141. Title & Author: The Breach by Patrick Lee (376 pages)*Genre: Fiction--Thriller
Completed: 24 April 2010
Summary & Review:
Only a year out of prison, Travis Chase is in Alaska trying to escape his demons by hiking in the vast, frozen expanse outside of Fairbanks. He never expected to find a 747 crashed in a valley with its occupants murdered and its precious cargo missing. One of the victims had time to scrawl a note instructing whoever found her to contact Tanget, a group charged with protecting a rift between this and another, unknown world called "the Breach," and all the entities that come from it. As Travis and a beautiful Tangent agent named Paige try to stop a nefarious traitor from controlling the Breach, Travis learns that this scenario was set in motion years in the future--by him.
My dad and mom just came to visit us here in California and my dad brought with him a couple of new books for me to read, including this one which he told to read first because it was so weird. Weird is right. But, that isn't necessarily a detriment to a book. For example, the Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson has a lot of science fiction elements in the stories which, as weird as they are, I can get on board with and I think they enhance the series. In this book, however, a lot of the weird stuff seemed too contrived or forced, or at times too convenient to the story line. It reminded me of something my father-in-law has said about his feelings toward Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. He said that Rowling in the Potter series just made up her fictional world as she went along, picking and choosing elements that were opportune to the story line, while the depth of the world Tolkien created made it seem like he had actually visited and lived in that world making the land of Rings much more believable and consistent. If you agree with that, Lee would be more on the Rowling end, i.e. winging the creation of a new world as he went along without much foresight.
Additionally, I wasn't too fond of the writing style, nor of the organization of the book. But, with that said, I think Lee could be on to something quite interesting with this series, so hopefully his writing and style mature as the series does.
Rating: 5.5
2 comments:
At least you got to think of me every time you saw the name Paige :)
That was the best part of the book!
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