Sanford Rosenberg

I have "meant" to read this book for many years, but the length seemed daunting and the language stilted, at least by 21st century terms. What a mistake it would have been to miss it! After a little "attitude adjustment", I found the flowery language elegant and fascinating and the character development is superb. One can only marvel at the decades-long plan that The Count, Edmund Dantes, has carefully set in motion to serve as suitable revenge for those whose greed and self-interest caused him to spend 14 long years in a dungeon. This review relates to the whole book, not just Part I, but each section was a new adventure and looking back, you can see how Dumas has not wasted a character or scene that does not justify the plot and the outcome. Yes, there are some slower sections (characters, in accordance with the era, sometimes take 30 words to say what could be said in 5), but overall I found myself wanting to get back into the car or back on to the plane as soon as possible. It is a bit like watching "Masterpiece Theater"--not for everyone or every taste, but it's not an acknowledged masterpiece for nothing. And excellent narration.

Having read many Christopher Moore books, and enjoyed them and laughed throughout, I could not finish the last half of this. I waited way too long for something funny, or even engaging, to occur. Sure, there are hints of the occult and mysterious characters that live throughout the ages, but definitely nothing funny or adequately exciting to keep my interest. And there are so many characters they are hard to keep track of.

Perhaps, in the second half. I couldn't bring myself to listen any longer. . .

An epic sci-fi story, and I enjoyed it a great deal and would recommend it to fans of the genre, especially in the Peter Hamilton style. My only criticisms are that the author allowed himself a few too many opportunities to veer off on a tangent for several minutes in areas that ultimately had little or no import on the story as a whole, and the story could have benefitted from a little judicious editing. Also, the spider babies were made to be a little too "cutesy" in my view. That may have been largely in the "baby voices" used by the narrator, which eventually were a little annoying, but a little too much unnecessary spider children attention.

Power Down, Coes' first book--riveting, exciting, almost non-stop action.

Dewey Andreas is a character in the mold of Jack Reacher from Lee Childs, Mitch Rapp from Vince Flynn, and John Wells from Alex Berenson--morally superior guys fighting for justice and always in the thick of a problem, but with special skills: CIA assasins, ex-Seals, and Military Police investigators. They can be hard to keep apart, as fans of this genre know, but they can be counted on to beat any number of bad guys eventually, save the girl/country/world, and even make mistakes once in awhile to keep them (almost) human. Dewey is the best of the bunch, in my view, and both of the Dewey Andreas books are superbly exciting with just enough believable current events to make them very hard to put down.

intriguing, interesting characters

Will Patton is the perfect voice for the southern, rural story.

Charles Frazier, James Lee Burke, and Pat Conroy are so similar in narrative style--beautiful descriptive writing that allows you to completely visualize the surroundings,but never boringly so. Gorgeous writing, really, as in this book. And plenty of unusual characters and small-town, backwoods eccentricities. Kept getting better, and a more satisfying culmination than the Cold Mountain shocker.

I expected a great deal more from George R.R. Martin, having thoroughly enjoyed the intricacies and inventiveness of his great Fire and Ice saga, but this story was thin, formulaic, and uninteresting. Yes, it was free, but it was 40-some minutes in which I kept hoping the ending was something vastly more interesting than it turned out to be. George, please get back to novels 6 and 7 of the saga!.

My boys and I love the Jack Reacher series, and have read or listened to 16. Never before, though, has Lee Child decided he could write a sex scene, and should have stuck to the genre he knows, like Reacher battling an entire army with only a pool cuestick.

There are several terrible attempts at writing about Reacher's sex with the sheriff, and the first is by far the worst, and painfully bad. What must have been about 8 pages in the book (and what seemed like ten minutes on the audio) about undressing, looking, discovering,

My wife and I generally loved Ellen DeGeneres's stand-up and looked forward to this to listen to together on a car trip together. After about an hour and a half (a very fair trial, I think), we just looked at each other and agreed

No.

She should have been the perfect choice, and was. Just needed better content.

Generally a pleasant enough story, but far, far too much time spent on pointless digressions and useless conversations. The most irritating aspect of the first 25 hours of a four-part novel is that an interminable amount of it is spent on the love pangs of a roughly 14 to 16-year-old for his heart's desire, and his adolescent problems with schoolyard bullies, etc.. Author Rothfuss has a penchant for using pages and pages where a line or two might suffice very well. I found myself with the very rare need to fast-forward occasionally just to get on to where something was actually happening. If ever a book cried out for editing, this is it. (Where is Hemingway when you need him?)
Although an inveterate sci-fi fan, this had so little of that (actually, none; it is fantasy only, and mostly silly stuff at that), that I simply cannot devote another 75 hours of my life simply to find out how Kvothe ended up as an innkeeper. Let me know when the abridged version arrives.

I love the Lee Childs Jack Reacher ex-MP character and Alex Berenson's ex-CIA John Wells, but Ben Coes' Dewey Andreas is that and so much more. He is a hard-fighting, almost-impossible-to-kill ex-Ranger and Delta, but with depth, and humanity.
You never fear that Andreas will lose in the end, of course, but Coes writes with superlative action-thriller skills that keep your heart racing. Terrifically topical story of spies, moles, Arab terrorists, oil, bombs, and great unsung heroes. And Coes knows his energy background well, since it's his own background.
And simply the best narrator of any action novel I've heard on Audible in the decade I've been listening. Huge recommendation for fans of the genre.

I'm not sure if I gave this 4-stars based on the book itself or because I enjoy the Jack Reacher character so much. Always exciting, always near-"superhuman" (hint: don't get in a bar fight with him, ever.) At any rate, this is all-in-all exciting, and with some unexpected plot twists that make it even a little bit unusual for this series. Highly recommended for fans of this genre.