Book Review - The Last Jihad by Joel C. Rosenberg

The Last Jihad by Joel C. Rosenberg
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I got these out of our local library on a whim, the title was intriguing and the geo-political implications were looking better on the book blurb.

Once I started with the book, it almost became a chore to finish it. The characters are not well etched and as I write this review I have already forgotten what the book was all about.

The book opens explosively with a kamikaze plane attack on the POTUS motorcade but it sort of writes itself down from there with conveniently forgotten characters and not too much of a redeeming plot.

Sorry to say so but the series lost its ability to hold interest to me after this one.

A forgettable read.

Book Review: The Midnight Watch - James Rollins

The Midnight Watch by James Rollins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

More and more writers are writing mini vignettes in between their books to act as a filler for the next installment of their book especially for a series. James Rollins is no different. The Sigma Force is an ever expanding world, there are too many characters and too many plot lines involved that it is difficult to give each character the necessary book time to grow them organically. Vignettes help in this scheme of things and provide a side incomes as well.

The Midnight Watch focuses on Kowalski, one of the side characters from the sigma series who has been under appreciated time and again. It also sheds more light on the newest sigma recruit Jason - the computer geek.

The story line also effectively ties in to the next novel in the series The Bone Labyrinth by setting up the context for the plot of the next book here.

Going into the story line would give it away to the reader who have not yet read this vignette. The only grouch I have with fillers and vignette is that they should be free to read rather than charging a dollar or two as they are amazingly shirt and breezy reads and as such should not be more of a burden to the series fan...