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A review by weaselweader
Decipher by Stel Pavlou
2.0
“Instinctively she jumped back from the wall as the approaching light entirely engulfed her section of the tunnel”
Guess what I think of any author who presumes to write a science-based tech-thriller but allows the characters to dodge an incoming hazard propagating at the speed of light?
Much like James Rollins’ over-wrought efforts, Pavlou dumps everything into DECIPHER but the kitchen sink – the discovery of Atlantis; pyramids; technological civilizations that pre-date our own by thousands of years and out-strip our technology and knowledge of the universe by orders of magnitude; linguistics; translation of previously undiscovered written languages; the large scale preparation of obscure crystalline versions of carbon; disruption of all of earth’s physical systems by gravity waves created by cyclical solar storms; prediction of the arrival of those disruptions to the very day … and more. From the opening pages, DECIPHER not only starts over the top and never comes to the surface of sensible reality, it attempts to out-do itself with progressively more grandiose (and dare I say, ridiculous) action and events.
It seems such a shame because I was still willing to award two stars on the basis of the author’s side bar essays on science that was real and made sense. His description of historical language groupings, for example, was fascinating. Fiction is allowed to stretch credibility, to be sure, but DECIPHER was out of control and beyond the pale!
Not recommended.
Paul Weiss
Guess what I think of any author who presumes to write a science-based tech-thriller but allows the characters to dodge an incoming hazard propagating at the speed of light?
Much like James Rollins’ over-wrought efforts, Pavlou dumps everything into DECIPHER but the kitchen sink – the discovery of Atlantis; pyramids; technological civilizations that pre-date our own by thousands of years and out-strip our technology and knowledge of the universe by orders of magnitude; linguistics; translation of previously undiscovered written languages; the large scale preparation of obscure crystalline versions of carbon; disruption of all of earth’s physical systems by gravity waves created by cyclical solar storms; prediction of the arrival of those disruptions to the very day … and more. From the opening pages, DECIPHER not only starts over the top and never comes to the surface of sensible reality, it attempts to out-do itself with progressively more grandiose (and dare I say, ridiculous) action and events.
It seems such a shame because I was still willing to award two stars on the basis of the author’s side bar essays on science that was real and made sense. His description of historical language groupings, for example, was fascinating. Fiction is allowed to stretch credibility, to be sure, but DECIPHER was out of control and beyond the pale!
Not recommended.
Paul Weiss