Pretty bad, but not the worst I've ever read

I'm afraid this review might go a bit negative, so I want to begin by saying, I didn't hate it. That being said, there are many glaring flaws that are difficult to overlook.

First, I imagine writing about the past is bothersome and time consuming. You would have to know what technologies were available in different years. This book covers over 100 years, but the author made the past and present sound the same. It was particularly obvious in the parts about the journal. A personal journal written 100 years ago is going to sound much more formal than one written today. But these had a more conversational tone, as is found in modern writing.

The characters are inconsistent and confusing. Other reviewers (on Amazon) have described them as cardboard cut-outs. They do not progress or grow in any way throughout the book. And the love story...ugh. It was as if he just threw that in there because he felt like that's what people expect.

I realize that it's already a rather long book, but I feel that the author could have taken a little more time with developing the plot and characters. People will stick to a long book if it's good.

There were also parts that were clearly taken straight out of Wikipedia. Just cut and paste. Not even reworded. (Explanation of Toba Catastrophe, for example.)

This book felt like someone trying to tell you about a really good dream they had. "I found myself in this building I'd never been in. There were people there that I didn't know. They asked me to follow them. I did, but I don't remember why. Then I was flying over the Grand Canyon because I needed to go rescue my Grandma from the alligator people." Yep. That's almost exactly what this book was like.

On a more positive note, I really do admire this guy for following his dream of being a writer, and self-publishing his books.

The ideas in the book could have been interesting if the writing hadn't been so amateurish. I'm giving the book three stars because, in the end, I was mildly entertained. And I hate giving one star when you can clearly tell that the author has risked everything to follow a dream.

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223 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

What made me download this?

I usually trust reviewers...and this book is certainly receiving the reviews it deserves (for the most part). So I can't imagine what made me download it! Was it a recommended audible book? It seems impossible...Alas, download I did. And it was terrible. At one point, I actually double-checked that I had not downloaded Book II by mistake (soooooo much time had gone by with no clear clue as to what the 'mystery' was about or what was really going on...or what could remotely connect all these widely disparate characters and events). I guess the 'promise' of that mystery must have been tempting (so the author gets one star for that), but after an hour or so on the SECOND downloaded half, I just stopped caring. Wish one of the other reviewers had a 'spoiler' and would tell me what (if anything) ended up happening. Did they all die? Did the world end? Meh. Will attempt to get my credit back on this one.

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Dear Author: Ever heard the saying Less is More?

STORY (suspense) - If you read the summary of the story, you can see where it might be quite good...but it's just okay. There's just too many characters, too many time lines, too many subplots. ENOUGH! It's fairly long (15:44) and there's a lot to think about and keep straight. For the first 11 or 12 hours I was entertained, but then it just seemed to drag on and I stopped caring. I will give the author an A for imagination, but that's about all this book has going for it.

PERFORMANCE - Meh, he does okay. He doesn't do a very good job distinguishing characters, but it's not too much of a problem. Sometimes he drops his voice at the end of the line he's reading like the sentence is over, then he realizes there's more and tacks the rest on halfheartedly. All in all, the performance neither adds nor detracts from the book.

OVERALL - (Actual rating 2.5) No sex, minimal cursing. This is not an easy listen and you will have to pay close attention. The story isn't finished by the end of the book, so you will need to hear Book 2 to see how it ends. Personally, I don't care.

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Wonderfully Horrible

The plot makes no sense. There are Nazis. There is time travel. There are people escaping on hot air balloons with the bottom painted like the sky and the top painted like the forest so drones can't see them. There are bad guys who make deals and don't double cross. There's a love story between two the the flattest characters ever. There's a plague.
Stuff like the hot air balloons makes it almost worthwhile.

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Just to much dumb

I had such hopes for this book and kept reading it with the dream of that promise. It was not to be. The whole book is a series of unbelievable events and not the 'WOW that's unbelievable' but the 'that's ridiculous' kind. From the hero spy agency set up like a terror cell, to the arch villain in charge of a super secret billion dollar high tech organization who knows absolutely no science or engineering, to the head spy who's been in a country for years yet speaks none of the languages, to the super smart (as in highly highly educated) heroes who cant figure out a card reader. And those are just off the top of my head examples that aren't spoilers. The story is a fine regular suspension of disbelief conspiracy story that I normally don't have a problem with but when I'm saying just 'let it go' every ten minutes...well needless to say I found it to be a let down.

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Lightweight writing and matching performance.

Would you try another book from A. G. Riddle and/or Stephen Bel Davies?

Not anytime soon; perhaps if I forget this book.

What could A. G. Riddle have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Better writing, character depth

What didn’t you like about Stephen Bel Davies’s performance?

Mediocre, like the story

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Simple to follow

Any additional comments?

None

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35 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Erich von Danken Meets Tom Clancy

What did you like best about The Atlantis Gene? What did you like least?

The story is fairly original, though the writing and genre are both fairly generic. The characters are bland, the writing style seems amateurish, and the relationships between the characters feel forced.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes. It's the perfect vehicle for a summer block buster. It has everything that that type of movie needs: shooting, explosions, a love story, and religious undertones. In fact, it would make a better block buster than it does a book. As a novel it is derivative in it's writing style and seems more like a paint-by-numbers spy novel than original piece of work. Though as I stated above, the idea of the story is pretty original, it is just the characters, dialogue, and action that are sub-par.

Any additional comments?

If you don't have anything better to read, you like Tom Clancy books, and are interested in Ancient Aliens, check this book out. It won't blow you away, but is an OK way to pass the time.

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26 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A Thrill-Ride That Captures Minds and Hearts Alike

4.5 out of 5 stars

I've had this book on my "to be read" pile for a long time. I picked this up a couple years ago before I was really into audiobooks and even though I was enjoying it -- it just felt like it was dragging on so I stopped around 20-30% through. I picked this up the other day and I'm really glad that I gave it another chance. I knew that thousands of people loved Riddle and this series, so I wanted to give it another shot. I completely understand why now.

For people out there who aren't sure why people listen to audiobooks -- this is a great example. It was a book that I was enjoying, but for some reason, I couldn't find the "right" time to read it. Or it wasn't hitting me with the right pacing. I put the audiobook on and all of a sudden it's 1 AM30 and I should have been in bed hours ago.

It's pretty obvious that The Atlantis Gene is leading up to something. There is a great story arc that is almost completed by the end of the book -- but Riddle left it open. Normally this bothers me a bit, but I've had this series on my radar for some time and I'm not disappointed at all by a 15+ hour book.

The mixture of history and future in this book was fascinating to me. I don't want to give too much away (I know, the book is 3+ years old at this point) but I'm amazed at how many different genres that Riddle was able to intermix into this story without it feeling boring or overbearing. There really is a little bit for everyone in this. There's some mystery, adventure, thriller, technothriller, history, sci-fi, and medical thriller.

I'm extremely glad that I gave this a second chance. I picked it up because I cannot wait for Riddle's newest book: Pandemic (I pre-ordered it). I hope that he puts as much thought into that as he did into this book.

Overall, an enjoyable book with lots of twists and turns. A book with something for everyone to enjoy.

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20 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Could have been so much more

The Atlantis Gene: The Origin Mystery, Book 1 is a highly complex science fiction mystery thriller that made some pretty huge promises to me, via all of the other positive reviews. Several mini-stories are told that all eventually end up binding together. We have aliens, I think or at least some sort of supreme beings. A secret organization, Clocktower, that is found to be much older and powerful than anyone, even those in the organization, thought possible. We have an American Autism researcher based in Indonesia. All of this created some confusion with me questioning what is actually happening and, ultimately getting lost. Once I got my footing in one plot line I was thrust into a completely different one. I found the lengthy explanations of seemingly mundane tasks quite tedious, making some scenes very difficult for me to get through without my mind wandering. The biggest thing was I couldn't connect or even care for any of the characters, something that easily elevates even the most mundane of stories. What I liked was what The Atlantis Gene could have been, or what I thought it was going to be, an all out action packed, thought provoking, tension creating, alien invading super spy thriller. As for the description of Dan Brown + Michael Crichton = A. G. Riddle, didn't add up for me. However I congratulate Riddle in being able sell a ton of books for his first novel and I see many bright spots in his future, but for me I don't think I will be continuing with this series. However you may think it is the cat's meow.

Audiobook provided for review and downloaded from Audible.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

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18 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Action thriller with some mystery and Atlantis

I was given the opportunity to do a review of the Audible version of The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle.

The book is a mystery thriller about a mysterious worldwide terrorist organization and their quest to unlock the secrets of Atlantis and to either prevent or facilitate the destruction of the human race. I don't normally read too many of these (I got burned out on Clive Cussler), but I am glad I gave this a shot.

The narrator (Stephen Bel Davies) does a really great job. Rather than reading the whole thing in monotone, he actually does quite a few different voices for characters, and he almost always gets the inflection, etc. right. So I really enjoyed his delivery of the novel.

As for the story itself, I found it to be very interesting and I wanted to learn more about the mystery and the mysterious Atlantis technology. The novel covers a lot of territory both in present time and in the past by jumping backwards for quite a bit of the story (told through a character reading a journal). The pacing was pretty good and the character development for the protagonists was well done (the development for the villains was non-existent).

This is definitely an adult novel... there are some horrific scenes in it, and some profanity-laced tirades. Suffice to say, the bad guys are bad in this novel.

As for the cons, I felt that at times the same stuff was just rehashed over and over. I'm sure some readers would appreciate having concepts or facts repeated 4 or 5 times, but not for me. Some of the timing was just off too... they had a short time (say 30 seconds or 10 minutes) and spent an entire chapter in dialogue or thoughts. Also, while there is plenty of action, there is also a ton of explanation and at times I was saying "just get on with it already". And lastly, you really have to suspend your belief for a lot of this...just enjoy the ride and try not to analyze it too deeply.

Overall, a very enjoyable story and I am gearing up to read the sequel.

NOTE: I received this novel for free in exchange for an honest review.

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14 personnes ont trouvé cela utile