Bedah Buku [sederhana] The Host Karya Stephenie Meyer #1

I

            Buku ini terbitan tahun 2009. Waktu itu saya nyaris meminjam TH dari seorang kawan bernama RS. Dua halaman pertama dan saya langsung bosan. Saya telah mendengar tentang Twilight Saga tapi belum menonton film dan membaca bukunya. Tahun 2012 baru saya membeli Breaking Dawn dan menonton semua film Twilight Saga. Ketertarikan saya pada TH berawal dari betapa seringnya saya mengunjungi Gramed dan melihat TH dipajang dengan begitu mencoloknya. Jika buku lain tidak, tapi karena TH memiliki mata, jadi seakan sebuah foto yang matanya terus mengikuti kemanapun kita pergi. Saya penasaran. Jadi kalau saya punya Breaking Dawn dan sudah menonton Twilight Saga berulang-ulang, kenapa tidak membeli yang satu ini? Harganya nyaris Rp 100.000. Itu lumayan mahal tapi untuk buku sebesar dan penulis sekalas Meyer, bolehlah, hitung-hitung buat koleksi. Butuh empat tahun untuk meraih kesuksesannya kembali, berkat difilmkannya Twilight Saga, TH menjadi buah bibir. Tapi tidak banyak yang membeli buku tebal dan mahal ini, sama seperti The Casual Vacancy. Apakah penggemar Meyer di daerah Bogor begitu sedikitnya, ataukah mereka sudah terlanjur menonton cuplikan filmnya dan yakin akan menontonnya kelak. Jadi TH fenomenal, popular, terkenal, tapi tidak laris di Bogor.

            “Apa manfaat kepopuleran sebuah buku tanpa embel-embel laris?”

            “Mungkin bukan uang yang dibutuhkan?”

            “Jadi?”

            “Sebuah konsep berpikir di dunia yang modern.”

            “Apa?”

            “New Age. New World Order.”

            “Kok bisa?”

            “Mari kita lihat satu persatu.”

            [Dan Anda harus tahu ini hanya spekulasi saja. Sama seperti spekulasi saya mengenai Pengakuan Eks Parasit Lajang, Harry Potter dan The Casual Vacancy. Bisa saja benar, tapi bisa saja salah. Dan jika benar, kebenarannya hanya sedikit. Semuanya kembali pada pengakuan dari penulisnya sendiri: apa sih sebenarnya maksud dia menulis bukunya itu? Kita hanya bisa menebak.]

           

            Cover depan dan cover belakang. 100 halaman pertama TH saya baca dalam keadaan tidak nyaman, merasa diperhatikan, diintimidasi. Kenapa? Ada seseorang yang senantiasa mengawasi, melihat dengan mata. Bukan dua mata tapi sebelah mata, seakan meremehkan? Ingat, dipandang sebelah mata? Tapi ini bukan hanya dipandang sebelah mata. Ini dipandang sebelah mata, yang kiri, bukan yang kanan. Dari kisah di dalamnya, saya kira sebelah mata kiri yang memandang ini punya Melanie Stryder dan kemudian disisipi menjadi Wanderer, yang punya banyak nama selain itu. Alias, alias, alias. Aka aka aka. Seakan teroris yang punya banyak KTP, banyak identitas, banyak nama?

            “Apakah kita yakin itu mata seorang Melanie/Wanderer?

            “Siapa lagi memangnya?”

            “Bagaimana kalau mata itu bukan mata perempuan?”

            “Kenapa?”

            “Jaraknya terlalu dekat sehingga kita tidak pasti.”

            “Jarak dekat yang member efek dramatik, intimidatik, dan fokus pada mata kiri saja.”

            Saya mulai bertanya-tanya, alasan apa Meyer memasang cover sebelah mata kiri ini padahal Melanie disisipi jiwa Wanderer dan matanya berubah tampak seperti cincin perak. Dua-dua matanya, perlu dicatat. Bukan sebelah kiri saja. Berbeda halnya jika sebelah mata milik Mel dan sebelah milik Wanda. Ada sesuatu yang hendak ditonjolkan.

            “Apa itu?”

            “Mite intimidatif. Mata Horus.”

Dalam hadits Hudzaifah Radhiyallahu 'anhu, Rasulullah Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam bersabda: "Artinya : Dajjal itu buta matanya sebelah kiri dan lebat rambutnya. " [Shahih Muslim. Kitabul Fitan wa Asyrothis Sa'ah, Bab Dzikrid Dajjal 18: 60-61].

Dalam hadits Anas Radhiyallahu 'anhu, Rasulullah Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam bersabda: "Artinya : Dan di antara kedua matanya termaktub tulisan "kafir" [Shahih Bukhari, Kitabul Fitan, Bab Dzikrid Dajjal 13: 91; dan Shahih Muslim, Kitabul Fitan wa Asyrothus Sa'ah, Bab sa'ah, bab Dzikrid Dajjal 18: 59].

Dan dalam satu riwayat disebutkan: "Kemudian beliau mengejanya -kaf fa ra- yang dapat dibaca oleh setiap muslim. " [Shahih Muslim 18: 59]. Dan dalam satu riwayat lagi dari Hudzaifah: "Dapat dibaca oleh setiap orang mukmin, baik ia tahu tulis baca maupun tidak. "[Shahih Muslim 18: 61].

            Horus adalah sosok dewa yang berhubungan dengan matahari. Ia merupakan putra dari Isis dan Osiris. Horus adalah salah satu dewa paling penting dalam agama Mesir Kuno, ia dipuja sejak kurun pra-dinasti hingga masa Yunani dan Romawi. Dalam pantheon Mesir, Horus dipuja sebagai dewa langit, dewa perang, dan dewa pelindung.

Berbagai bentuk perwujudan Horus tercatat dalam sejarah tetapi dianggap sebagai dewa-dewa berbeda oleh Egyptolog. Bentuk perwujudan paling awal dari Horus adalah Rajawali yang merupakan dewa pelindung Nekhen di Mesir Atas dan juga merupakan salah satu dewa nasional pertama Mesir. Dewa ini secara khusus dikaitkan dengan raja firaun yang ketika hidup dianggap sebagai manifestasi Horus di muka bumi dan sebagai Osiris ketika sudah wafat.

Mata Horus merupakan simbol mistik dari kekuatan gelap yang bermakna ‘Maha Tahu’ dan ‘Maha Melihat’. Biasanya ia dilukis dalam hieroglips (Tulisan Mesir kuno) di dinding-dinding Piramid.

All seeing eye, istilah ini berarti “mata yang melihat semua,” yaitu sebuah mata (mata Iblis) yang melihat segala sesuatu terutama untuk melihat dan mengontrol semua manusia di dunia ini. Iblis suka meniru apa yang Allah kerjakan dan all seeing eye juga adalah tiruan Iblis yang diambil dari lambang supreme being-nya bangsa Israel, namun agak berbeda sedikit dimana mata yang sebelumnya ada dua (sepasang) sekarang menjadi satu mata saja. Ke-Maha Melihatan Tuhan dan kepercayaan bangsa Israel bahwa mereka adalah biji mata Allah ditiru oleh Iblis. Sebab Antikristus hendak membuat dirinya menjadi “maha melihat” dengan membuat sistem kontrol global pada dunia ini.

Mata yang Iblis gunakan diambil dari mata kepercayaan orang Mesir kuno yang bernama Horus (eye of Horus). Dalam mitos Mesir diceritakan bahwa pada waktu Horus bertarung dengan Seth-dewa gurun, badai dan kekacauan- salah satu matanya terluka parah, yang kemudian disembuhkan oleh Isis ayahnya. Namun sejak ia menjadi dewa langit mata Horus dianggap mewakili Matahari pada mata kanannya dan bulan pada mata kirinya. Mengapa bulan ? karena mata kirinya pernah terluka sehingga menjadi lebih redup dibanding yang satunya. Oleh sebab itu Iblis menggunakan mata kanan Horus/matahari (Ra) sebagai lambang ke-maha melihatan versi Iblis. Sedangkan segitiga adalah tiruan dari tritunggal Allah (Allah Bapa, Yesus Kristus, dan Roh Kudus) menjadi tritunggal Iblis diakhir jaman : Lucifer, Antikristus, dan Nabi palsu, yang memandang dan mengawasi seluruh dunia. 

Terlepas dari pemaknaan atas Mata Horus [setiap kebudayaan berbeda-beda, dan penghayatannya pun pasti berbeda-beda, meskipun symbol yang dipakai sama], bukan baru kali ini saja symbol ini “kelihatan” dalam buku dan juga film [film TH akan rilis Maret mendatang]. Bisa kita perhatikan pada The Lord of The Ring dimana ada menara dengan sebuah mata yang menyorot bagaikan mercusuar, Sang Mata, yang jahat dan mempengaruhi Frodo Baggin secara fisik. Sesuatu yang jahat. Apakah ini juga mengacu pada Menara Eiffel dan menara-menara masonik lainnya?

Saya kemudian bertanya-tanya lagi, apakah Stephenie Meyer [St dan Meyer adalah ciri khas penamaan seorang Yahudi atau berdarah Yahudi, apapun agama dan kebangsaannya sekarang] hendak mengatakan pada dunia bahwa seseorang atau sesuatu sedang mengawasi kita dari suatu tempat? Bukankah itu sangat mengintimidasi, menakutkan? Mengawasi untuk apa? Sekalipun tidak bermaksud apa-apa, TH telah berhasil menakuti saya, dan mungkin banyak orang diluar sana, yang lewat di sebuah toko buku dan terkejut karena sebuah mata yang sangat besar sedang memperhatikannya.

“Tapi juga mungkin Meyer hendak bikin sensasi.

“Supaya bukunya laris atau terkenal?”

“Seseorang biasanya meminjam symbol terkenal untuk mendongkrak sesuatu.”

“Semoga hanya itu maksudnya.”

Review Crazynomicz

Crazynomics

by Ian Ayres, Dian Basuki (Translator), Ainia (Editor)

Mungkinkah secara pribadi kita dapat MENERKA DENGAN TEPAT harga tiket pesawat minggu depan, ramalan cuaca bulan depan, peran guru tahun depan, atau kisaran jumlah konsumen produk Anda lima tahun mendatang? Atau dapat meramalkan solusi tepat bagi masalah kesehatan, keuangan, usaha, kemiskinan, kasus penyimpangan dana, bahkan masa depan Anda yang belum jelas? Mungkin saja! BERHIPOTESISLAH! pesan Crazynomics. Lewat uji coba acak terhadap data-data di masa lalu, kita dapat membuat prediksi yang luar biasa akurat mengenai peristiwa apapun di masa depan. Hubungan gaib antara hal-hal yang tampaknya tidak terkait ternyata dapat memprediksi perilaku manusia dengan hasil yang mengejutkan. Metode pengambilan keputusan berbasis data ini membantu Anda membuat sebuah keputusan yang lebih fokus. Temukan segera keajaiban data yang disajikan dalam bentuk cerita-cerita nyata unik di buku ini!! MASA DEPAN ANDA ADALAH SEKARANG!

B First 2010

Garrett: Be prepared to encounter the words "supercrunch" (used as any part of speech) and "nano-" (used indiscriminately as a prefix) approximately one billion times in a mere 272 pages. Dr. Ayres wants to write the next
Freakonomics
, and makes his professional association with Steven Levitt known frequently. What comes out is a repetitive book on applied mathematics fleshed out with anecdotes and descriptions of research. It's okay, but nothing groundbreaking.

According to Ayres, supercrunching involves running statistical analyses on large data sets. Supercrunching has better predictive power than experts do. Supercrunching is changing the way everyone and everything does anything. Supercrunching will pick you up if you're having car trouble. Supercrunching tops its pizza with ham and pineapple, just like you do. Supercrunching is attracted to you, respects that you're in a relationship, and wonders if you have a sister. Et cetera. Ayres, in his descriptions of supercrunching, vacillates from paranoid/creepy to smitten/exuberant.

Supercrunchers was fun at first. Then it got blah, seasoned with dabs of fun here and there. Luckily it is short enough that it didn't have time to grate. Of note, the book never mentions Grape-Nuts, not even once. Also of note, this review includes the word "supercrunch*" 999,999,889 fewer times than the book does. Supercrunch that, Ayres!

Ms: What a book! Shockingly good! I heard about this book while listening to The World is Flat by Thomas Freidman. Immediately, I made a mental note to find and read this book about the impact of computing power on everyday lives. Algorithms, formulas, yikes! (I have a bit of a math phobia.) Thank goodness this book breaks down complex ideas into understandable and applicable explanations. A wide variety of stories about how the computer is enabling huge changes in our schools, businesses, purchases, relationships and government. Inspirational and somewhat frightening, the book explains the high level of sophistication now practiced out 'there' in information gathering and "crunching" of the data. This new data is available to all levels of society, as long as they have access to the internet. In turn, this is leading us all towards new discoveries, more efficiency, greater understanding and of course, profits! The book was so great, I listened to it three times!

Trevor: The best of this one is his discussion of the 100,000 lives campaign (http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Programs/Campa...) which I didn’t really know about until Jim put me onto this book. A previous book I had read said that hospitals were trying to do something to improve their safety record in line with that of airlines, but the previous book didn’t mention this campaign as what was being proposed. I particularly like their slogan, ‘Some is not a number, soon is not a time’. The discussion of this campaign alone makes this book worthwhile.

I’ve been becoming interested in the overlapping fields of economics, human decision making, cognitive errors and statistics for quite some time now. One of the first books I read that started me off down this path was Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. There were parts of that book that I found truly fascinating. I really like the idea of people looking for bizarre correlations between sets of data that tell us something new we did not know before. For example, Freakonomics showed that there was a relationship between abortion rates in one decade and dropping crime rates a couple of decades later. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.

The writer of this one has done research with the guy that Freakonomics was written about. And this book fits neatly right into that school of thought. Let me try to sum it up for you. Humans aren’t really all that great at working out the best options available to them. We think we learn from experience and that we get better at picking what will be the right outcome when it comes along by our hard won intuitions (see Blink, for example) but when push comes to shove even around things we believe require substantial human discernment (like picking potentially great sports people) are actually generally better understood and the answer better stated by applying a simple mathematical algorithm. The most interesting example given of this is deciding if a vintage of wine will be exceptionally good or not. It has been assumed until recently that this isn’t something that can be decided until long after the grapes have been harvested, crushed, fermented and aged in oak. So, when someone said they could tell if a vintage was going to be good, not by tasting the wine, but by plugging in some values into the variables related to the climate while the grapes were growing in some formula – well, things were bound to get ugly.

Looking at it, this shouldn’t have caused as much outrage as seems to have been the case (at least, as it is reported here). I say that because wine is a natural product. And as a natural product it would seem its quality is ultimately dependant on the quality of its inputs (that is first and foremost, the grapes). If the summer has not been hot enough it is reasonable to think that the grapes may not become ripe enough, the amount of rain will probably also have an effect on the grapes.

Given that all of the things a wine maker can control probably already is controlled, the ‘acts of God’ that cannot really be controlled are obviously going to be the main variables left to decide whether a vintage is to be exceptional or ordinary. Like I said, if it is true (as is reported in this book) that some wine critics were outraged that someone could say they knew years ahead of time if a vintage was going to be exceptional, it seems very silly of them to do so.

So, what this book is saying is that the best decision are often made not by ‘experts’ (like wine experts) but by objective mathematical algorithms in which you plug in your data and wait for the answer to pop out the other side. Clean, clear, untouched by human hands – we are talking of the truth; unalloyed and pure.

My problem with this is that too many of these examples seemed to depend entirely on there being a right answer to the question at hand – and, in many of them, I wasn’t quite sure I understood what the ‘right’ answer was or how you could verify the answer the formula threw up was actually the right one.

I’ve just finished reading another book, for example, (Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average) in which people invariably preferred the bottle of wine labelled $90 over the one labelled as costing $15, even when they were the exact same wine. Having said that, although I can see the logic of knowing how ripe the grapes are when they are harvested and how much rain fell in the weeks leading up to harvest should make a difference to the quality of the wine once it is made– I also know that I’ve been fooled before by stories about subjects I know remarkably little about, particularly when those stories seem to make lots of perverse and twisted logical sense.

A case in point. Years ago I told my daughter (while she was still young enough to believe I was some kind of God) that it was likely that T-Rex didn’t go stomping around ripping other dinosaurs apart, but rather crawled around on his belly and ate mostly carrion. An article I had read somewhere explained this in fascinating detail. You see, T-Rex was cold blooded and big – so he was going to be at a disadvantage in having the energy needed to do the whole Jurassic Park thing. Also, there were those pathetic little forearms (think Charles Atlas just before the sand-in-face moment) which don’t seem to be of any use at all if he walked around upright, but might have made much more sense if he crawled about on all fours. Fi had a plastic T-Rex dinosaur and we used to have it crawling around on its belly as it dragged itself to dolls for a feed. As they say in Mythbusters, the guy who wrote the article had done the maths and the myth of the big, fast, angry T-Rex was busted.

Except, of course, that was before they worked out dinosaurs were less like lizards and more like birds. As a lizard, T-Rex wouldn’t have had the energy to run and fight and kill, but as a bird none of that was a problem.

My point is that the presentation of this stuff as simply objective truth is a bit dangerous – not least because we humans (particularly we boy humans) just love numbers, especially either big numbers or numbers with decimal points. Tell a boy it happened 165 million years ago or it will cost 15 trillion dollars to fix or that you are 43.7 per cent sure of something and, in what is the closest sensation to post-coital bliss, he will become so excited he won’t even know you made this stuff up on the spot. The most obvious reason why creationism is bound to fail is that any idea that stops men (well, boys) saying ‘9.8 billion years ago’ and replaces it with ‘around10,000 years ago and that’s tops’ really doesn’t stand a sporting chance.

Sorry, off topic. There are very interesting discussions in this book on data mining, data warehousing and corporate manipulation of customers that, even though the author did not feel were all that bad, ought to be read so that you have an idea of what is being done to squeeze money out of you. The discussion on how casinos work out your ‘pain point’ so they can stop you from losing beyond that pain point and thus get you to come back again later is disgusting. The most useful message to come from this book is that we should all be afraid when a corporation is being nice to us – it almost invariably means we are paying too much for the service they are providing us.

The most disgusting lesson presented here is that if you are black or female in America and you need a new car then you really ought to think about becoming white and male. And don’t be fooled if the dealer gets you someone to bargain with you of your own sex or race. Become white and become male – even if you have to pay someone both white and male a couple of hundred dollars to be you – it might save you thousands.

I worried while reading this book that a lot of the questions the author felt were settled by crunching numbers were still somewhat open for debate – I struggle with the idea that direct instruction (where teachers spend their days instructing kids literally by reading from a script with no discretion at all) can be the great boon to education that it is presented in this book to be. Figures were given that made direct instruction sound like the only sensible way to teach kids anything – however, even though I’m not a teacher, I still have strong doubts that this kind of rote learning (measurable as it is) will produce kids able to respond to the challenges of the modern world.

This book suffers from the same self-congratulation Freakonomics struggled with. I have a fairly natural aversion to people who pat themselves on the back quite so fulsomely. All the same, there were a number of things I learnt from this book and it was worth reading for its interestingly simply method of explaining regression and standard deviations.

Review The Secret Friends

The Secret Friends - Perawan Suci Maria, Kidung Kematian & Eksekusi Termanis Wanita Pujaan (Darby McCormick #2)

by Chris Mooney

Sesosok jasad wanita kembali ditemukan mengambang di dermaga Boston, setelah beberapa bulan sebelumnya jasad dengan ciri luka fisik yang sama juga ditemukan di sana. Bagian belakang kepala keduanya bocor, dan di saku mereka masing-masing ditemukan patung Perawan Suci Maria.

Darby McCormick, detektif CSI, ditugaskan memimpin penyelidikan kasus yang menjadi sorotan publik tersebut karena salah satu korbannya adalah anak dari konglomerat Boston, Jonathan Hale. Ternyata, bukan hanya Darby yang tertarik dengan kasus itu. Malcolm Fletcher, matan agen FBI yang kini menjadi buronan, ternyata juga sedang memburu si pembunuh.

Kini Darby harus berpacu dengan Malcolm untuk dapat menemukan si pembunuh terlebih dahulu. Dan Darby tidak tahu siapa yang harus lebih dipercayainya, apakah Malcolm yang mengaku sebagai Dark Justice atau rekannya sendiri yang terungkap telah menggelapkan barang bukti...

Dastan Books 2010

Saya: Ini salah satu buku bagus yang diberi Obral sampe harganya tinggal Rp 15.000. Sungguh beruntung mendapatkan buku2 dengan genre kriminal-ritual-agamis seperti ini dengan harga murah. Seperti kebanyakan novel tulisan orang Amerika-Eropa dengan genre ini, maka biasanya kisahnya seputar tindak kriminal pembunuhan. Adapun pembunuhan itu mempunyai visi dan misi, semacam maksud yang hendak dicapai, semacam ritual untuk memperkenalkan sesuatu.

Yang menarik--dan sering klise--adalah korbannya cenderung gadis, yang kemungkinan masih perawan. Dalam TSF ini gadis2 itu menghilang ketika pulang dari suara atau tempat. Dicurigai diculik oleh seorang lelaki kuat yang menyekap dan membunuh mereka dengan rapih sehingga polisi tidak mendapatkan bukti, sidik, dan dugaan pelakunya.

Yang menggetarkan adalah penemuan patung Perawan Marian dalam saku yang dijahit pada baju korban. Apakah pelaku terobsesi pada Perawan? Atau pelaku melakukan ritual sesat? Siapa yang bisa menduga, hati dan pikiran begitu luas. Betapa berbahayanya dengan tidak kritis, bahkan cenderung fanataik dan dibutakan oleh teks yang ditulis oleh keterbatasan tangan dan pikiran manusia.

Klise: simbol2 Kristen sering dijadikan novel yang menghebohkan dan menarik perhatian sehi laku keras, dengan dalil yang bisa benar bisa keliru: membuka mata dunia pada sejarah pada sisi lain. Tapi bagaimana pun, sebagai karya sastra, TSF telah berhasil menghibur pembaca dan memberikan sumbangan tersendiri untuk sastra dan pengetahuan dunia.

Keri: Very good book. Very intense. Darby McCormick is called to a special CSI task force to try and solve a couple of murders of young women. Darby is suddenly thrust into a place where she is not quite sure whom her enemies or friends really are except for her crush buddy Coop. Chris Mooney is a very talented writer and I think is under-appreciated.

Karen: THE SECRET FRIEND is a contemporary American crime fiction thriller. A serial killer with their own desperate and cruel background. A religious element. A corrupt ex-FBI agent. A bad cop. And a CSI - Darby McCormick - as the central protagonist. Darby is pulled into the case of Emma Hale and finds herself up against a lot of things. There's the lack of evidence or an explanation for why somebody would have snatched Emma, kept her alive for months, and then killed her. There's Emma's powerful and wealthy father who wants answers enough to run his own investigation. There's the second student dead in similar circumstances and it's obvious that this killer is not going to stop unless he's caught. There's the either incompetent or corrupt police force that haven't been able to solve the case. There's a pushy and politically motivated senior officer. And finally, there's the lurking presence of the FBI agent gone bad - the vigilante fugitive from law, taking the law into his own hands.

THE SECRET FRIEND may appeal to a particular type of reader. Fans or believers in CSI's actively investigating cases and those interested in the "technical wizardry" that goes along with crime scene analysis. There are certainly snippets of technical information sprinkled through the book which show the depth of the research or knowledge that went into the writing. To help widen the possible appeal, you've got all these other elements built in - the rogue FBI guy with the astounding connections - inexplicably one step ahead of the cops and Darby all the way; the corrupt cop; the serial killer who may just engender sympathy in some readers; the lurking presence of the closed down institution - where all too many horrible events could have occurred.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this book doesn't appeal to many readers, but for me it was too much. Whilst it was competently written, the main sub-plot, the rogue ex-FBI agent, just didn't work for me and as he got more and more focus, I got less and less interested. The serial killer's motivations and behaviour seemed to have some potential, but they don't remain the main focus of the book and kept getting lost in the other sub-plots and the snippets of forensic information that were packed in.

Mary: Back to reading Chris Mooney, the second of his series, the first one "The Missing" was very enjoyable, so now I have a new series, C.S.I. (C.S.U.) Darby McCormick. Two students (female) have been abducted, one kept for 6 months, then shot and dumped in the river and Darby is called in to a new specialised unit C.S.U. and asked to lead the investigation by the under-pressure Commissioner. Another student is soon abducted and the race is on to find her before the killer strikes again. There's a religious nut, a very creepy ex-F.B.I. profiler and a former sprawling ruin of an Asylum thrown in for good measure. I liked it, and it's got a few books in the series, which is always good. Just started the next one, so I'm all set for tonight.

Heidi: I don't give out the 5 stars lightly. I loved this book. I read it in 2 days and could have read it straight through if had been allowed!

I enjoyed the plot, technical aspects and the characters as well! I will be looking for more of Chris Mooney's books for sure!

Godzilla: Good on technical stuff, but thin on plot.

The characters aren't particularly strong or believable. But if you suspend your disbelief the book rockets along at a good pace. Fairly gory, and it felt overdone in places.

I can't say I'd be rushing to pick up another novel by this author, but as it was given to me by a friend, I don't want to be too critical either.

Sparhawk: Released this was the second in a series but decided to read it. Enjoyed it. Liked the main female character and can see her developing well. Will try now for the first in the series and any others.