joylene45's review against another edition
4.0
Free on kindle unlimited. The free books get rated on a curve. This is an action movie vibe in a book. Like a James Bond movie. It was fun.
lbrick363's review against another edition
4.0
I actually listened to the audio version of this and I am super happy I did. I think I would have gotten a bit bored towards the middle if I had read the book. At times it seemed it was slow going. Listening to it kept me on the edge of my seat!
greatnate008's review against another edition
3.0
It was okay. It reminded me of The Lives of Tao, but much more serious. It wasn't really my kind of book.
rpmiller's review against another edition
3.0
More development, as a prequel, to some characters in the Rho series. Action thriller. I enjoyed it.
vailynst's review
3.0
5 Stars for Narration by MacLeod Andrews
3 Stars for Story
Mini-Review:
The intro is a bit haphazard but it has enough going on to make me curious. The story became less and less plausible as it continued. I only made it to the end because Andrews did a fantastic job narrating this story. I made a comment about the story coming off like it's confused. Yup. That opinion remained to the end of the book.
Alien altered human becomes superhuman. Ok. Except that human was rather exceptional before the alteration and he's like the Mr. Awesome Black Ops. Elements of the story are cool. The way they're put together were snores-ville bland.
Darn. I was hoping to find another good SF series to listen to via KU's Read & Listen. This is not going to be it for me.
3 Stars for Story
Mini-Review:
The intro is a bit haphazard but it has enough going on to make me curious. The story became less and less plausible as it continued. I only made it to the end because Andrews did a fantastic job narrating this story. I made a comment about the story coming off like it's confused. Yup. That opinion remained to the end of the book.
Alien altered human becomes superhuman. Ok. Except that human was rather exceptional before the alteration and he's like the Mr. Awesome Black Ops. Elements of the story are cool. The way they're put together were snores-ville bland.
Darn. I was hoping to find another good SF series to listen to via KU's Read & Listen. This is not going to be it for me.
vailynst's review against another edition
3.0
5 Stars for Narration by MacLeod Andrews
3 Stars for Story
Mini-Review:
The intro is a bit haphazard but it has enough going on to make me curious. The story became less and less plausible as it continued. I only made it to the end because Andrews did a fantastic job narrating this story. I made a comment about the story coming off like it's confused. Yup. That opinion remained to the end of the book.
Alien altered human becomes superhuman. Ok. Except that human was rather exceptional before the alteration and he's like the Mr. Awesome Black Ops. Elements of the story are cool. The way they're put together were snores-ville bland.
Darn. I was hoping to find another good SF series to listen to via KU's Read & Listen. This is not going to be it for me.
3 Stars for Story
Mini-Review:
The intro is a bit haphazard but it has enough going on to make me curious. The story became less and less plausible as it continued. I only made it to the end because Andrews did a fantastic job narrating this story. I made a comment about the story coming off like it's confused. Yup. That opinion remained to the end of the book.
Alien altered human becomes superhuman. Ok. Except that human was rather exceptional before the alteration and he's like the Mr. Awesome Black Ops. Elements of the story are cool. The way they're put together were snores-ville bland.
Darn. I was hoping to find another good SF series to listen to via KU's Read & Listen. This is not going to be it for me.
whatmeworry's review against another edition
2.0
This review first appeared on on scifiandscary.com
‘Once Dead’ manages to be a horror novel, a sci fi novel and at the same time neither of those things. It’s a weird twist on the kind of ‘moody special forces guy growls and kicks butt’ books that proliferate on Kindle Unlimited where the twist is completely pointless.
It starts with moody special forces guy Jack (of course it’s Jack, they’re always called Jack) Gregory) getting killed in Calcutta whilst trying to avenge his brother’s death. As Jack slips into the afterlife he meets a being who is initially described as a demon, but later as an inter-dimensional mind worm, who offers Jack a second chance at life if he agrees to act as a human host for it.
The book is in some way related to another series by the same author which I haven’t read. I’m assuming the other series gives some kind of explanation of the origins of the inter-dimensional mind worm, as ‘Once Dead’ gives no explanation at all. Jack comes back to life, although his former CIA bosses think he is dead, and becomes a gun for hire. Now that he’s got an inter-dimensional mind worm on board he’s slightly moodier and more inclined to kick butts than he was before. But only slightly. With that set up out of the way, Jack’s companion hardly any further appearances in the book, and has absolutely no bearing on the plot.
That plot is your standard evil European billionaire trying to blow up the world affair, with a side order of Russian mafia enforcers and corrupt US intelligence officials. It has plenty of the standard action thriller tropes- lots of descriptions of guns, people doing clever things with computers, beautiful female operatives who fall for the hero despite how moody he is, intense rivalry between the different US intelligence agencies, etc, etc
It does also have some neat ideas - like the NSA-developed Big John, a data mining solution that is built into the kernel of every piece of anti virus software and uses the different devices it runs on as nodes in a global neural net. Any inventiveness gets drowned out by all the running around and shooting though.
It’s not a terrible book, some of the action sequences are really tense, but it just all feels a bit pointless. This is made even more the case by the fact that the horror/sci fi elements that are hinted at the start are completely lost as the book progressed. I can’t entirely hate a book that deliver lines like
“This would be his one-way ticket to hell. And on this train, Jacob Knox would be the conductor.”
With a straight face, but I won’t be rushing out to read more my Richard Phillips’ work.
‘Once Dead’ manages to be a horror novel, a sci fi novel and at the same time neither of those things. It’s a weird twist on the kind of ‘moody special forces guy growls and kicks butt’ books that proliferate on Kindle Unlimited where the twist is completely pointless.
It starts with moody special forces guy Jack (of course it’s Jack, they’re always called Jack) Gregory) getting killed in Calcutta whilst trying to avenge his brother’s death. As Jack slips into the afterlife he meets a being who is initially described as a demon, but later as an inter-dimensional mind worm, who offers Jack a second chance at life if he agrees to act as a human host for it.
The book is in some way related to another series by the same author which I haven’t read. I’m assuming the other series gives some kind of explanation of the origins of the inter-dimensional mind worm, as ‘Once Dead’ gives no explanation at all. Jack comes back to life, although his former CIA bosses think he is dead, and becomes a gun for hire. Now that he’s got an inter-dimensional mind worm on board he’s slightly moodier and more inclined to kick butts than he was before. But only slightly. With that set up out of the way, Jack’s companion hardly any further appearances in the book, and has absolutely no bearing on the plot.
That plot is your standard evil European billionaire trying to blow up the world affair, with a side order of Russian mafia enforcers and corrupt US intelligence officials. It has plenty of the standard action thriller tropes- lots of descriptions of guns, people doing clever things with computers, beautiful female operatives who fall for the hero despite how moody he is, intense rivalry between the different US intelligence agencies, etc, etc
It does also have some neat ideas - like the NSA-developed Big John, a data mining solution that is built into the kernel of every piece of anti virus software and uses the different devices it runs on as nodes in a global neural net. Any inventiveness gets drowned out by all the running around and shooting though.
It’s not a terrible book, some of the action sequences are really tense, but it just all feels a bit pointless. This is made even more the case by the fact that the horror/sci fi elements that are hinted at the start are completely lost as the book progressed. I can’t entirely hate a book that deliver lines like
“This would be his one-way ticket to hell. And on this train, Jacob Knox would be the conductor.”
With a straight face, but I won’t be rushing out to read more my Richard Phillips’ work.
reanne's review
2.0
Very actiony. Not really sci-fi except for Jack being a super-agent due to having an alien in his head. Kind of a popcorn action story. (Lots of description of people sleeping naked and of them in the shower, which I found kind of amusing.) This is the kind of book which could easily be adapted to a pretty standard action flick.
brianrenaud's review
3.0
Action adventure. Apparently the series eventually turns science fictional. This book is reasonably entertaining, although it does have an extremely high body count.
mabsmith's review
4.0
Entertaining thriller with great characters, realistic intrigue, and a touch of fantasy to keep me happy. Already downloaded the second book in the series; looking forward to seeing how these characters evolve!
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