up and I say good. You won't see Optimus dying because of a video game here, or TransFormers becoming actors or professional wrestlers like in the old comics. It is true that by ignoring the later seasons of the cartoon and old comics that Bumblebee has not reached the maturity level of Goldbug. But it's a worthy sacrafice to be able to ignore the screwed up timeline of the cartoons later seasons. TransFormer characters still have there old traits but have the maturity that only a mature story could only tell. For example when Megatron goes missing Soundwave decides to stay at Starscream's side so he can keep an eye on him. Confident in Megatron's abilities that he will return. I like the little things that the author added. Like finding out that Jazz who's always been fascinated with Earth culture is a big Jackie Chan fan, or when a Chucky Chesse gets flattened during a battle. I always hated that mouse. This book leaves a lot of questions but you have to remember that this is the first book in a trilogy. Over all this is a good book for anyone that's willing to except a TransFormers story for adults. If you love the old comic books or cartoons that's fine. I love them to, I have great memories for the old stuff and will cherish them with the rest of my childhood memories.With this new book it's great to see my old childhood heros and villans in a frighteningly real adult world.
Rating: 
Summary: What happened??
Review: I'll start off by saying I am not familiar with Scott Ciencin's work. As such, I have no idea if the atrocious grammar in this book is due to a poor writing ability on his part or a poor editing ability on the part of his editor. Whichever the case may be, a book this poorly written should never see the published light of day. The first two paragraphs of the book alone are rife with ungainly runon sentences that could easily be split into much more coherent thoughts. Nearly every other page sees a spelling or punctuation mistake or yet another needlessly awkward runon sentence that only serves to interupt the flow of reading. Truly bad editing and/or writing here, people, so be warned.Grammar out of the way, what about characterization? Well, Ciencin's portrayal of the various Transformers is similar to the treatment currently being given to them by Pat Lee and the people at Dreamwave comics, the outfit that managed to get the publishing rights to begin producing new Transformers comics. This is, to say, that they seem to be making it all up as they go along. Before this current "rebirth" of the Transformers occurred, the Transformers universe had been fleshed out over year and years through comics and cartoons back in the 80s and 90s. Writers in both America and the UK spent over a decade refining the characters of the Transformers, creating readily recognizable personalities. Ciencin, like most of the writers at Dreamwave, seems to have completely disregarded everything that has been done in the past with these characters, character-wise and story-wise. Characters that at one time were bold and aggressive are now hesitant, whiny and naive wimps for lack of a better term. Bumblebee is a perfectly good example. In the comics that spanned the 80s and 90s, both here in the states and in the UK, Bumblebee's character went through great lengths to mature and grow into that of a respected, competent warrior. Ciencin seems to utterly disregard that and write Bumblebee back into being the uncertain "kid brother" of the Autobots. A step back in the wrong direction, in my opinion. And the story? Again, it's clear that Ciencin, or someone, is basing his or her ideas off of the current iteration of Transformers' lore and saga that is currently being "created" by Dreamwave. The events in the book seem to take their cues from events that occurred previously in Pat Lee's recent "Generation 1" comic series from last year. Events chronicled in the follow-up "Transformers: War Within" comic miniseries also seem to be referenced in Ciencin's story. I say "seem" because the problem here is that no clarification on these events is ever added. If a reader is not familiar with those comic stories, then he/she will have no clue what Ciencin is talking about at certain points or he/she will miss the implied importance of the connection between the two stories. Ciencin unfortunately doesn't take the time or effort to draw the connections clearly between his story and Dreamwave's stories as I think one should when referencing previous material created by someone else. And then there's that little fact that approximately 10 years worth of previous story and characterization created by the Marvel Comics and Marvel UK Comics writers seems to have simply been thrown to the side as if it were nothing, but why worry about such trivialities, right? In any case, when you take a story that has poorly formed plotlines with underdeveloped connections as this one has, toss in embarrassing character "development" and add a heaping of editorial mistakes, you have what has to be one of the worst stories I've ever forced myself to read through. As others have already mentioned, this is most definitely not "your father's Transformers". This doesn't even rate as "good Transformers" as far as I can tell. Do yourself a favor, if you want truly good Transformers stories filled with epic storylines, engaging and well thought out dialogue and believable characters, read any of the graphic novels by Simon Furman. You'll be happier in the long run.
Rating:
Summary: From pulp to [not]
Review: I've been a huge Transformers fan for years, knowing full well that it could easily be turned from a toy franchise into a full-fledged science-fiction franchise. There was so much story to draw upon, and so many characters. Surely, there would one day be a book that could capitalize on the idea, and give readers a level of depth and respect that would elevate the Transformers mythos. This is not that book... The editing of the book is poor, at best. While I know how easy it is to make these mistakes ('it's' instead of 'its'), most publishers hire someone to be an editor. In this case, someone figured that spell-checking is enough. The writing? Well, take every bad Transformers fan-fiction cliche and throw them together in a nonsensical mix of gratuitious and graphic violence. Full-paragraph descriptions are given to just how innocent human bystander #1 died. There's less gore in most of Stephen King's work. In the end, you get a book trying desperately to be 'mature' in the way you would expect Junior High boys to be. The book is too graphic and grotesque for the kids who might want to get it because they're into Transformers: Armada. Adults who have fond memories of Transformers can find something better written online. This book hurts, rather than helps, the Transformers franchise. Avoid this like cosmic rust.
Rating: 
Summary: Land of the Robots
Review: I've never even heard of a "Transformers: Generation 1" novelization before. But when I read this one's description, I started to like it. This book, "Hardwired," is written by Scott Ciencin. It was released early June 2003. Ciencin's next two "G1" books are sure to be a bomb for adult "Transformers" fans -- "Annhilation," slated for the fall of this year, and "Fusion," slated for a January 2004 release. All three novels are from I Books, and they involve an alien fleet arriving on Earth to take it over, and the "G1" Autobots and Decepticons will have to put aside their differences to save our planet, whether they like it or not. "Transformers" is a trademark of Hasbro, the American toy company, under license from the Japanese toy company Takara. I don't really appreciate all those previous "TF" incarnations Hasbro did ("Generation 2," "Beast Wars," "Beast Machines," "Robots in Disguise," "Armada," and "Universe"), but I love their original incarnation -- "Generation 1." It was them alone that put the "bot" in "Autobot" and the "con" in "Decepticon"! My mom told me once that she had a dream about the "G1" Decepticons leaving our home planet of Earth with its precious energy in a new spaceship, holding most of today's celebrities hostage, including my mom. I thought she was making it all up to humiliate me, but now I believe her. She's not going to let me buy anything that concerns the world of "Transformers." Honestly, I think she's a big bot-head!
Rating: 
Summary: Hardwired: A Hard Read
Review: Let me state right off the bat that I love Transformers in all of its incarnations, from G1 through Beast Wars up to the current line, Armada. I'm also an avid reader, and a fan of sci-fi franchise novels like Star Trek, Star Wars, and X-Files. So "Transfomers: Hardwired" seems like it would be right up my alley, right? Well...not really, it seems. There are so many things wrong with this book, I couldn't possibly list them all under the 1,000 words alloted for this review. Here's a taste, though: (1) This book was not edited. The typos average about one PER PAGE from misued apostrophes to missing spaces, quote marks, and the occasional missing word. There are also many instances of switching tenses in the same sentence, and similar mistakes that would have been caught had this book been proof-read. But it obviously was not. (2) The Transformers characters are dull and uninteresting, for the most part. With so few characters actually appearing, you'd think the characterization would come through. But it doesn't. Prime and Megatron get some, and Bluestreak gets a little more. But that's about it. Besides Starscream, and perhaps Soundwave and Grimlock, the rest of the cast is virtually interchangeable. (3) The human characters are all very cliched and uninteresting. Franklin is the typical tough-guy gov't operative. Spike is your everyday angsty anti-hero hero. (4) The plot itself feels vaguely familiar, as if its many components have merely been rehashed from old TF comics and cartoons. (5) The "mature" feel the author tries to give the book is possibly the biggest letdown. The unnecessary profanity sounds weird and forced, especially coming out of the mouths of giant alien robots. And there's a large amount of pointless blood and gore that turned me off to the book practically from the get-go. It's also fairly disturbing how casually the author kills off Transformer characters -- especially since most of the "deaths" serve no real purpose, storywise. On the positive side, it fits into the continuity of the current Transformers comics by Dreamwave. In fact, one of the book's best points is the characterizations of Prime and Megatron -- very much their DW comic selves, but expanded slightly. Also, Bluestreak gets quite possibly some of the best characterization he's EVER received. I also must admit that the last half of Hardwired is much better than the first. Though I found the first chapter or two to be very good, the next 150 pages or so turned me off so much that picking it up to read at night actually became quite a struggle. But the last half I actually {gasp!} enjoyed somewhat. Still, the whole thing reads like a fairly weak fanfic. I'd give it a star and a half if I could, but I'll settle for rounding that score up to two.
Rating: 
Summary: Tripped up by details.
Review: Like many, I was excited when I learned that those beloved giant robots from Cybertron were being printed in a novel. Being one to never go anywhere without a book in hand, this was blessedly welcome news. Then I started to read the book. While I applaud the intention, and love the fact that it happened, I find it irritating to come across so many grammatical and typographical errors.
I can forgive a few mistakes, but when so many spaces and important pronouns are left out, it tends to be a little too muchto ignore. One sentence really caught my attention: "Unfortunately for you, my dad and have never gotten along." (172). This is the kind of thing a middle school English teacher would never let go unnoticed.
The descriptions tend to go a little long, such as the tour-guide take on the Hoover Dam, and after a while I get tired of reading "the plucky yellow Autobot." I could use a little less of the extensive and repetitive detail and perhaps a bit more dialogue if it didn't feel so mechanical, even from the humans, to me. On the whole, I enjoyed the concepts and ideas this book presented, but the tedious faults of the little things in editing almost drove me wild after a while.
Rating:
Summary: Save your money, wise consumer
Review: OK, I hate being so critical, but this book has ruined Transformers for me. The story really goes nowhere, ending nearly as poorly as it began. There are basically three separate plots, none truly interesting. Many times various Transformers appear only long enough to die, contributing nothing to the story, save perhaps to spare those that died the horror of getting through the whole book. I had to flog myself to finish this one. Also, making a conservative estimate, there was an average of two typos per page, minimum; I cannot imagine that it was proofread at all to end up in this state, full of misspelled words, grammar errors, punctuation errors, and homophone mix-ups. It was SO terribly distracting, but actually not any worse than the story itself. There are so many twists and turns that it's impossible to determine the nature of anything, and even though it clearly says "Book 1" on the cover, there still should be a full resolution for this book in itself. However, there simply is not.
Rating:
Summary: Save your money, wise consumer
Review: OK, I hate being so critical, but this book has ruined Transformers for me. The story really goes nowhere, ending nearly as poorly as it began. There are basically three separate plots, none truly interesting. Many times various Transformers appear only long enough to die, contributing nothing to the story, save perhaps to spare those that died the horror of getting through the whole book. I had to flog myself to finish this one. Also, making a conservative estimate, there was an average of two typos per page, minimum; I cannot imagine that it was proofread at all to end up in this state, full of misspelled words, grammar errors, punctuation errors, and homophone mix-ups. It was SO terribly distracting, but actually not any worse than the story itself. There are so many twists and turns that it's impossible to determine the nature of anything, and even though it clearly says "Book 1" on the cover, there still should be a full resolution for this book in itself. However, there simply is not.
Rating:
Summary: transformsers are cool, but......
Review: okay, this story took off rather fast and it was kind of compicated. then there were other side stories that could have been left out but needed them to explain how powerful Soundwave and Starscream really are. other than all the type-o's this book didn't make sense. is the story line taking off from the comics or the show? from the comics then, does it happen before vol. 2? a timeline would have been nice. thats why i gave it a 3, uknown timeline and a choppy story. maybe the next two books will set this "foundation" straight.
Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: The only reason this book even gets 2 stars is because I'm happy that there are finally Transformers books for adults. The thing is, this is quite possibly the worst book I've ever read. First off, there's a typo on every other page. And what's with all the blood and gore? I know this isn't for kids, but the level of violence in this book is pretty disgusting. The writing style is horrible--it's just about all exposition--much of which is boring and repetitve--and hardly any dialogue. And when the characters do talk, they aren't portrayed well. Bumblebee sounds like an idiot and Prowl is like an army grunt. I've been a Transformers fan for a long time, and I hope the next 2 books in this series will be better.
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