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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I really enjoyed the first part of this book after reading I am Pilgrim. I found the second half "book 2" too far fetched to enjoy.
One average book and two disgraceful books in one. What starts off as a run of the mill “Muslims are the enemy” plodding spy novel (complete with page long detail around the functionality of a well and satellite navigation) then turns its hand to…. Well, just about everything. There’s a lengthy rehab and psychological analysis portion, some random sojourn to Greece for no real reason, after which our hero then miraculously adds being able to captain a nuclear submarine to his list of superhuman feats (intelligence, endurance, strength, patience, science, engineering, history, marksmanship). I could probably tolerate all of this, and the one dimensional female characters, if it weren’t for the last third or so of the book…. Which basically becomes a parody of Project Hail Mary and War of the Worlds. Time travel, magic submarines, humans with bulletproof skin anyone?
Get a grip on reality. There’s a reason it took you a decade to write your second novel. This bloke should’ve been “one and done”.
Next.
Get a grip on reality. There’s a reason it took you a decade to write your second novel. This bloke should’ve been “one and done”.
Next.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Really loved this book it covers all genres… including time travel! Im really having to choose my next book to read because this book has left me speechless!
Excellent , as good as pilgrim. I wasnt sure about it at one stage but it came good again. Loved it, so exciting too
slow-paced
An absolute bin fire of a novel. 10 years after 'I Am Pilgrim', Terry Hayes returns. For 3/4 of 'Locust', we're on familiar ground - exceptional US secret agent good, Middle East mission full of bad guys. Hayes takes the nagging red flags that hindered the hugely successful 'Pilgrim' and doubles down on them: the book is far too long, it could easily be half the 660 pages; there is far too much backstory - every bit part character gets chapters of character history that are just not needed (do we care that the side character psychiatrist was a boy in Vietnam? No, it has nothing to do woth anything else in the book); it hints at xenophobia; Hayes develops a terrible habit of stopping paragraphs and chapters-
With a dash-
When a full stop would be perfectly fine-;
And our main character Kane, like Pilgrim before him, is an exceptional spy who makes constant dumb decisions, bad plans and relies on sheer coincidence and luck.
Another problem is the decision to write in the 1st person, then write endless scenes where Kane is not present, so can't possibly know what was said or what happened - Hayes knows this, so tries to get round it with clunky lines of 'as she described to me later/as I read in the report later/as the CCTV footage I watched showed Mr later'.
But then comes the final 1/4 of the book. What the hell happened? Suddenly, from nowhere, Russia is mining asteroids in deep space, an alien 'spore' is released and mutates humans and destroys the world, our hero ends up on an invisible submarine that TIME TRAVELS into the future - to the exact moment and place needed for no other reason than its needed for the story to work - then returns to the past without knowing anything about how the technology works. The spy story is jettisoned for sci-fi dystopia. Worse than the shift in tone is that it renders the first 3/4 that we've trawled through almost completely irrelevant. The plot is so dumb beyond belief and has holes you could drive an invisible submarine through.
I could go on. I've never been so angry with a book before. Not only is this an embarrassment to Hayes but to all involved - editors and publishers should be ashamed that this has been allowed to be published. It's a damning indictment of the corporate publishing world and the standard of literature that is published today.
I have no idea how anyone has seen fit to give this positive reviews, and those critics and publications that provide the blurb quotes need to have a serious look at their standards.
Its been over 18 months since my last 1 star review, and I rarely give them out, I always try to see the positive, but this is probably the worst book I've ever had the mispleasure to read. Just awful, awful, awful.
With a dash-
When a full stop would be perfectly fine-;
And our main character Kane, like Pilgrim before him, is an exceptional spy who makes constant dumb decisions, bad plans and relies on sheer coincidence and luck.
Another problem is the decision to write in the 1st person, then write endless scenes where Kane is not present, so can't possibly know what was said or what happened - Hayes knows this, so tries to get round it with clunky lines of 'as she described to me later/as I read in the report later/as the CCTV footage I watched showed Mr later'.
But then comes the final 1/4 of the book. What the hell happened? Suddenly, from nowhere, Russia is mining asteroids in deep space, an alien 'spore' is released and mutates humans and destroys the world, our hero ends up on an invisible submarine that TIME TRAVELS into the future - to the exact moment and place needed for no other reason than its needed for the story to work - then returns to the past without knowing anything about how the technology works. The spy story is jettisoned for sci-fi dystopia. Worse than the shift in tone is that it renders the first 3/4 that we've trawled through almost completely irrelevant. The plot is so dumb beyond belief and has holes you could drive an invisible submarine through.
I could go on. I've never been so angry with a book before. Not only is this an embarrassment to Hayes but to all involved - editors and publishers should be ashamed that this has been allowed to be published. It's a damning indictment of the corporate publishing world and the standard of literature that is published today.
I have no idea how anyone has seen fit to give this positive reviews, and those critics and publications that provide the blurb quotes need to have a serious look at their standards.
Its been over 18 months since my last 1 star review, and I rarely give them out, I always try to see the positive, but this is probably the worst book I've ever had the mispleasure to read. Just awful, awful, awful.