Judy

Normally I love Sawyer, but I hated Golden Fleece

Revisado: 01-11-21

I only finished out of hope it would improve. I hated the narrator who was deliberately trying to sound smug and superior and was extremely annoying because of it. There wasn't enough effort to individualize characters and that added confusion. The plot was overly busy and unconvincing. I'll avoid spoilers and say the underlying plot was a trite and overused one even when he wrote the book.There was too much pedophilia as a background issue. None of the characters was particularly likeable. I usually don't mind the hard science Sawyer sprinkles in, and I try to absorb and understand it. But all the relativistic calculations left me rolling my eyes. Only read this if you are a Sawyer fan and a completist.

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Too grim

Revisado: 08-27-20

WARNING SPOILER

I hadn't expected it to be light and funny, but I had to stop 2 hours before the end. It was getting too grim and kind of pointless. Too much struggling only to fail again and again. I checked the end to be sure and it was grimmer. There were a few successful outcomes, but mostly not, along with some important unanswered questions.

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Correia has really slipped lately

Revisado: 04-15-20

His gun fetish and far rightwing politics have poisoned his last few efforts. He was always quite conservative and overly fascinated with guns, but modest success has left him lazy or overconfident. And the story isn't funny. It's just excruciatingly tedious and lame. The narration was over the top and annoying.

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Very annoying

Revisado: 01-30-20

I hated the story. I hated the characters. I hated the narration (too many thick accents). It wasn't fun, unlike prior books in the series. And it was hard to follow with too many new or previously infrequent characters, as well as a murky convoluted plot that really made no sense since there were too many contrived complications.

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Great slice of hidden history

Revisado: 01-04-20

My father was born precisely one year before Nat Arno. He lived across the river in NYC, and he also had mob ties (he was a pharmacist who made safe quality bathtub gin due to his chemistry background). So it was fun to picture this time and place. And it was exciting and informative to see Jews fight back against the Nazis.

Intriguing story for anyone interested in history, but especially for Jews. Well narrated and never dull.

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Plot is hokey--only for non-techies

Revisado: 08-11-19

It was a typical heavy-handed pot-boiler until they revealed the premise in detail. if all computers were wiped, backups would not be useless. The data could be extracted and reloaded onto clean systems. However innocent-looking, they could identify the malware on clean test systems and isolate it preventing reinfection.

The major suppliers of operating systems like Apple and Microsoft could quickly compile from scratch clean copies of their operating system software. As would Cisco for routers and HP and IBM for bigger systems. conceivably there could be a rolling disruption for a week or two, but not for months. Of course banks would have hard copies of your money; you'd lose nothing. And they would be among the first to recover and be back on their feet.

And the antivirus companies or govt cyber experts might even have a way to catch the virus and remove it, saving the need for new systems. Once it stops being hidden by executing its process, it can be found.

EDIT1 I wrote this while reading. As I read on it seems they have already used the process I described above to protect our military and isolated and identified the virus, so there was no big deal. And that pompous speech given by Augie describing the end of civilization was beyond melodramatic and pointless.

EDIT2. You can take snapshots and images of systems to recreate them. You can create artificial bubble environments that operate independently from the original. Like most popculture representations of computers they have a superficial view of the tech. I am a tech guru who provided complex backup systems to major clients. So take a snapshot and port everything but the bad file onto a bubble or clean system. Then let the malware execute and restore the system.

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I'm glad it was free because I hated it

Revisado: 06-17-19

I thought this might be an enjoyable full cast play. it was a decent enough performance, but the story started out grim and ended grimmer. it was one of those stories where almost everyone dies horribly, and no one lives happily ever after. And sometimes when it dipped into prose narration, the prose was florid and overdone. Only buy the story if you want to dip into an increasingly lurid and depressing exploration of depravity with an equally sour ending.

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Tedious and unpleasant

Revisado: 05-06-18

I like BBD, it's cheesy, but it's also sexy and fun with characters you like and care about. This series has never had that. In fact it's gotten worse each book. I've held on hoping for some BDB style enjoyment, but none so far. I don't like any of the characters, except for the dog. And even the sex is bad. It just feels like distanced porn. Worse, the characters don't even like each other. It's all unpleasant.

As for the narration, it's improved slightly, but his accents suck, and why do some lifelong Caldwell residents have southern or western accents?

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Love Cornwell. Hate this narrator

Revisado: 11-14-15

I am addicted to Cornwell and his wonderful way of illustrating history. i never thought I'd enjoy battles and fighting. However, Jack Hawkins, the narrator, mumbled his way through in a hasty montone that often had me drifting away, even during exciting moments. Also, the accents he gave characters were too thick. It's hard to listen or understand dialog that way. Accents should only be a flavor of the real thing. He ruined an otherwise exciting story.

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Disappointing

Revisado: 04-09-14

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was a big let down.

Would you ever listen to anything by Michael Siemsen again?

One more chance.

What aspect of Chris Patton’s performance would you have changed?

He's a little smoother. His accents are inconsistent.

Was The Opal worth the listening time?

Not really.

Any additional comments?

I was so eager since the Dig was innovative and exciting. This felt like a lot of somewhat irrelevant filler was used to increase page count. It was depressing, tedious, meandering, repetitive, and full of logic holes. It wasn't any fun, and there were too many nasty people, illogical behavior and decisions, and gratuitous deaths. The biggest part of the fun and fascination in the first book was the past history. In this book, even that was disjointed and dull. Also there were far too many pointless chases and fights and shuffling from place to place. Not to mention the utter downer of an ending.

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