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3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
I listened to this book and can't believe I made myself finish it. Characters are weak and uninteresting, a lot of unnecessary dialogue, and ridiculous timing regarding consummation of the romantic relationship between main characters are just a few annoying points.
I won this book in a giveaway on GoodReads.com, and from the moment I started it, I absolutely loved it. I enjoy the Thriller genre, but I get annoyed at all of the cliches (i.e., Independent, abnormally strong woman with troubled marital past due to her career-oriented mindset and cop/FBI agent/otherwise tough but misunderstood guy spend entire book engaged in sexual tension only to finally give in in a trite sex scene just before everyone else realizes the two of them were right all along about Bob - he is the killer!).
The Leviathan Effect was just the opposite. Although there was a little love story in there for those who enjoy that, it was not overblown and did not detract from the main story in the least. The subject matter of this book is original and engaging, and from the very first page, the reader is drawn into a complicated mystery that keeps him turning the pages.
Although there is some bad language, it is minimal, especially compared to other books in the genre. Sex scenes are not described in detail, which is a plus for me. Sex and swearing are not necessary in books, and usually they just detract from the main tale. If a writer can't find a better way to express himself than through vulgarity, that shows an inherent problem with the writer's abilities.
Lucky for me, James Lilliefors can tell an awesome story without being vulgar or using curse words on every other page. Overall, just an awesome book for this genre and compelling enough to be enjoyed by people who aren't thriller junkies like me.
The Leviathan Effect was just the opposite. Although there was a little love story in there for those who enjoy that, it was not overblown and did not detract from the main story in the least. The subject matter of this book is original and engaging, and from the very first page, the reader is drawn into a complicated mystery that keeps him turning the pages.
Although there is some bad language, it is minimal, especially compared to other books in the genre. Sex scenes are not described in detail, which is a plus for me. Sex and swearing are not necessary in books, and usually they just detract from the main tale. If a writer can't find a better way to express himself than through vulgarity, that shows an inherent problem with the writer's abilities.
Lucky for me, James Lilliefors can tell an awesome story without being vulgar or using curse words on every other page. Overall, just an awesome book for this genre and compelling enough to be enjoyed by people who aren't thriller junkies like me.
29/09 - This is even better than Lilliefors' first book Viral. I'm enjoying his writing more and I've always been a big fan of weather related disaster stories (two of my favourite movies are Twister and The Day After Tomorrow) and this is a great example of that genre.
This book focuses more on Charles than Jon and you get to see a softer, more relatable side of him than you did in Viral, which focussed on Jon. I like Charles a lot more, but it seems that Lilliefors can't give both brothers personalities at the same time, it has to be one or the other, and so Jon's personality seems to have disappeared and I don't really care about him like I did in Viral - which is weird, because I always like reading a sequel that continues the story of characters from the first book (check out my complaints, in other reviews, regarding reading books that are part of a series out of reading order). If this series is going to continue I really hope Charles and Catherine stay together as I was really disappointed at the beginning of the book to find out that Charles and Anna Vostrak had gone their seperate ways because Anna didn't like the quiet life that Charles now wanted after living the life of a CIA operative - country hopping, always looking over his shoulder for enemies and never letting anyone get close to him in case his enemies try to use them against him - it was kind of like a depressing end to the book, at the beginning. To be continued...
30/09 - I was a little disappointed with the ending as they only managed to catch one bad guy, and when I say catch I mean a sniper bullet in the head - so there was no interrogating of that guy. The next guy up in the chain, Easton, had a weak motive that no one ever got to question him about because he was taken out by a poison implant from the bad guys, obviously he did have some incriminating information on Volkov, Zorn or Petrenko (I think that's the right spelling) or they wouldn't have bothered. Inside the back cover it says that Lilliefors is working on the next Mallory Brothers book, I hope that's where we'll learn the real reason behind the weather terrorism, because all the motivations given were weak and unrealistic, and who Janus really is. I also wonder whether that thing with the weather plane pilot, Dr. Wu and Blaine all seeing faces in the clouds is going to be 'something' in the next book, because if not it just seems like a completely unnecessary distraction from the main story *shrugs shoulders*, we'll see.
This book focuses more on Charles than Jon and you get to see a softer, more relatable side of him than you did in Viral, which focussed on Jon. I like Charles a lot more, but it seems that Lilliefors can't give both brothers personalities at the same time, it has to be one or the other, and so Jon's personality seems to have disappeared and I don't really care about him like I did in Viral - which is weird, because I always like reading a sequel that continues the story of characters from the first book (check out my complaints, in other reviews, regarding reading books that are part of a series out of reading order). If this series is going to continue I really hope Charles and Catherine stay together as I was really disappointed at the beginning of the book to find out that Charles and Anna Vostrak had gone their seperate ways because Anna didn't like the quiet life that Charles now wanted after living the life of a CIA operative - country hopping, always looking over his shoulder for enemies and never letting anyone get close to him in case his enemies try to use them against him - it was kind of like a depressing end to the book, at the beginning. To be continued...
30/09 - I was a little disappointed with the ending as they only managed to catch one bad guy, and when I say catch I mean a sniper bullet in the head - so there was no interrogating of that guy. The next guy up in the chain, Easton, had a weak motive that no one ever got to question him about because he was taken out by a poison implant from the bad guys, obviously he did have some incriminating information on Volkov, Zorn or Petrenko (I think that's the right spelling) or they wouldn't have bothered. Inside the back cover it says that Lilliefors is working on the next Mallory Brothers book, I hope that's where we'll learn the real reason behind the weather terrorism, because all the motivations given were weak and unrealistic, and who Janus really is. I also wonder whether that thing with the weather plane pilot, Dr. Wu and Blaine all seeing faces in the clouds is going to be 'something' in the next book, because if not it just seems like a completely unnecessary distraction from the main story *shrugs shoulders*, we'll see.
This book has computer hacking, shadowy foreign agents, and weaponized weather control. I know right? You’re totally intrigued now. The use of weather as a weapon is a frightening yet believable concept. The storyline is fascinating and I really wanted to see how things played out, but ultimately it was hard to trudge through for about a third of the book.