Riptide

De: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Narrado por: Scott Brick

A captivating action and adventure thriller from bestselling duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

In 1695, a notorious English pirate buried his bounty in a maze of booby-trapped tunnels on an island off the coast of Maine. In three hundred years, no one has breached this cursed and rocky fortress.

Now, a treasure hunter and his high-tech, million-dollar recovery team embark on the perfect operation to unlock the labyrinth's mysteries.

First the computers fail. The then crewmen begin to die. The island has guarded its secrets for centuries, and it isn't letting them go without a fight.

very cinematic. high tech meets pirate treasure.

This novel is centered around a real mystery in Nova Scotia called the Money Pit. The authors have done a great job fictionalizing this real phenom and asking what if some zillionaire with all the most high tech toys and dream-team crew attacked the problem. And then, what might the most awesome truth underneath the treasure actually be, in the most cinematic of circumstances. Well played, I say. My only complaint is that the inevitable "turning evil" of certain people is a touch too predictable, sudden, and extreme. But the thought they have put into the above issues is thrilling in its thoroughness and sophistication. Nice job.

Too long; too predictable; mismatched narrator.

This was my first book by Preston & Child. The story was interesting and the main characters well developed. On the other hand, it dragged at times with too many irrelevant asides. The length could have been cut by about 25% with a corresponding increase in tension and excitement. The outcome was foreseeable even if the details were not. I am not a doctor, but even I came to anticipate the true cause of the anomalies and illnesses long before Hatch.

Scott Brick is a good narrator, a clear speaker, and I have listened to him read other books. However, his talents are apparently not well-suited to this style of novel. Some things are done quite well, such as emulating a French accent. However, in emotional situations, his voice became softer and artificially higher, and nearly every sentence ended with a falloff in amplitude. It was more irritating than effective. I found myself rewinding and turning up the volume temporarily.

Ripping Yarns

Simply put, this is a classic Preston/Child/Brick story, with many twists and decent character development. The action scenes drag abit, but the story is full of enough historical information and plot development to keep fans of this genre fully satisfied. I recommend this!

Head or Tail

Probably the best finishing line in any book I have ever read: "Head or Tail". This linguistic construction will follow you for several days and bring a smile to your face. Other than that, a great tale, well read by Scott Brick, about a pirate treasure hunt gone horribly wrong. Bravo to Preston and Childs.

Narrator ruined story for me

Would you try another book from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and/or Scott Brick?

Yes, I love the Pendergast novels but I will try to avoid books narrated by Scott Brick since I am having a problem divorcing his voice from the Dune novels he has previously recorded.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Though I thought many of the characters were predictable. The overall plot was comforting in its predictability.

How could the performance have been better?

This narrator offers the same performance in this novel as he has every other story I have ever heard him narrate. I often forgot that I wasn't listending to a Dune novel but another story entirely. Though I once really liked this narrator, the constant sense of impending doom he broadcasts has started to take away from the storylines for me.

Do you think Riptide needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

As I haven't finished the book yet and am having a problem motivating myself to do so, I can't comment on the need for a follow-up.