Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Riptide by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child ISBN: 0-446-52336-4 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (139 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Terrific, As Expected
Comment: I first read Child and Preston's The Relic a few months before its horrible counterpart of a movie came out, and I decided that it was perhaps the best book I had ever read outside of Stephen King's Dark Tower Series. I bought its sequel, Reliquary, with high expectations, and I was not let down. I saw this book in the bookstore and almost bought it once, but I did not really understand the plotline at all from the synopsis, so I refrained from purchasing it at that time. I saw the hardback edition on sale in the local bookstore about a year later (I have this urge to buy just about any good book--or presumably good book--that is in hardback for my collection) and so, of course, I bought it, expecting the best from such fantastic authors. Once again, they did not let me down. Riptide is, if you can't figure it out as I could not, a story about a high-tech treasure hunt for two billion dollars worth of "Red Ned" Ockham's treasure, buried at the bottom of the lethal, ingenious piece of architecture known as the Water Pit, on the gloomy Ragged Island, off the coast of Maine. The main character and owner of Ragged Island, Dr. Malin Hatch, is not a great hero or anything, and I did not like him as much as the characters in Relic or Reliquary, but he was okay. He is approached early on by the enigmatic treasure hunter Captain Neidelman, who wants to find the Ragged Island treasure. I truly expected Neidelman to be the great savior of them all, but it does not turn out that way. They do begin the hunt, though, and it starts out nice and orderly, but chaos quickly develops, and the body count rises. Is it a curse, or is a perfectly explainable force killing these people? I won't tell you. Anyway, the characters are not very deep, and you don't really care about it when they die (well except for maybe one), but it is still a great read, and it includes some cool new weapons (however unbelievable it might seem for some of them, such as explosive harpoons on the command ship). I would recommend this book to just about anyone.
Rating: 4
Summary: NON-STOP EXCITEMENT
Comment: I'm a fan of Preston/Child books, so when I saw this was based on the infamous "Money Pit" on Oak Island off Nova Scotia, I had to read it. In the case of the Money Pit, the mystery has to do with who built the pit (which, as in Riptide, has claimed many lives of would-be treasure hunters) and how it was built, as well as what exactly is hidden in the pit.
In Riptide, the whole mystery is around how the pit was built and why no one has been able to penetrate down to the treasure. We already know WHO build it (the pirate Ockham) and we know he had amassed incredible treasure from his raids. So the whole problem is why the pit defeats everyone. The island's owner, Malin Hatch, gets a visit from a man who has discovered an old book that holds clues in the form of cyphers written in invisible ink. Crack the mysterious code and you'll learn the secret of the pit. This new source is the key to who was its ingenious architect and why for 300 years no one has been able to get the treasure.
Okay, that makes having another attempt make some sense, but I could not understand why the Captain (and his salvage company, Thalassa) would begin the attempt before totally cracking the code. Wouldn't you want to learn everything BEFORE starting on a search that had claimed so many lives from previous seekers? Even if you had millions of dollars to throw at the project?
I liked the characters in this story and, as in the authors' other books, characters come to learn about themselves as the tale unfolds. Events of the past come into focus as Malin Hatch returns to his quaint seaside hometown to find the answers that mean more to him than the treasure. But the lure of gold and untold wealth casts its spell and each character reacts in his own way, some being seduced. The character of the minister Clay adds a dimension to the story, as does the interplay between Hatch and the sexy archeologist Isobel Bonterre.
Lots of people end up dead as diasaster after bone-chilling disaster befall the treasure hunters, and the truth is finally revealed in the last pages of this exciting story.
Rating: 4
Summary: Money is bad for you, especially in a Money Pit...
Comment: First things first. The Money Pit is a legendary pirate treasure hoard that has been inviting - and claiming lives - a lot of treasure-seekers for years. No one really for real knows whether it is a location of priceless treasures or just a buzz that grew into preposterous legend. Several excavations had been done there but none came up with anything save for a puzzling slab of stone with some inscriptions that meant, for the moment, nothing. And also, the further they dug into the hole, the more perilous it became. This was because the location of the Money Pit was on a beach, where the tide can rise faster than you can say the book title.
With those facts, Riptide cleanly incorporated these problems and puzzles into itself. The result is a hole where the promise of great riches lure, but the outcome is very questionable. Kinda like the stock exchange. On the bad side, the characters seems to me a tad underdeveloped. None of them stands out as memorable. That said, I'm a sucker for adventures, and this sucked me right in and I was happy to go along for the ride.
This was a great book, especially when Michael Crichton's reign in techno-adventure seems to wane. Although there were a few techno-jargons, technophobes need not fear. And the ending is literally explosive. You will discover who and why Sir Christopher Wren is important...
 |
Title: Thunderhead by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child ISBN: 0446608378 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
 |
Title: The Ice Limit by D. Preston, L. Child ISBN: 0446610232 Publisher: Warner Vision Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
 |
Title: Reliquary by Lincoln Child, Douglas J. Preston ISBN: 0812542835 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
 |
Title: Mount Dragon by Douglas J. Preston, Lincoln Child ISBN: 0812564375 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
 |
Title: The Relic by Lincoln Child, Douglas J. Preston ISBN: 0812543262 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
