The reality of it all

The narrator became irritating towards the end of the book - felt he missed the opportunity for creating tension and suspense. I actually couldn’t wait for the end of the book because of this. Story was good although the ending was a tad sudden and lame. Was it worth a credit? Hmmmmm

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2 people found this helpful

Not bad James Patterson, not bad

A good thought-provoking thriller which fizzles away a bit towards the end. As some others have said, I would not be surprised if there is a film in the offing.

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1 person found this helpful

Who ok'd this read?

I'm a big fan of Crichton and think Patterson is OK. This is a very week entry in either writers cannon but as an easy listen it would have been OK were it not for the worst reading talent I've ever listened to from a "professionally" read book. Even machine read books are not this bad. There are pauses mid sentence and inflection changes. It's almost as if the reader read part of each sentence on a different day then they just stitched them all together. I almost stopped and returned the book for a refund but I did want to know how it ended! Be warned!

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Better than reviews

At first having bought the book on pre-order I was disappointed by the potential read from the reviews given so far. Nevertheless I listened to the book and enjoyed the content. However as the story was read so slowly I would add a caveat in that I had the reading speed at 2 times faster than origional to make the listening work for me.

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7 people found this helpful

Weirdly inept reading

There's nothing much wrong with the book itself, although the volcano facts and figures feel shoehorned into the action.

However, there's no escaping the fact that the reading is extraordinarily poor, stumbling over words and phrases with strange nonsensical pauses throughout. This makes for a really painful listen.

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1 person found this helpful

Expected much more

Really wanted to like this book, was expecting so much more. All very cliche and obvious. Two stars because I finished it.

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Brilliant plot

Awful narration. The narrator sounded bored throughout and the pauses for effect were badly placed.

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God awful narration

So hard to properly review this book given how bad the narrator is. I can’t believe it was approved for release it’s that bad. He pauses in bizarre places as if he’s unsure what he’s reading. I’d suggest buying the book rather than listening.

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1 person found this helpful

I made it to chapter 8.

I don’t know if it’s Patterson taking over from Crichton, or Clarke Peters’ narration, but I found this very hard going, even though I only got a few chapters in.

Peters sounds like he’s either reading the book for the first time, or is reading through bifocals, with pauses and changes in the rhythm of the narration seeming to indicate getting to the end of a new page and adjusting focal distance to the top of the next.

Audible, please put some time in on getting the original Crichton books recorded/uploaded such as Airframe, and possibly get a producer to sit in on the recording sessions.

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1 person found this helpful

Intriguing story, but poor narration.

I went into this intrigued by the story and a "secret army base", and how that would involve a volcano. By 2/3s of the story I was pretty fed up. I read some of the reviews before listening and most went on about the bad narrator, which at first didn't bother me, but yes again by half way it's very noticeable how poor he is, tripping over words and sentences in very jerky ways.

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