First on-blog Book Review
Title: Scavenger
Author: David Morrell
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 978-0-7553-3718-7
No of Pages: 407
Bought: October 2007
Started: 1st June 2009
Time taken to finish: 2 days
Rating:3 out of 5
For starters, the book cover was interesting with an hourglass draped with cobwebs and moths floating around. The tag "sometimes the past is buried for a reason" did appeal to my liking for stories related to murder and mystery. The description at the back also drew my attention as certain letters of the alphabet were highlighted in green, matching the colour of the wings of the mentioned moths. They spell out SCAVENGER.
The story tells of Frank Balenger, a character from the author's previous book entitled Creepers, continues his nightmares (more like action adventure to me) in this story. After a short description of what happened previously, Frank now living with the woman he saved, was chosen as a 'character' of a game created by a God-like Game Master. His beloved, Amanda Evert was kidnapped and brought to another location, must also go through a series of obstacles and scavenger hunt, within 40 hours. The said hunt revolves around a very old time-capsule named The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires which contains the ultimate answer to an old mystery where an entire town's people disappeared. So together, they work their way to solve the mystery, find each other and most of all win the game and thus their lives.
There are 2 concepts that run parallel in this book: one being investigative (as Frank tries to find Amanda), and the other adventure (as Amanda had to survive the obstacle course to search for more clues). The author managed to put this two concepts together in one book (of course it works with every new chapter) to actually keep my nose glued and breathing into it. I liked the fluidity of that transition from one character's point of view to the other. Not to mention the reality TV like drama and lots of action entwined. It was thrilling, absorbing, fast and keeps you predicting.
This book reference quite a lot on American history in association to time-capsules and the culture of scavenger hunting. It also talks about high-tech gaming and terms such as avatar, first person shooter, and the like appear here and there. So if you are into history, action, a bit of controversy, gaming and drama, you will be glad to find it all here in this book.
The only thing that annoyed me a little is the writing style. The use of straight to the point descriptive sentences, characters with little emotions and lack of that mystery or ambiguity makes my speed of reading faster than I normally would. Kind of like watching Indiana Jones fast forward by 5 seconds of every minute.
If not this is a pretty good read. I would recommend it for general readers as well as readers who like action type thrillers.
***
First on-blog Book Haul Update
When: 5th June 2009
From: Big Bookstore @ Atria Shopping Centre
Total dent to wallet: RM45.00
Titles:
1) The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby (416 pages)
2) Written in Bone by Simon Beckett (346 pages)
3) The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly (725 pages) - damn good deal. I got this for RM8!
Title: Scavenger
Author: David Morrell
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 978-0-7553-3718-7
No of Pages: 407
Bought: October 2007
Started: 1st June 2009
Time taken to finish: 2 days
Rating:3 out of 5
For starters, the book cover was interesting with an hourglass draped with cobwebs and moths floating around. The tag "sometimes the past is buried for a reason" did appeal to my liking for stories related to murder and mystery. The description at the back also drew my attention as certain letters of the alphabet were highlighted in green, matching the colour of the wings of the mentioned moths. They spell out SCAVENGER.
The story tells of Frank Balenger, a character from the author's previous book entitled Creepers, continues his nightmares (more like action adventure to me) in this story. After a short description of what happened previously, Frank now living with the woman he saved, was chosen as a 'character' of a game created by a God-like Game Master. His beloved, Amanda Evert was kidnapped and brought to another location, must also go through a series of obstacles and scavenger hunt, within 40 hours. The said hunt revolves around a very old time-capsule named The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires which contains the ultimate answer to an old mystery where an entire town's people disappeared. So together, they work their way to solve the mystery, find each other and most of all win the game and thus their lives.
There are 2 concepts that run parallel in this book: one being investigative (as Frank tries to find Amanda), and the other adventure (as Amanda had to survive the obstacle course to search for more clues). The author managed to put this two concepts together in one book (of course it works with every new chapter) to actually keep my nose glued and breathing into it. I liked the fluidity of that transition from one character's point of view to the other. Not to mention the reality TV like drama and lots of action entwined. It was thrilling, absorbing, fast and keeps you predicting.
This book reference quite a lot on American history in association to time-capsules and the culture of scavenger hunting. It also talks about high-tech gaming and terms such as avatar, first person shooter, and the like appear here and there. So if you are into history, action, a bit of controversy, gaming and drama, you will be glad to find it all here in this book.
The only thing that annoyed me a little is the writing style. The use of straight to the point descriptive sentences, characters with little emotions and lack of that mystery or ambiguity makes my speed of reading faster than I normally would. Kind of like watching Indiana Jones fast forward by 5 seconds of every minute.
If not this is a pretty good read. I would recommend it for general readers as well as readers who like action type thrillers.
***
First on-blog Book Haul Update
When: 5th June 2009
From: Big Bookstore @ Atria Shopping Centre
Total dent to wallet: RM45.00
Titles:
1) The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby (416 pages)
2) Written in Bone by Simon Beckett (346 pages)
3) The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly (725 pages) - damn good deal. I got this for RM8!
2 What say you?:
im currently reading the life of Einstein. dunno what i was thinking!
lol
LOL! Way to go :)
Post a Comment