Rating: Summary: Reread it last week after 16 years.... Review: Last week I was hunting around in the crawlspace and came across my "box of keepers" - books that I had read and didn't want to part with. As soon as I saw The Ivanhoe Gambit, I pulled it and the next three out, and read them intermittently over the past week and 4th of July Holiday. My opinion? Well, when I was 15 years old, they were definitely 5 star material, but with a few more years on me, I'd have to downgrade it a notch. Even so, it's a guilty pleasure. They're wonderfully readable books, but have a few too many inconsistencies, and rely too much on "willing suspension of disbelief" to be more than a good paperback novel. HOWEVER, I'm sure that when Mr. Hawke wrote 'em, that's just what he intended. The dialogue flies off the page, and the pacing is mighty brisk. Lucas, Finn and Andre - as well as Forrester, Dr. Darkness and the various secondary characters are all distinct personalities, and there's enough intrigue, fun and quasi-historical detail to keep your attention. However, when you're done reading them, you feel like you just ate a box full of ding-dongs - a bit guilty, a little woozy, and kind of unsatisfied. The other "ding-dong" effect also holds - you have a craving for more. Now if I can only find where I put the Nautilus Sanction and that "Dracula" book, not to mention the Golden Fleece story...
Rating: Summary: Reread it last week after 16 years.... Review: Last week I was hunting around in the crawlspace and came across my "box of keepers" - books that I had read and didn't want to part with. As soon as I saw The Ivanhoe Gambit, I pulled it and the next three out, and read them intermittently over the past week and 4th of July Holiday. My opinion? Well, when I was 15 years old, they were definitely 5 star material, but with a few more years on me, I'd have to downgrade it a notch. Even so, it's a guilty pleasure. They're wonderfully readable books, but have a few too many inconsistencies, and rely too much on "willing suspension of disbelief" to be more than a good paperback novel. HOWEVER, I'm sure that when Mr. Hawke wrote 'em, that's just what he intended. The dialogue flies off the page, and the pacing is mighty brisk. Lucas, Finn and Andre - as well as Forrester, Dr. Darkness and the various secondary characters are all distinct personalities, and there's enough intrigue, fun and quasi-historical detail to keep your attention. However, when you're done reading them, you feel like you just ate a box full of ding-dongs - a bit guilty, a little woozy, and kind of unsatisfied. The other "ding-dong" effect also holds - you have a craving for more. Now if I can only find where I put the Nautilus Sanction and that "Dracula" book, not to mention the Golden Fleece story...
Rating: Summary: Great book, wish it were going to be a movie Review: Really enjoyed the entire TimeWars series. Wish Mr. Hawke wouldn't have stopped. Great books for everyone especially early teenage years, the adventure and sci-fi will hook them, and then their curiousity about the historical facts will make them learn more.
Rating: Summary: The Time Wars should go on... Review: Simon Hawke's Time Wars series are absolutely fabulous books. I thoroughly recommend reading them. I don't know about the editions people are reporting typos in. I have the originals, and they have very few typos. I tried reading the Wizard series, but it doesn't compare to the Time Wars. Mr Hawke, won't you bring them back? You could write about Zorro, Edmund Dantes, Don Quixote, Alexander the Great, Attllla the Hun, and about a hundred others.
The Ivanhoe Gambit, The Dracula Caper, The Cleopatra Crisis, The Timekeeper Conspiracy and The Nautilus Sanction are among my favorites!
Rating: Summary: A book that crosses sci-fi and medevil warfare Review: The book starts out like some far fetched story about some futuristc time-line keepers who sign up for kicks jumping all over the past. But befor you know it, you can"t put it down. I think the writers of the movie "TIMECOP" based alot of their movie off of this book, but I think the book was alot more interesting. I highly recomend this book!
Rating: Summary: Excellent adventure and handling of time-travel concepts Review: The Ivanhoe Gambit is an enjoyable, fast-paced adventure series based on the premise that governments, to avoid unplesantness in the present, choose to wage war in the past (which, having 'already happened' is as sure to a safe thing as they can get). Whoops. Turns out they're wrong, and the series unfolds as a team of commandos is called forth to deal with temporal paradoxes and time-hopping terrorists.Hawke throws some curveballs at the reader, but his love of history and the research he has done provide an engaging 'what if' for the rich fabric of time. Not recommended for younger children. Contains some strong language. (While Hawke concluded the series with #12: The Six-Gun Solution, if he were to pick up the series with a future novel, perhaps bringing the team out of retirement ... I'd grab it in a hot second.)
Rating: Summary: Take the time to find an out-of-print edition of this book Review: The Pulpless edition of this book is so riddled with typos that is all but unreadable. The book is spoiled because, it would seem, Pulpless decided to save money on proof-readers and just pass it through a spellchecker instead. This is not a small complaint. Simon Hawke should be made aware of this. A good book can be ruined this way. We want to read the book, get lost in the story, not be constantly yanked back to reality by horrible mistakes in printing, like using the word "ham" for "his." These mistakes are all through the book and get worse towards the end. Zero stars for Pulpless.com
Rating: Summary: Nice time travel theories. Good, pulpy action! Review: The Time War series is only worth reading up to the fourth book, but if youre going too read only one then let it be this one. The time travel logistics in this book taste better than any other Ive read. Also includes enough violence to slake the thirst of the average action fan. One of the best sci-fi pulp fiction books Ive ever found (consumed?). This book would make a fantastic movie. -Clyde Erwin
Rating: Summary: Time travel isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Review: When I first laid eyes on this book, I admit, I judged the book by it's cover. I read this book when it first came out, and I eagerly awaited each subsequent novel to be released, culminating in 13 novels in the series. Mr. Hawke's method of including the reader in the past piques your curiosity into the time period, and wants you to go out and read up on the actual historical events. This book was an easy read for late teens, but the theories are clearly for the adult. Don't be fooled when you THINK you understand temporal mechanics in book #1 - it gets worse...much worse.
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