I enjoyed the book. As I've said before, I really enjoy Scott Brick. He seems to have just the right balance in his narration. Enough performance to help differentiate characters and convey emotion, with intruding on the words. This was my second Joseph Finder book, and based on the the two so far, I believe I'll be listening to more of his work.

As with many of the books I've listened to lately, it started off a bit slow, but once it got rolling, I stayed hooked right up to the surprise ending.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.

The quality of the version I downloaded from Audible.com was excellent, although there appeared to be a problem during the transfer to my Nomad which caused some garbling at the end of the first part and dropped the last ten minutes of the second part; fortunately, the original files on the hard drive were intact and I was able to listen to the end on the PC.

As expected, Scott Brick did a wonderful job performing the narration. I actually ended up selecting this book by first performing a search of all of the Scott Brick narrated books on Audible.com, and then making the selection based on the description of the story.

I did not find this book quite as engaging as some of the others I have listened to. I'm not sure though if this was because of the writer, or because I did not listen to this book as quickly as I usually do. On days when Jeanie and I walk on the beach, I do not listen to my audio books. There was also a number of days between when I started the book and when I finished it when we either had company, work interfered, or weather interfered with my normal exercise routine. As such, there tended to be longer than usual gaps between listens. This might have deadened how much I "got into" the story.

The story was interesting, but not quite as "edge of the seat" as I would have liked. I did find the historical references interesting, and aspects of the underlying theology found resonance with my beliefs (or at least contemplations).

The best description of the book is probably the first review shown on Amazon.com by LadyNaava which starts out "Raising Atlantis is like reading a weird hybrid between DaVinci Code and Stargate." Hmm, lets see... I really liked The DaVinci Code and I thoroughly enjoy Stargate - no wonder I liked the book.

I couldn't help but feel at the very end of the book like it was set up for a sequel. Guess what? Greanias will be releasing it (The Atlantis Prophecy) on July 18!

This was another book I rented from JiggerBug. JiggerBug has an interesting concept. They offer audio books for rent - both on CD like the NetFlix model, and as time-limited downloads using Microsoft DRM.

The book was enjoyable. The description of the book made it obvious that it was a suspense novel, but JiggerBug had it classified as a romance. At first, I couldn't understand the classification, but as the story unfolded, I came to see why. The first hint was the attraction of what would turn out to be the two main characters. The second was the graphic sex! What more could one ask for - a plot with interesting twists and turns, and hot sex. Now I understand the attraction of these romance novels!

I liked the story. I thought the characters were well developed, and the plot was interesting. There were definitely a couple of twists I didn't expect, and I really did find myself holding my breath at the end.

The performance was top notch. Both of the readers did a great job with the accents of the various American and European characters, and deftly balanced the amount of "acting" they injected into the narration.

This is the first Linda Howard book I've listened to, and though I'll probably have to be careful to steer clear of the pure romance novels, I'll definitely sign up for another one of her cross-over books.

As with the other three books in this (the Women's Murder Club) series, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Ms. McCormick once again did a nice job of voicing Detective Lindsay Boxer. There was some music added to the production, but I didn't find it annoying as I do with some productions. The book had a nice new plot construct, having two central threaded plot lines rather than the usual single central plot with ancillary sub-plots.

I'm looking forward to the release of the next in the series, The 5th Horseman.

I downloaded the book from JiggerBug. JiggerBug has an interesting concept. They offer audio books for rent - both on CD like the NetFlix model, and as time-limited downloads using Microsoft DRM.

The book was okay. It was a blend of mystery and supernatural thriller. Surprising as it is, considering I devoured Science Fiction as a kid, I never could quite fully engage the "willful suspension of disbelief" for the supernatural part. The mystery part was okay, and I liked the characters, but as a complete package, it just didn't quite measure up to most of the other books I've listened to.

The performance was okay too. Not bad by any means, just not great. Both of the readers sometimes had an awkward meter or phrasing which I found distracting. Overall, the differentiation of the characters was okay, and Ms. Cowan did do a fantastic job voicing the character of the brother with Down's Syndrome.

This is the first Dean Koontz book I've listened to, and I get the impression that Koontz writes in the same genre as Steven King, whom I've never really gotten into either. I also think that this book may been one of those that would actually be better as a movie than as a book.

This was another excellent download from Audible. Audible has restructured its offerings, and they are now even more affordable, but the quality and ease of use continues to impress me.

The book was excellent.

Jonathan Davis' performance was fantastic. Not only did he give just the right amount of dramatic enhancement to the narration, but he even managed to provide different voices for the various characters, making it easier to follow who was saying what when. Given the number of male, American characters in the book, this was quite a feat. He also did a good job with the voices / accents of the non-male, non-American characters. This was another audio production that had some musical "embellishment," and even though I'd still prefer a lack thereof, this music did not approach the level of "annoying" that I have found in some other audio books.

The story was also really good. I have come to expect good character development and an interesting, but not frustratingly convoluted, plot from Balducci, and he once again delivered. And, unlike some other suspense books, this one maintained its intensity all the way to the end.

As with a number of other recent listens, this book had as a central focus, the conflict between radical Islam and America. I liked that this book had a number of other plot drivers and layers, and was not just another "Bad Muslim, Good American" story. While I understand that this conflict provides good substance for current novels, much as the cold war did for so many years, it does sadden me that this seems to be so much of our focus in this day and age. It also saddens me when I really think about the challenges we face as a world, and how difficult "solving" these problems is, and how unlikely it is that we will ever truly see peace throughout the earth. I know I am idealistic and naive, but I really don't understand why we can't all just get along.

If you want to view more in-depth reviews or ratings of the book, check out Amazon.com or
Barnes & Noble.com Home Page

I really enjoyed the book.

The quality of the version I downloaded from Audible.com was excellent. I had been tempted to get it as part of my free trial at JiggerBug but I haven't gotten around to signing up for it yet, so I used one of my two monthly book credits at Audible for the download.

The narration by Scott Brick was excellent. There was just the right balance of performance and subtle voice/accent changes to enhance the written word without overpowering it.

The story was written all in first person, which at first, given the last few books which were a mixture of first and third person, felt a little strange. Once I adjusted to the construct though, it worked quite well.

Unlike a murder mystery, where you pretty much know what the end point is, with this book, both the final destination as well as the journey were ripe for surprises. And the surprises kept coming from the first few pages, right up until the end. Along the way there was a great blend of high tech, spy stuff, romance and intrigue (or are those last two redundant?) The relationship between the main character, Adam, and his father, added texture to the story and depth to Adam's character.

This was one of those books that really did motivate me to get out and walk a few days when I really didn't want to, just because I was so eager to see what would happen next.

One last thought... not that the plot was the same, but if you liked the book Disclosure by Michael Crichton, you'd probably like Paranoia as well.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Patterson's third installment of the Women's Murder Club series (1st to Die; Second Chance) is at least as good as the previous two books.

The quality of the version I downloaded from Audible.com was excellent.

While I was not disappointed with the story, I was disappointed with both McCormick's performance and the production. McCormick's attempts at accents and character differentiation missed the mark, and the inclusion of sound effects and musical interludes were distracting at best, and outright annoying at worst.

If you have read / enjoyed the first two in the series, you should find this a worthwhile 3rd installment. If you already know you like the series, I would suggest avoiding ALL reviews, as this book in particular has some great twists that are almost sure to be spoiled by just about any review you would encounter.

To say that Dumbledore's death was shocking would be a massive understatement.

Granted, I am a little slow. It didn't occur to me, until I happened to read this item in SciFi Wire News about Jacqueline Carey's latest release, Godslayer, that the Harry Potter books followed the "...good-versus-evil epic fantasy in the classic mold, complete with a Dark Lord, an all-knowing wizardly mentor and a struggling, unlikely hero..."

Okay, did I read "the Hobbit," twice? Yes.

Did I see all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies? Yes.

Did I see the structural parallels to Tolkien's classics, which as noted in WSJ.com's Opinion Journal commentary "The Battle of the Books" "[follows] a literary one reaching back even further--of heroic sagas and mythic battles between the forces of light and of darkness. That tradition receiving [sic] its greatest 20th-century expression in the work of her compatriot, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, [in] whose three-volume masterwork, "The Lord of the Rings...?" No.

As an aside, while I agree that Tokien's works delive more deeply into questions of morality, I regard its dismissive judgement of Rowling's works as snobbish at best. Tolkien sought to create an examination of morality and good vs. evil at a philosophical level for adults, using an interesting and often entertaining story as a vehicle. Rowling seeks to create an entertaining environment to capture the imaginations of children, that along the way shows children (and adults) the joy of reading, and offers simple lessons in right vs. wrong. Neither is better than the other, no more than an apple is "better" than a peach.

But, once it was pointed out to me... of course, Harry Potter obviously fit the mold.

How then, could Rowling kill the wise mentor, much less not even only at the end of the last book?

And that wasn't the only shocker. I was sure that the potions book was Voldemort's. Finding out it was Snape's was totally believable, but also unexpected.

I tend to consume these books at a very shallow level. I'm in it just for the story, and I tend to just go along for the ride. I find it fascinatng that there is a huge subculture of Potter fans that dissect every word trying to find answers to puzzles before they are answered and seeking to find meaning buried in the narrative. I'm not passing judgement - I really do just find it interesting that different people can approach things so differently.

Needless to say, I eagerly await J.K. dolling out the answers for me whenver she gets around to writing the seventh and final book of the series.

My feelings were somewhat mixed about the book.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the level of detail DeMille had regarding aircraft and aircraft operations. It was really cool to be able relate first hand to some of the aircraft in the book, and for his narrative to actually be correct regarding the details. Either he is a pilot, or he did very good research.

It was also really cool that many of the locations were places that I am intimately familiar with. Who would have ever believed that Craig Municipal and Monks Corner airports would appear in a major novel!

John Corey is a great character. He is strong, smart, resourceful, and a wise-ass. I really do like these detective characters who are sardonic/cynical/sarcastic. There seems to be many similarities between Corey and Spencer, another character that I like.

In this book, I also found the combination of 1st and 3rd person to work really well. I think in part it is because when in 1st person, we get insights into what the character is thinking, as well as what is he is saying and what is happening. Some of the best lines in the book are thoughts that John chooses not to utter.

The narration was absolutely superb. Brick performs the book rather than simply reading it. His interpretation of John Corey is inspired.

On the other hand, after the initial incident (I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers) it seemed like there were two independent story lines - Asad Kahlil and John Corey. I would have expected that the two would have been tightly woven... cat and mouse... John always just a half-step behind... But no, the suspense was sorely lacking. For most of the book, Asad did his thing, pretty much unfettered, and John sat around. Where was the chase? The only time I even wondered, much less was surprised, was about half-way through the book when (oh, I won't spoil that part). Granted, John finally did get a clue, and get off his butt towards the end, but it was a long time coming. While the ending had a modicum of excitement, I felt that overall, it was anti-climatic.

The book does raise some interesting points about what drives terrorism, especially the concept of blood feuds, retribution, etc. I don't know if DeMille intended it as such, but I found the book to less of a suspenseful book, and more of a scary book. Not Steven King scary, but really scary - because it illuminates one thing that drives terrorists, and drives home that we are all but powerless to stop people who truly believe that they have God on their side, and are more than willing to die for their cause. It also saddened me, because it highlighted that there are religious and cultural differences in the world that are unlikely to ever be resolved, and when to these you add anger over events that in some cases occurred thousands of years ago, it seems that we are doomed to a cycle of man killing man as long as man walks the earth.

As with Patterson's first book which I listened to, the out of sequence (for me) "2nd Chance," I really enjoyed the book. I liked the characters and the plot had a good pace. There was a nice balance of detail in the descriptions - enough to provide atmosphere, but not so much as to slow things down.

I once again found it interesting that this book used a combination of first and third person perspective. It was also interesting in that the audio used two readers - one female, and one male. The lead character is a female, and her parts are all first person, and of course these are all read by the female. The rest of the narrative is read by the female reader as well - except for the part of the murderer who is male.

I also liked the fact that the plot involved an active killer - as opposed to a story in which the murder has already occurred and the focus is on solving the "who done it." I guess I'm more of an action/suspense person than a murder/puzzle person.

This book seemed to have more twists than "2nd Chance," and the last one was an absolute doozie!

Definitely a good listen.

If you want to read reviews, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble have good editorial and customer reviews.

I was disappointed in the book overall. I found it to be a relatively difficult listen with slow pacing and an unsatisfying ending. My appraisal of the book appears to be in fairly stark contrast to the reviews on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. This is my first Ed McBain book, so it could be that his style just doesn't work for me, it could be that his work doesn't abridge well, or it could be that this particular book just didn't resonate with me.

There were two highlights to the book.

The first was the use of the Fat Ollie character to provide a commentary on what I expect have been criticisms of McBain's work. What I found particularly amusing was that one of the items commented on was that "there are too many characters in his books," which exactly mirrored my feelings up to that point.

The second was Ron McLarty's performance. McLarty is the type of reader who, as AudioFile puts it so well: "voices [the characters] with enough joie de vivre for two readers. McLarty is one of those rare actors who can truly inhabit a voice and a character, which makes for real listening pleasure."

I guess I should have read the reviews before I started, since they seem spot on to me.

The basic theme of the reviews is that this is NOT the first work of Heinlein you should start with. In fact, you shouldn't broach it until you've read at least a half-dozen or so of his other works. And then, you still might not enjoy it if you aren't a fairly hard core fan. And even then, because of its highly unusual construction, you still might not enjoy it.

I wasn't too keen on the style anyway, so I'm guessing this is one book (and maybe author) I probably won't get back to...

I quite enjoyed it. The mystery kept me guessing and I found the character development interesting. The modest amount of sex added a little spice that I hadn't expected. Sandra Brown will get added to the "A" list.

I enjoyed it. I thought the character development was good, and the story moved along at a good pace. Ken Howard was a good narrator, although his presentation was more of a narration than a performance. By that, I mean that he did not really differentiate the characters by using different voices or add much inflection or emotion into the dialog portions. Nonetheless, his reading was not distracting, nor did it diminish the experience.

Given that the book was over ten hours, it is hard to believe that it was abridged, but after reading some reviews of the actual book, I guess the full version would have approached a forced march if listened to just due to sheer volume.

I was a little disappointed with the ending, because it didn't wrap things up cleanly, but given that the story centered around Vietnam, having no clear, clean, neatly tied up ending did seem somewhat fitting. Based on this book, I will definitely give DeMille another try.

The following review does such a good job, that I couldn't resist providing it verbatim: Jonathan Kellerman's newest Alex Delaware novel doesn't disappoint. John Rubenstein, who has read many of the Delaware stories, eases the listener back into the world of murder and suspense through his character differentiation. Experienced Kellerman listeners will easily recognize the main characters and appreciate the consistency and depth of Rubenstein's delivery. As usual, things are not as they first appear as Delaware and Milo Sturgis team up again to solve the murder of a young couple. Characters abound in this story, but, through the combined expertise of Kellerman and Rubenstein, keeping them straight is not difficult. S.K.P. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to the Audio CD edition. While I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the last two, it was still a good listen, and I'll be adding Kellerman to the approved authors list.

which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The writing and pacing were excellent. Just the right mix of action and description, with enough plot twists and surprises to keep me engaged. In one particular scene, I actually found my heart pounding just like I sometimes find it doing when watching a particularly exciting scene in a movie. The character development was very good, and I quickly found myself caring what happened to the main characters.

The abridgement seemed to be of very high quality. There were no discontinuities that I could discern.

The narration by Ron McLarty was exceptional. If they give Grammys for narration of audio books, he should get one. Not only did he do a great job using different voices and accents for the different characters, but he also really injected emotion into his story telling.

Once again, the reviews indicate that this is not the author's best work, if that is the case, I can't imagine how good his best work must be.

Looks like I now have another author to add to "the list."

which I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed.

For those of you not familiar with Robert B. Parker, this was #31 in his Spencer (as in the same Spencer as in the "Spencer for Hire" TV show) series of detective novels. I enjoyed the TV series, and I enjoyed the book more. This was my first Spencer book, but it definitely won't be my last. The mystery part was interesting enough, but what I really enjoyed was, as one reviewer on Amazon so eloquently put it "The dialogue cracks with wit, wisdom and humor. The banter and the quips that shoot back and forth are great!! The wonderful characters [including his tough sidekick Hawk and his psychologist girlfriend Susan] are all back, taking on another investigative job where things are not what they are portrayed to be."

Joe Mantegna read the unabridged version of the book and did a great job. I really enjoy him on "Joan of Arcadia" and it was cool listening to his smooth voice breeze through this audio book.

Based on a number of the Amazon reviews saying this only an average effort for Parker, I can't wait to read some of his "best" efforts.

The version I listened to was abridged, and I think the abridgement was quite heavy handed. There was at least one portion of the story that was removed which caused a continuity gap later in the story. From reading a few reviews of the book, I also got the impression that a lot of the subtleties of the story were lost. My preference is to listen to unabridged versions of books, but sometimes I have to take what I can get - especially if someone is nice enough to lend me a book. One time - I can't remember what book it was - I did a detailed comparison between the full printed version of a book and the audio abridgement. In that particular case, I found that the abridgement stayed quite true to the novel, and simply omitted some of the more detailed descriptive paragraphs and minor subplots which had no bearing on the main storylines of the book. I guess the extent of the impact of the abridgement depends heavily on the abridger and also on what the difference is between the length of the full version and the time allotted to the abridged version.

Anyway, even though the abridgement left some to be desired, the book was generally entertaining, containing a nice blend of science fiction, suspense and social commentary.

I now understand where the inspiration for "The Matrix" came from. While "The Matrix" is not an out-and-out rip-off of Neuromancer, it seemed fairly apparent to me that the book strongly influenced the Wachowski brothers in creating their world. This is explored in depth in the excellent Wikipedia article which can be found here. Wikipedia also has a good entry on Neuormancer which can be found here.

Anyway, I found the book to be so-so. I think it is one of those books that is much better read than listened to. Gibson's writing style can be quite poetic at times, and I think it might sound better in one's own head than through one's ears. It is also one of those books where the creation and immersion in the "world" is more important than a taught, clear plot.

I am definitely adding him to my list.

I really enjoyed the book. I liked the characters and the plot had a good pace. There was a nice balance of detail in the descriptions - enough to provide atmosphere, but not so much as to slow things down.

I found it interesting that this book used a combination of first and third person perspective. It was also interesting in that the audio used two readers - one female, and one male. The lead character is a female, and her parts are all first person, and of course these are all read by the female. The rest of the narrative is read by the female reader as well - except for the part of the murderer who is male.

I also liked the fact that the plot involved an active killer - as opposed to a story in which the murder has already occured and the focus is on solving the "who done it." I guess I'm more of an action/suspense person than a murder/puzzle person.

If you want to read reviews, Amazon.com has good editorial and customer reviews.

I'm already looking forward to Patterson's 3rd installment of his Women's Murder Club series - "Third Degree." I may even go back and read his first in the series, titled, surprisingly enough, "1st to Die."

Well, if one takes reader reviews on Amazon.com as a benchmark, then I am definitely out of the mainstream.

I found the book to be extremely slow and never really got into it. Yes, I was surprised at who the killer turned out to be, but I didn't really care either...

I did enjoy the occasional sarcastic humor of the main character, but I found the first-person perspective distracting. This is the first first-person perspective book that I can remember "reading," so I don't know if I just don't like the style in general, or if it was just this author.

I have one other Grafton alphabet series mystery in the queue, but the reviews on Amazon.com are weaker than for F is for Fugitive, so I'm guessing I might not make it throught it, in which case, I might have to put Ms. Grafton on the "B" list.

I got this one from Audible.com.