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margardenlady's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Creative reimagining of part of WWII experienced here on American soil. We follow an art history professor to his first post-discharge teaching post at Princeton, where he takes a room in a boarding house across the street from Einstein. Then, Lucas, our intrepid art history scholar, is asked to examine an artifact that had been reclaimed from Hitler's pillaged treasures: an ossuary or sarcophagus. An Egyptian scholar and her scholar father make their way to Princeton to hopefully become part of the investigation into this antiquity that they had originally uncovered before the Nazis took it. And then lots of fantastic things begin to happen. I enjoyed the arc of the story and appreciated nods to historical moments throughout, although this is clearly fiction.
caslater83's review against another edition
4.0
Good book!
I felt like this novel was a blend of "The Mummy" and "The Monument Men." The talk of hidden treasures and the search for them was fascinating. I also liked the overlap with Albert Einstein and his work involving physics during the war.
I felt like this novel was a blend of "The Mummy" and "The Monument Men." The talk of hidden treasures and the search for them was fascinating. I also liked the overlap with Albert Einstein and his work involving physics during the war.
raggedyme's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the book, but I didn't like the ending. It got a little cheesy at the end for my taste. lol
kahawa's review against another edition
3.0
Pretty boring. It probably could be made into an entertaining 90 minute movie. It was nice to hear about physics, history and religion all meeting together, but the plot was uninteresting and the characters pretty shallow and forgettable.
johoha93's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and War
novakg's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
carsonwl's review against another edition
3.0
The Einstein Prophecy falls in the same vein as [b:The Da Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] by Dan Brown. It's a mystery thriller that has our protagonist and his colleagues racing against time, adversaries, and something more to solve the puzzle. The differences between the two books is that The Einstein Prophecy takes a more supernatural stance behind the mystery.
This book has great pacing. It always felt like the plot was moving forward with purpose. Even when our characters were stumped by the next clue, the story still felt determined to get you from point A to point B. I thoroughly enjoyed the background of our mysterious coffin that starts the story.
There were parts of this book that I thought were weaker than other books. The title makes you believe that Einstein will play a big role in this book, but I felt like he was shoehorned into the plot. The characters were all realistic in their motivations and faults, but Einstein felt nearly "Jesus"-like. The way he talked and the way he acted never felt like a normal person would react. Yet, maybe that's the point. Einstein may just be understood as a different breed.
Overall, this was a good read. I picked it up from Kindle Unlimited and it was a higher quality book that I am used to from that service. I would recommend reading it if you need a quick breather from any other heavy reading you might be doing.
This book has great pacing. It always felt like the plot was moving forward with purpose. Even when our characters were stumped by the next clue, the story still felt determined to get you from point A to point B. I thoroughly enjoyed the background of our mysterious coffin that starts the story.
There were parts of this book that I thought were weaker than other books. The title makes you believe that Einstein will play a big role in this book, but I felt like he was shoehorned into the plot. The characters were all realistic in their motivations and faults, but Einstein felt nearly "Jesus"-like. The way he talked and the way he acted never felt like a normal person would react. Yet, maybe that's the point. Einstein may just be understood as a different breed.
Overall, this was a good read. I picked it up from Kindle Unlimited and it was a higher quality book that I am used to from that service. I would recommend reading it if you need a quick breather from any other heavy reading you might be doing.
katkeyes's review against another edition
2.0
I got this book free as part of the Kindle First program. It was entertaining, and I enjoyed the liberties taken with actual events in history. There was just a disconnect between St. Anthony and WWII that seemed like a bit of a stretch to me at times. And it had some sloppily written sections here and there.
cartwright's review against another edition
1.0
Other than the poor writing, weak plot, flat characters, and terrible research involved, this book was okay. I mean, at least it was spellchecked, right? Seriously, though, stay away from [b:The Einstein Prophecy|24429934|The Einstein Prophecy|Robert Masello|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1434549503s/24429934.jpg|44017762]. I picked it up because it was free (thanks, Kindle First!), and it appeared to have at least some decent reviews. But wow, was I wrong.
Many volumes could be written about the flaws here, and, based, on the reviews below, many reviewers have already done this. But I feel remiss if I don't jump in at least a little. To start, this book gave off the vibe of being poorly researched, as though it were an author filling a contract by using Wikipedia to pick up a few key terms, then dumping them into otherwise generic prose. The historical errors are grating. For example:
*"Wolf packs", as a term of WW2 art, refer to a group of U-boats hunting in concert; it is not a generic, catch-all term for the German submarine arm.
*Notwithstanding what Masello leads you to believe, the Holy Scriptures don't discuss Saint Anthony, who came along hundreds of years later (unless when Masello is discussing Holy Scriptures [caps original], he means something other than what everyone else on earth means by the phrase).
*Pascal's wager wasn't an atheist's proposed deathbed confession: Pascal was a Christian apologist who came up with his wager as philosophical argument to convince people to become Christians.
*While helicopters did exist in some form in WW2, they were very rare and didn't really get much use until Vietnam (with some in Korea). I guess it's technically possible that the 1944 era US military was flying huge projects around in helicopters, but the portrayal here rings solidly anachronistic.
I could also quibble with the portrayal of Einstein's religious faith, but you get the point. There were such numerous, egregious factual errors and shortcuts that I struggle to believe anyone actually edited this. How can an author get wrong such basic assumptions? Googling a list of all physicists in the early 20th century and finding a way to work them into the book doesn't make it well-researched.
Moreover, the way Masello handles characters made me want to tear my eyes out. They're all flat and simple, with absolutely no nuance, making me feel like I was reading a bad high school short story where the author was trying hard to show how in-touch with diversity s/he was. E.g., the rife ethnocentrism in portraying other cultures is laughable--of course the poor Arab kid is shocked that women can drive or have jobs, and then masks his amazement by shouting "Praise be to Allah." I mean, c'mon!
Though [b:The Einstein Prophecy|24429934|The Einstein Prophecy|Robert Masello|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1434549503s/24429934.jpg|44017762] was free, I'm still left feeling like I didn't get my money's worth.
Many volumes could be written about the flaws here, and, based, on the reviews below, many reviewers have already done this. But I feel remiss if I don't jump in at least a little. To start, this book gave off the vibe of being poorly researched, as though it were an author filling a contract by using Wikipedia to pick up a few key terms, then dumping them into otherwise generic prose. The historical errors are grating. For example:
*"Wolf packs", as a term of WW2 art, refer to a group of U-boats hunting in concert; it is not a generic, catch-all term for the German submarine arm.
*Notwithstanding what Masello leads you to believe, the Holy Scriptures don't discuss Saint Anthony, who came along hundreds of years later (unless when Masello is discussing Holy Scriptures [caps original], he means something other than what everyone else on earth means by the phrase).
*Pascal's wager wasn't an atheist's proposed deathbed confession: Pascal was a Christian apologist who came up with his wager as philosophical argument to convince people to become Christians.
*While helicopters did exist in some form in WW2, they were very rare and didn't really get much use until Vietnam (with some in Korea). I guess it's technically possible that the 1944 era US military was flying huge projects around in helicopters, but the portrayal here rings solidly anachronistic.
I could also quibble with the portrayal of Einstein's religious faith, but you get the point. There were such numerous, egregious factual errors and shortcuts that I struggle to believe anyone actually edited this. How can an author get wrong such basic assumptions? Googling a list of all physicists in the early 20th century and finding a way to work them into the book doesn't make it well-researched.
Moreover, the way Masello handles characters made me want to tear my eyes out. They're all flat and simple, with absolutely no nuance, making me feel like I was reading a bad high school short story where the author was trying hard to show how in-touch with diversity s/he was. E.g., the rife ethnocentrism in portraying other cultures is laughable--of course the poor Arab kid is shocked that women can drive or have jobs, and then masks his amazement by shouting "Praise be to Allah." I mean, c'mon!
Though [b:The Einstein Prophecy|24429934|The Einstein Prophecy|Robert Masello|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1434549503s/24429934.jpg|44017762] was free, I'm still left feeling like I didn't get my money's worth.