The Title Sounds like Ludlum, and So Does the Science

The Twin Paradox - Charles Wachter

I received a free copy of Charles Wachter’s The Twin Paradox in return for my honest review. Well, they asked for it. Here's the book: Begin by constructing a skeleton of “the hero’s journey” overlain by a skin of LOTR, stir in heaping helpings of Robert Ludlum’s The Holcroft Coventant, Nancy Freedman’s Joshua Son of None,  and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Coat the entire recipe with pseudo-science too weak to fool a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fan and sprinkle the result with word-usage errors and desultory research. You got yourself The Twin Paradox. The Holcroft Covenant reference is to Ludlum’s sonnenkinder; children of the Third Reich born in secret to take over the world forty years after Hitler’s demise. Joshua Son of None gave Wachter the idea for cloning a dead world leader decades before Dolly. The reference to Jurassic Park will become clear, and the rest? I’ll explain.

King's reincarnation tale needs less stitching and more plot

The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always check the published reviews of a book before buying it or checking it out of the library. Oh, sure, I’ll briefly scan the reviews at “the River,” but I know better than to trust most of those people, anyway. Perhaps had I should have looked more closely at Barnes & Noble’s page for The Dust of 100 Dogs (by A. S. King), though. Instead of glowing reviews from the NYT or even "People," there are blurbs from The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and "VOYA" (not the financial company – “Voice of Youth America” magazine). The best the site can come up with is the throwaway line from "Booklist," which calls it “An undeniably original book.” When you come right down to it, though, that description might very well have been followed by “that is unfortunately almost unreadable.”

Pittacus Backtracks to Fill Some Plot Holes: "The Navigator"

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: The Navigator - Pittacus Lore

Among all the tangled plotlines of the so-called Lorien Legacies series, there have always been open plot holes. Take, for instance, the sudden appearance – out of nowhere – of Crayton and Ella in… who knows which of the ‘leventy or so novellas so far? Or the dozens of chimerae [sic] held captive by the Mogadorians in their West Virginia base. Or the mysterious tall, dusky woman who shows up in… another book; or at the end of one tale, as the nine Garde flee their doomed home, there’s brief mention of a second ship. Well, Pittacus Lore (in reality the writing team of Jobie Hughes [maybe, or perhaps another ghostwriter] and James Frey ) are nothing if not inventive, once again doubling back in their plotline to fill in the holes. This time, it’s the startlingly out-of-sequence The Navigagtor.