Impact
Wyman Ford is tapped for a secret expedition to Cambodia... to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world.
A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast... and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater.
A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing.
High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars... and it appears to have been activated.
Sixty hours and counting.
Reviews
I am a fan of Douglas Preston's books, finding them interesting and hard to put down. Unfortunately, Impact was not like that. Impact, while having an intersting story and is an enjoyable read, is more like a "beach" story. The chapters are short and jump around to follow a variety of different characters, not all of whom really are necessary for the story line. The story is shorter than most of Mr. Preston's other books, and due to the choppieness of the story switching from character to character, I found it very easy to put the book down between chapters (some chapters are only 2 pages long).
The story plot - an impact presumably caused by a metorite, sets a variety of people in search for the impact site and the meteor, was interesting and I enjoyed the ending, which gave me something to think about. It would be the perfect book to read while sitting by the pool or at the beach, interesting to read, yet easy to put down when it's time for another dip in the water.
This book goes on and on and on..... my suggestion; quit now, it does not get better. You keep hoping and it leads you on. Right until the end, it is like one of those puff mushrooms that you squeeze and thats it. Disappointing, it could have been such a good book! Anyway heads up!
The plot has some clever twists so I skimmed the book to see how it ended. The ending was satisfactory. But Arthur C. Clark did it so much better 40 years ago. The characters are two-dimensional and not credible and many of things that happen are totally incredible. As a physicist I found my self wincing at many of Mr. Preston's 'inventions'. The technical aspects were poorly researched. For example, one of protagonists directs an Earth station communication satellite dish at one of Mars's moons. It doesn't work that way. You could point the dish at the Mars moon but unless someone planted a beacon on that moon, there would be no way the dish could track it.
The only reason I finished this horrid book is because I didn't feel qualified to comment on it unless I had read it in it's entirety. The "author", Douglas Preston, should be ashamed of himself. Or actually his editor and publisher should be ashamed of themselves. Hell, they ALL should be ashamed of themselves. Not only did the story make absolutely no sense, and the "characters" a complete joke, but it was filled with so many contrived conveniences that it was just astonishing. I'd say laughable, but it was so painful reading this trash that I couldn't even muster a smile. That said, I've wasted enough of my life on this garbage. I just wanted to warn as many people as I could if you were thinking of purchasing it. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SAVE YOURSELF FROM THIS RANCID MEDIOCRITY.
And Doug... please do not write another book. You should even think twice before writing a letter.
Some of the readers must not have read the whole book.
It was truly one of the very best books I have read in years
and I read a lot of books. I was sorry when I finished
the book because right now I'm not sure what to read.