Area 51: The Reply

Book 1 was pretty good, some aspects of the story seemed a bit far fetched to me even in its fantastic setting. Among those details the ones I recall more was the super capability of Turcotte (the special force operative) to defeat one of the most secure headquarters on Earth; the characters outside militar procedures felt a bit simple. Book 2 solved for me those little details, most of the characters feel more solid and real, except Major Quinn who rather than a major seems a kind of servant eager to please, which seems strange considering his power; and now it is not Turcotte against the world but teams and organizations against each other, but without sacrificing the heroism and boldness of Turcotte.You could be wondering what the story is about if you have note read the first book. This is about a what if, what if all the old mysteries of humanity past could be set by the interference of an alien race that maybe could come back, in a scary way as our past seems not of an utopia but of an alteration. Area 51 has some recovered artifacts and a plan is set in motion that could threaten the world. That is book 1, book 2 is about the consequences, an alien computer is recovered and powered, it sends a message and it gets a reply :S If real humanity history proofs something is that technological development doesn't equal to social development or kindness. This book is the second in the series but feels like the last as everything is like going towards an explosive final.One thing I like in contrast to the first book I read in the series time ago (Nosferatu, book 8) is that the editions gets updated, with less or no errors in the content I could detect. Also I like the choice of names of the characters by the author, they are almost musical and easy to remember. I usually forget the names in the books but for these series I can recall Mike Turcotte, Lisa Duncan or Kelly Reynolds quite easily.

I am really enjoying this series. I know Bob first wrote these stories years ago, but they are brand new to me. I picked up books 2 to 5 last week when they went on sale! I immediately started reading The Reply. Very good storyline. Just enough action to satisfy the action junkie in me, and I love the Indiana Jones type travel & adventure aspects as well. And of course, the Aliens.I have now read 8 Bob Mayer novels and have enjoyed them all. I have given all 8 either 4 or 5 star reviews. And lucky me, I have another 14 or so Bob Mayer books on my Kindle just ITCHING to be read. Whenever I come across a sub-par effort from another author, I always point to Bob Mayer, who cannot write a bad or even average book. A very good well rounded writer that never disappoints his readers.My only "negative" comment is on the formatting: I find it awkward at times how the story shifts between locales without any notice. Of course you get chapter breaks, and then sometimes the formatting has "***" in-between paragraphs to let the reader know that the local/characters have changed. But most often the formatting does not do this. For example: Captain Turcotte will be fighting in a temple deep into China, blazing away and facing a life and death situation. Then the very next sentence (which starts a new paragraph immediately following the Turoctte paragraphs (with no spacing between)) will have the reporter Kelly Reynolds (in Area 51) say something to a goverment official. It jars the reader for a second who was caught up in one storyline to suddenly change storylines with no notice of the locales changing. It did appear in the last 20% or so of the book that the formatting was better controled and I saw more "***" breaks than I saw in the previous 80% of the book.Other than that, I loved this series. I was planning on reading the 3rd book in the Atlantis series  ATLANTIS: DEVIL'S SEA , but got caught up in the Area 51 series. Two more things, the aliens are certainly not goofy and no cute kids to ruin the storyline (as seen in  Nightstalkers: The Book of Truths (Area 51 series) ) (it was hard to take the aliens seriously in Nightstalkers - I mean come on, a horseshoe and a bunny, both controlled by aliens?).

Tom Clancy meets Independence Day! Love how the knowledge of military capabilities is mixed in with the UFO mythos. Good read.

Not up to the standard of the first book, there is a feeling of the book being an interlude between the significant events of the first book and another book I've yet to read which will, no doubt, involve a battle between actual aliens and humanity, rather than mankind just dealing with the technology they left behind on their last visits.There's a certain amount of rehashing of plot devices from the previous book, as well as the death of important characters written in such a way that leads the reader to suspect that eventually they may not be as unwell as first feared. And many of the surviving characters remain as paper-thin as in the first book, being little more than place-holders for the requisite members of the world's governments and military forces that would be involved in the scenarios used in the book.The Area 51 books are still a fun read, however, and the world the author has created is plausible within the rules of the genre.

This is the third in a lengthy but compelling series about good old Area 51 - where would sci-fi authors, conspiracy theorists and UFO freaks be without it? The novels are well researched, the writing adequate, if not great, and the plot is well-paced, imaginative and absorbing, if somewhat daft in places. I can more readily believe in an alien super-race having populated the Earth 10,000 years ago than the US government coming clean about a massive and damaging cover-up which resulted from it. And a freelance reporter being a close confidante of those steering the outcome - that is the sort of naivety which destroys plots!It certainly doesn't pay to leave one of the books alone for too long, as there are so many different scenes of action, with new characters being introduced almost every chapter, it's really easy to lose track. This isn't helped (in the Kindle edition, anyway) by the author disconcertingly switching from one scene to another between paragraphs, with no break in between - that really throws you off kilter!Nevertheless, it's a rattling good yarn and well worth reading.

This book was great, as I hoped it would be, however, it did not drag me to bed every night like the #1 book in the series.It was good read and followed along the same lines as one would hope. Again I look forward to reading the next one, I have bought 5x books in the series, but will probably keep the the others for my summer holiday (Xmas now).If you like Sci-Fi you will not be making a bad purchase, but book #1 first.The author has a good way of describing things and you read the book reading into the details and can not help but think of the things that have happened or should I say reported to be true and ask yourself "is this the truth ?"

I read this after the previous book in the series, Area 51 whoch I thought was excellent. This one seemed to take a long time to build and wasn't as gripping. I would rather have had less time on getting to the Mars part and more on its intrigue. I suspect we will be getting more of this in the enxt book. A good read none the less and I feel I have found an author of SciFi that has plausable stories on ET (not the film) storylines.I can almost belive the stories, hey - they would explain a lot

The second Area51 novel takes off at the same breathtaking pace as the first. Our heroes face New challenges and new dangers as the technology awakened in book one comes to life. Blending fact and fiction with a compelling storyline about what might be Earth' s first encounter with aliens, Mayer again punches all the right buttons. We get somewhere answers, but we get just as many questions to find the new answers for in book three.