Date first published	7 June 2012
ISBN Number	978 0 718 15910 8
Page Count	404 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala and the NUMA Special Assignments Team are back in action. This time the stakes have never been higher. Nor the enemy more dangerous...

In the middle of the Indian Ocean, a NUMA research vessel is taking water samples at sunset, when a crew member spots a sheen of black oil ahead of them. Nut it is not oil. Like a horde of army ants, a swarm of black particles suddenly attacks the ship, killing everyone aboard, while the ship itself goes up in flames.

A few hours later, Kurt, Joe and the rest of the NUMA Special Assignments Team are on their way to the Indian Ocean. What they will find there on the smoldering hulk of the ship will eventually lead them to the discovery of a remarkably audacious scheme : a plan to permanently alter the weather on a global scale. It will kill millions, and it has already began.

Who is behind the scheme? A man like none they have ever known and he has even bigger plans in store.

Review

So a new co-writer has arrived on the scene, and it tells. The book has it's good and its bad points! So lets get the bad bits out of the way and then look at the positives.

Like some of Cusslers other stories, the technology seems to stretch credulity a little bit too far. The idea of nano robots is not new, and is a concept that is accepted, however they have pushed this on a stage to have the robots, self procreating, and eating whatever it needs to gain the raw materials to make new robots, all whilst at sea. Quite how the robots could fabricate replicas - when they would initially be created in a sterile laboratory - and be able to create the complex electronics required to store their operating commands is just beyond the realms of reason. Salt water is not a good condition to be creating electronic components.

Kurt coming across a 'forgotten' island which just happens to have a secret World War II device is also reaching a bit. The idea of a lost military device is reasonable - given that the military are quite capable of losing anything, what I found unrealistic was that the islanders still believed themselves to be at war. Even the last Japanese warrior has surrendered, and there can't be that many lost islands, given the multitude of satellites that now circle the globe.

The other area which is getting a bit tired, is that of the injured Muslim seeking retribution - this is an area that has been thoroughly exhausted by most modern authors.

So thats the bad points, are there any good points? Well yes, and I think overall they outweigh the bad.

The story is much more gung ho ala- the early Dirk Pitt stories, both Kurt and Joe get their hands dirty, and reminiscent of Dirks journey in a bath tub, Kurt jury rigs a sail boat, out of scraps.

Joe has been a very small bit part in the last few novels, just popping up here and there to resolve a plot issue. In this story he plays a full role, and both Kurt and Joe head off in different directions to try and resolve the issues they face. Joe in effect has his own mini story within the main story - which I'm not sure that Al Giordino ever had that much to do in a story.

In recent times the bad guy has got off with being arrested, in this story he ends up being destroyed by his own creations, and so summary justice, which Dirk used to hand out is back.

It's also good to see the plans of the team falling apart, especially as the bad Guy Jinn, has planted a clever spy to circumvent any investigations - however there is a further spy working for Jinn that turns up relatively late in the story - although it should be suspected from the start.

The floating island is whimsical, but it does mean there is a battle ground, where the baddies, get their come uppance, but the general populace is not harmed. Which is not quite the situation in Egypt, where disaster is only just averted.

So overall not a bad book. The technology jump spoils it for me, but I think this is the first novel for some time that makes Kurt and Joe work as characters in their own right rather than being pale imitations of Dirk and Al.

previous	index	next