Aug15

Book Review of The Stonehenge Legacy by Sam Christer

by dougyt on August 15th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Posted In: Book Reviews

When his estranged father commits suicide Gideon Chase has to return to the house to deal with the funeral, and much more besides. The Stonehenge Legacy is a story which started thousands of years ago, but brings mystery, kidnap, murder, suspense and Stonehenge together in the present.

Another WHSmith purchase which caught my eye, mainly due to the Stonehenge link, a site of sacred standing stones which still begs the question as to why they were put where they are. With a little history and a bit of artistic license wrought from the legends and myths of Stonehenge, the writer Sam Christer has crafted a nice little story to get your teeth into. The plot revolves around an ancient cult, and their need to appease the universal Gods of the stones.

Building the characters into 3 dimensional people you can believe in is pre-requisite for a good tale, and Christer has managed that with all of the main characters. The fact that there are no super hero types bulging with muscles, or talented in 100 forms of self defence also helps keep the story believable, and all the characters have human weaknesses and strengths you can relate to.

The mysteries are slowly solved but not so slowly you lose interest, and the plot is always being moved along with little twists, some expected, and some unexpected. At no point did the Stonehenge Legacy  become dull, but on the other hand it wasn’t an absolute page turner, although I always did want to see where it was going next, I could put it down.

WHSmith attached a sticker stating “Perfect For Fans Of Dan Brown” and I guess as a short review in 6 words it fits to a large degree. The historical setting, thriller and mystery along with some well researched background info on Stonehenge puts it in the same category as Dan Browns Davinci Code  or Angels and Demons .

For me this was a good read, and kept me interested enough to read the whole thing in under a week, and would have been quicker if distractions like work and family didn’t get in the way ;-) . I’d give The Stonehenge Legacy a solid 4 out of 5 and will look for other books from Sam Christer in the future, as I believe this is his first published novel.

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Aug13

Book Review: The Papal Decree

by dougyt on August 13th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Posted In: Book Reviews

While out with my family a few weeks back we stopped at a WHSmiths in a service station and I saw some books which took my fancy. As I had a voucher I picked them up to buy. One of the books was “The Papal Decree” by Luis Miguel Rocha.

The book appears to be one of a series of books following the same characters, although it worked well enough as a stand alone story. One of the first things which I found off-putting in the book was the introduction of characters though. It seemed the first quarter of the book was spent introducing everybody and his dog. One character was introduced over a few pages and killed off in a few sentences. Seemed pretty pointless except to show the ruthlessness of the bad guys I suppose.

The story moved along nicely once it got going though, with the plot following an attempted usurping of the power of the Roman Catholic church.  The central characters stacked up on each side of the story with our heroes obviously on the side of good. There was also a little pseudo history in their of the Roman Catholic religion and the genesis of some of its rituals, being a fictional story though they may not all be true, just used to enhance the tale.

A little mystery, a little history and a lot of characters and places to keep track of seemed to slow down parts of the story for this reader though. It was easy to lose track of who was who too, especially as some characters were referenced by different names as they went along, sometimes first names, then last names, and one with a couple of Pseudonyms was often confused as to who he was and what he was doing.

Another point to consider is that the book is a translation, and in places it seems as though something may have lost out in that process of changing language. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time you wouldn’t know it was a translation as it has been done well, but Just a nuance here or a phrase which doesn’t have an equivalent can change the feel of a page I would guess, but whatever it was some paragraphs seemed a little lacklustre compared to the better parts which grabbed my interest.

As the book was on a buy one get one half price deal I think it came out worth it in the end as the half price deal, and it can be picked up at a reasonably low cost in Penguin Paperback from Amazon online.


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Aug13

Here’s to a New Start

by dougyt on August 13th, 2011 at 7:48 am
Posted In: Personal

Having left this site languishing for the past few years with a load of outdated and frankly rubbish posts on it I finally decided to revamp it today. Instead of going through and picking some of the crap to put back up, I just deleted the whole lot and did a clean install of the latest WordPress. And then picked a few themes to try, so don’t be surprised if the look changes frequently until I settle on one I like.

Hopefully with the ties to Twitter (see the left side bar) I will be able to keep things updated and make some interesting posts for people to come back and see. It will also link to articles on other blogs I run.

So here’s to a new start and maybe a little more entertainment.

Doug

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