esmeraldab4's review against another edition
4.0
Super spannend boek voor sciencefiction- en conspiracy theories liefhebbers.
beth_c's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-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? It's complicated
2.5
thekarpuk's review against another edition
1.0
I read about half this book out of a sort of obligation.
Steve Alten wrote a hacky, but generally well-paced and tolerably readable book about a giant shark. Nothing award winning, but it would keep you amused on a long plane ride.
He then proceeded to make sequels to it.
And somewhere along the line he decided to branch out into the sort of silly doomsday prophecies that ebb and flow in popularity all the time.
It relates to the Mayan calendar ending, which is about as silly as believing that the world will end when your calendar of adorably puppies runs out of dates on January 31st.
I read this book because a friend of mine, who loves Alten's books, got suckered into a program where Alten charges potential writers thousands of dollars to "coach" them into becoming successful novelists. If this sounds shady to you, then congratulations, you have the kind of good sense that will keep you from losing lots of money trying to succeed as a writer.
Of course this friend could not write coherently worth a damn, so he convinced me to do a lot of the physical writing (yeah, I'm not always a good judge of character, I acknowledge this). Anything he wrote I would have to revise multiple times to beat it into coherence. Then the chapters would go off to Alten, who would tear them apart for reasons that seemed often arbitrary or self-contradicting.
So in essence, I regularly found myself berated by the author of a terrible book who was not even really aware of who had to actually deal with the bulk of his criticisms. I read "Dominion" about half way through this process, and it made me truly aware of just how terrible my choices had been.
Because this book sucks, and I was getting routinely chewed out by the guy who wrote it.
It left me with to bits of wisdom:
1. If you're going to read Alten's work, stick to the shark books.
2. Never pay anyone up front to help you get published unless you're getting self published.
If nothing else, this experience reminded me that I should always strive to be a better judge of character.
Steve Alten wrote a hacky, but generally well-paced and tolerably readable book about a giant shark. Nothing award winning, but it would keep you amused on a long plane ride.
He then proceeded to make sequels to it.
And somewhere along the line he decided to branch out into the sort of silly doomsday prophecies that ebb and flow in popularity all the time.
It relates to the Mayan calendar ending, which is about as silly as believing that the world will end when your calendar of adorably puppies runs out of dates on January 31st.
I read this book because a friend of mine, who loves Alten's books, got suckered into a program where Alten charges potential writers thousands of dollars to "coach" them into becoming successful novelists. If this sounds shady to you, then congratulations, you have the kind of good sense that will keep you from losing lots of money trying to succeed as a writer.
Of course this friend could not write coherently worth a damn, so he convinced me to do a lot of the physical writing (yeah, I'm not always a good judge of character, I acknowledge this). Anything he wrote I would have to revise multiple times to beat it into coherence. Then the chapters would go off to Alten, who would tear them apart for reasons that seemed often arbitrary or self-contradicting.
So in essence, I regularly found myself berated by the author of a terrible book who was not even really aware of who had to actually deal with the bulk of his criticisms. I read "Dominion" about half way through this process, and it made me truly aware of just how terrible my choices had been.
Because this book sucks, and I was getting routinely chewed out by the guy who wrote it.
It left me with to bits of wisdom:
1. If you're going to read Alten's work, stick to the shark books.
2. Never pay anyone up front to help you get published unless you're getting self published.
If nothing else, this experience reminded me that I should always strive to be a better judge of character.
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