E. Miller

Astounding, frightening, plausible, brilliant. You don't need to have ever played an online game or have any special computer knowledge to enjoy this book. Here's hoping for a sequel - he certainly opened the door for one.

Follett is a master of both the thriller and, more recently, the historical drama, so I'm at a loss to figure out how he laid this egg, and why his publisher went along. It's just bad. Boring, slow, stilted, with superficial characters doing improbable things. Weirder still, Follett's historical dramas show he's quite capable of putting himself in the shoes - the heart and mind - of a woman character, but the women in this book are poorly drawn and mind-numblngly boring. Alistair MacClean defined this genre more than 40 years ago with The Satan Bug. This book adds nothing to it and comes nowhere close to achieving the same level of suspense, interest, or - or even accurate research into biohazards and medical labs. Save your credit.

My advice: buy the book in print, don't waste your time with the audio version. The material is good, but the worksheets and checklists that are ESSENTIAL to doing the exercises that form the core of the book are left out of the audio version. This is inexcusable for a book described as "unabridged."